Crabapple School

Crabapple's settlers came in the mid-1800s: Friedrich Wellgehausen, Jacob Land, Adam Pehl, Mathias Schmidt, Nicolas Rusche, James Riley, Heinrich Keese and Jacob and Adam Fries, most of them of German origin. The community lies on Crabapple Creek about 10.5 miles north of Fredericksburg. A Lutheran congregation was founded there during the 1880s, and St. John's Lutheran Church was built in 1897. A post office operated at Crabapple from 1894 to 1910. Maps of the 1960s still showed a school, a church and several cemeteries, but no population was reported for the community in 2000.

What the plaque says

Crabapple School German immigrants who came to Fredericksburg in the late 1840s and who later settled in this area erected a native limestone school which opened in 1878 with about 40 students. The land was donated by farmer Mathias Schmidt who according to local tradition earned the privilege by winning a foot race. Facilities added over the years include a teacherage and space for a post office, Lutheran church, and community band. Crabapple School merged with Fredericksburg's Independent School district in 1957 after which the community adapted the building for a variety of uses. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Enchanted Rock State Natural Area — 4.5 mi
  A dome of pink granite north of Fredericksburg that rises some 385 feet above Sandy Creek, creaks as it cools at night, and has drawn people for thousands of years.
• Vereins Kirche and Main Street — 12 mi
  The octagonal Society Church on Fredericksburg's market square, rebuilt in stone in the 1930s, beside a main street laid out like a Rhine village.
• National Museum of the Pacific War — 12 mi
  A museum of the war in the Pacific in Chester Nimitz's hometown, dedicated at his request to the two million who served with him, with a garden given by Japan.
• Fort Martin Scott — 13 mi
  An army post of 1848 on Barons Creek beside the German town, where soldiers kept the peace of a Comanche trade and paid the merchants in hard cash.

More markers nearby

• Enchanted Rock — 3.9 mi
• Homestead of Karl Itz — 7.7 mi
• Site of Prairie Mountain School — 8.9 mi
• Old Cherry Spring School (Das Alte Schulhaus) — 9.3 mi