Industry Post Office

When Sieper's post became official in 1840, Industry joined a Republic mail service that ran on fees and shortfalls. Under the first rates a single letter cost 6.25 cents for up to 20 miles and 37.5 cents beyond 200, with 6.25 more for ship mail. From December 1837 the scale was 12.5, 25 and 50 cents. Income stood at $12,512.84 in the 1839 report but $2,462.78 in the year to March 1841, when the service became a General Post Office under the State Department. Unpaid mail contractors were offered land at fifty cents an acre.

What the plaque says

Industry Post Office During Mexican rule of Texas, a post office was established in May of 1830 at San Felipe, the center of Stephen F. Austin's Texas colony. On the Gotier Trace, a road connecting San Felipe to what would become the town of Bastrop, the German family of Johann Friedrich Ernst had settled and established the community of Industry by 1831. Known as the "Father of German immigration to Texas," Ernst wrote numerous letters to his native Oldenburg, Germany. One, printed in German newspapers, attracted many German immigrants to Texas. The German settlement of Industry grew around Ernst's property, which included his home and a store. Mail coming to area residents was addressed in care of Ernst, who had worked as a postal clerk before coming to America. By 1838, during the Republic of Texas era, Johann Gottlieb Sieper, Ernst's partner who later became his son-in-law, acted as Industry's first postmaster. In 1840, his position became official. He continued in this capacity after Texas joined the Union, and he remained postmaster until his death in 1855. A few months later, Ernst Knolle became postmaster, and the Industry post office moved to the Knolle store, approximately a half mile east of this site. The Ernst Store property, long held to be the site of Industry's first post office, remains in the community today as part of Ernst Memorial Park. The restored and stabilized building is a reminder of early Texas settlement and the importance of a mail system to the colonists. Positioned along a route that crossed the early center of Austin's Colony, Industry developed similarly to the rest of the state, with postal service first relying on an individual or small number of residents before evolving into a more established system. (2004)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Round Top and Festival Hill — 13 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.
• Stafford Opera House — 19 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.
• Monument Hill and Kreische Brewery State Historic Sites — 23 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.
• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 24 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.

More markers nearby

• Friedrich Ernst — steps away
• Industry — steps away
• Industry State Bank — 0.5 mi
• Lindemann Store — 0.5 mi