Cuero Land and Immigration Company

Gustav Schleicher was the company's engineer and its best-known name. Born in Darmstadt on November 19, 1823, he studied engineering and architecture at Giessen and came to Texas in 1847 to help found Bettina, a short-lived commune on the Llano River. He built a career in San Antonio, served in the Texas House and Senate and was a Confederate captain of engineers under John B. Magruder. He served as engineer for the Gulf, Western Texas and Pacific on its line from Indianola to Cuero. He died in Washington on January 10, 1879, before beginning a third term in Congress.

What the plaque says

Cuero Land and Immigration Company On December 25, 1871, Cuero Land and Immigration Company was formed to develop 4,128 acres of land from J. A. Valdez y Gonzales League (granted 1833 by Mexico). Company charter was issued Feb. 7, 1872. There were four founders and stockholders of C. L. I. C.: Gustav Schleicher (1827-1879), civil engineer and lawyer, surveyor of route of Gulf, Western Texas and Pacific Railway and city of Cuero, U.S. Congressman (1875-79), honored in naming of a county and a bridge. Fletcher S. Stockdale (1824-1890), lawyer, statesman, Governor of Texas (summer of 1865), member of Texas Constitutional Convention of 1875, civic leader. Charles M. Terrell (1832-1904), U.S. Army paymaster. John C. French (1825-1889), a civic leader, developer. In Jan. 1873, C. L. I. C. donated 100 acres (Morgantown) to Gulf, Western Texas and Pacific to include railway to build its line to this site. First train arrived March 4, 1873, and lot sales boomed. City prospered as western terminus of the railroad. The company donated sites for churches, schools, and public uses (including this block, designated market square). In 1888, when Cuero had 2,000 people, C. L. I. C. ceased operating, but the city continued to grow and prosper. Many street names honor the memory of C. L. I. C. stockholders. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum — 0.2 mi
  A cattle-country museum in Cuero's 1903 Knights of Pythias Hall, telling the Guadalupe Valley's 1866 drive north and the Sutton-Taylor feud that bloodied DeWitt County.
• Spoetzl Brewery — 25 mi
  The brewery a Czech and German railroad town started in a tin shed in 1909, run through Prohibition by a Bavarian who had brewed in Cairo, and then by his daughter.
• De León Plaza — 26 mi
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 27 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.

More markers nearby

• Early Texas Bandstands — steps away
• World War II Air Training School Brayton Flying Field — steps away
• St. Michael's Catholic Church — steps away
• Buchel Bank — steps away