Kreische Complex

Kreische trained at the building-trades school in Holzminden before he emigrated, and in Fayette County he built the second county jail in 1853 and the third courthouse, finished in 1857. By the 1870 census he called himself a brewer. His four-story brewhouse stood at the bottom of a ravine, and by the late 1870s it was the third-largest commercial brewery in Texas, with 744 barrels in 1878. He also ran the Union Beer Hall in La Grange. Sensing the threat from refrigeration and railroads, he began an icehouse and invested in the local railroad.

What the plaque says

Kreische Complex German immigrant Heinrich Kreische (1821-1882) purchased nearly 175 acres of property in Fayette County in 1849. A stonemason by trade, he built a house, barn and smokehouse here on the high south bluff above the Colorado River. In the 1860s, Kreische began brewing Bluff Beer near his homesite. Situated on the spring-fed creek, the brewery included an elaborate tunnel system to provide temperature control for the brewing process. Bluff Beer was sold throughout Central Texas and was produced until 1884, two years after Kreische died in a work-related accident. The Kreische complex stands as a reminder of German heritage and culture in this region of the state. (2002)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 17 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.
• Bastrop State Park — 29 mi
  The westernmost loblolly pines in the United States, cut off from the East Texas forest by a hundred miles of post oak, burned almost entirely in 2011 and growing back.

More markers nearby

• Monument Hill Tomb — steps away
• Fayette County — 1.6 mi
• Fayette County, C.S.A — 1.6 mi
• James Seaton Lester — 1.6 mi