Fayetteville SPJST

The headquarters on this plaque sat beside a working local lodge. The SPJST in Fayetteville was organized in 1897, and in 1911 it built a dance hall and two outbuildings on State Highway 159. The hall is a large wood-frame building in white board and batten, with a front gable roof and monitor, a pedimented porch and plank shutters that swing open when the hall is in use. In 2007 it still held wedding receptions, reunions, antique shows and teen dances. Statewide, the society went on to build retirement homes and to fund Czech-language study through scholarships.

What the plaque says

Fayetteville SPJST The Slovanska Podporujici Jednota Statu Texas, known in English as the Slavonic Benevolent Order of the State of Texas (SPJST), is a fraternal organization founded by Czech-Texans in 1896 at the Fayette County courthouse in La Grange. For more than 50 years, its headquarters were here in Fayetteville, largely through the influence of SPJST secretary J.R. Kubena, a central figure in the organization. In 1953, the SPJST moved the home office to Temple. Through the years, membership has grown steadily. Today, the SPJST continues to contribute to Texas communities by promoting Czech heritage, community service, youth programs and scholarships, and by providing life insurance for its members. (2007)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Round Top and Festival Hill — 11 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.
• Monument Hill and Kreische Brewery State Historic Sites — 12 mi
  A shared tomb on the Colorado River bluff for the men of the Dawson fight and the black bean lottery, beside the ruins of a German stonemason's spring-fed brewery.
• St. John the Baptist Catholic Church (Ammannsville) — 14 mi
  A wooden Carpenter Gothic church built in 1919 after storm and fire took two before it, its dusty-rose interior painted by an artist whose name was lost for decades.
• Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church (Dubina) — 15 mi
  The church of Texas's first Czech settlement, under a sky-blue painted ceiling that was whitewashed in the 1950s and brought back from faint traces by its own parishioners.

More markers nearby

• Site of Svrcek Building — steps away
• Site of Svrcek Garage — steps away
• Fayetteville — steps away
• Phillip James Shaver — steps away