Guenther's Upper Mill, Site of

Guenther reached San Antonio the hard way. Born at Weissenfels on the Saale in 1826, he landed at Indianola around 1851 and walked the 250 miles to San Antonio beside a provision wagon. Hearing that Fredericksburg needed a mill, he built his first one on Live Oak Creek nine miles west of that town, digging the race with pick and shovel and making the waterwheel and gears from native wood. A flash flood swept away his unfinished dam and he rebuilt from the ground up. After two years of drought he moved his family to San Antonio in 1859.

What the plaque says

Guenther's Upper Mill, Site of Trained as a millwright in his native Germany, Carl H. Guenther (1826-1902) started his San Antonio operation in 1859 at the site of the present Pioneer Flour Mills. In 1868 he built another dam and mill upstream at this location. Because it was closer to town, the upper mill was an outlet for products from both plants. About 1900 the Guenther family began operating exclusively from the downstream facility. The vacated upper mill housed a macaroni factory, an ice cream company, and later a garage. In 1926 the structure was razed to widen the San Antonio River. (1979)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• King William Historic District — steps away
  Mission farmland turned German merchants' quarter on the San Antonio River, renamed in World War I, then saved by a neighbor who restored fourteen houses, starting with his own.
• San Antonio River Walk — 0.5 mi
  A Depression-era park one level below downtown, built because San Antonio refused to pave its river after the 1921 flood, and designed by an architect the project later fired.
• La Villita Historic Arts Village — 0.5 mi
  The little village across the river from the presidio, where Cos surrendered San Antonio in 1835, rebuilt by Depression-era youth crews as a working crafts village.
• Casa Navarro State Historic Site — 0.5 mi
  The adobe and caliche-block home of José Antonio Navarro, a native-born signer of the 1836 declaration, and the last remnant of the Tejano neighborhood called Laredito.

More markers nearby

• King William Neighborhood — steps away
• United States San Antonio Arsenal — steps away
• Don Jose Miguel de Arciniega — 0.3 mi
• Francisco Madero in Texas — 0.4 mi