Homesite of Theodore Rabroker

Rabroker is one of several names the Handbook of Texas gives for Westphalia's earliest settlers, with John Bockholt, Casper Hoelscher, Frank Glass, Fritz Schneider and Theodore Schneider. By 1884 there were thirteen families on 270 acres of homestead plots, the Handbook says. A post office and the first store opened in 1887 with P. A. Heckman as postmaster; the post office closed in 1906 and mail went to Lott. By 1892 the place had four businesses and a gin. Rabroker had been headed for Frelsburg, and the people he drew here came from there too.

What the plaque says

Homesite of Theodore Rabroker Founder of Westphalia Community In 1866 Theodore Rabroker (1835-1905) and his wife Mary Ann (Brucktops) (1836-1886) immigrated from Westphalia Province, Germany. They lived for a time in Pennsylvania and Iowa. In 1877, while moving to Frelsburg, Colorado County, Rabroker saw the fertile land in this area and visualized a German-Catholic community here. In 1879 he and his wife and three children became the first settlers. In 1881 Rabroker purchased 217 acres from William Neyland and became Neyland's land agent, encouraging Frelsburg families to come here. Rabroker provided a place for prospective residents to live until they bought property. Only German-Catholics were invited to settle within a five-mile radius; this resulted in strong community traditions. The Rev. John Lauth celebrated the first Mass in 1882 in the Rabroker home (400 yds. W). The residence served as the center for village religious and civic activities until a church building was completed in February 1884. After a storm destroyed the structure in May, Rabroker led efforts to erect a new church edifice, complete in July 1884. After his first wife died, Rabroker married Theresa Halfman (1854-1932) and they had six children. The Rabroker home was destroyed by fire in 1975. (1979)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 13 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 20 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.
• Mother Neff State Park — 26 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Calvert — 28 mi
  A railroad cotton town of 1868 on State Highway 6 that claimed the largest cotton gin in the world and elected Black men to county and state office during Reconstruction.

More markers nearby

• Church of the Visitation — 1.4 mi
• Westphalia Little School — 1.4 mi
• Barclay Cemetery — 2.2 mi
• Farmers Mutual Protective Association of Texas (RVOS) — 2.5 mi