Czech Catholic Union of Texas

The union began as an answer to an insurance problem: many Czechs had trouble getting life insurance from eastern companies, and Father Josef Chromcik suggested a fraternal society of their own. He served as its chaplain from 1890 to 1894, 1896 to 1898 and 1901 to 1910, and was named director and counselor for life; local lodges still carried his name in 1994. The union was part of a wave of Czech societies in Texas. The Slavic Benevolent Order, the SPJST, followed in 1897, as did a separate Czech Catholic union for women, the KJZT.

What the plaque says

Czech Catholic Union of Texas On March 24, 1889, a group of Czech immigrants gathered here to form the Katolicka Jednota Texaska (KJT), or Czech Catholic Union of Texas. A fraternal benefit society, the KJT was chartered on July 4, 1889, with six individual lodges. Through programs such as life insurance, financial aid to members, churches, and educational scholarships, the organization has served people throughout the state and has grown to number over one hundred lodges. The KJT continues to uphold the purpose of its founders in the same fraternal spirit. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 19 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.
• Bastrop State Park — 28 mi
  The westernmost loblolly pines in the United States, cut off from the East Texas forest by a hundred miles of post oak, burned almost entirely in 2011 and growing back.

More markers nearby

• Monument Hill Tomb — 3.9 mi
• Kreische Complex — 3.9 mi
• Fayette County — 5.4 mi
• Fayette County, C.S.A — 5.4 mi