Hackfield Farm

Hackfield Farm is on private land near Welcome and is not open to visitors, so read the story here rather than go looking for it. Friedrich Hackfeld came as German Austin County was filling in. In 1850 the county's 750 German-born residents made up a third of its white population, and by 1860 German-born farmers outnumbered American-born ones. Across Texas the German-born more than doubled in the 1850s, passing 20,000. Industry, Cat Spring and Rockhouse were all-German towns, settled mostly from northwestern and north central Germany, with some Austrians, Swiss and Wends.

What the plaque says

Hackfield Farm Established in the 1850s by German immigrant Friedrich C. Hackfeld (1819-1895) and his wife Elizabeth (d. 1895), the Hackfield Farm evolved through several generations to include structures and landscaping features typical of a late 19th/early 20th century German-Texan farmstead. Friedrich, whose last name was changed to Hackfield when he became a U.S. citizen in 1860, dug water wells for his own use and for others in the community. The one-room log cabin he built was enlarged as his family grew, and Hackfield descendants later made further modifications. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Round Top and Festival Hill — 12 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.
• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 21 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 22 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Stafford Opera House — 23 mi
  A cattleman's bank and theater of 1886 on the Columbus square, in a river town Sam Houston burned in 1836 and a county marked by a long feud and a 1935 lynching.

More markers nearby

• Welcome Lutheran Church — 1.4 mi
• McGregor Cemetery (Scottish Presbyterian Cemetery) — 2.5 mi
• Haynie-Embrey House — 2.6 mi
• Site of Wesley School — 2.7 mi