Market Square (Mark Platz)

Fredericksburg came at the height of the society's work. Under Meusebach, from May 1845 until he resigned on July 20, 1847, the Adelsverein brought 5,257 emigrants to Texas between October 1845 and April 1846 and founded five settlements on the Llano River in 1847. By the end of that year it faced bankruptcy. As the German Emigration Company it carried on until September 1853, when it assigned its properties and colonization rights to its creditors. It had brought more than 7,000 Germans to Texas and made the state a lasting goal of German emigration.

What the plaque says

Market Square (Mark Platz) This Square, originally a two-block area which included what is now called the Courthouse Square, has been at the center of Fredericksburg since the city's founding in 1846. The area was still heavily forested when the town's Vereins Kirche was built in the center of Main street in 1847. The octagonal building served as a community church, meeting place, school, and refuge from possible Indian attacks. A county jail was built on the Square in 1852. In 1856 a public schoolhouse was constructed and the school classes moved out of the Vereins Kirche. In 1911 the schoolhouse was converted to serve as headquarters for the volunteer fire department. The Vereins Kirche, demolished in 1897, was reconstructed in 1934-35 as a pioneer memorial, serving as the county's first museum (1936) and library (1939). As part of its centennial celebration, the State of texas erected a monument on Market Square in honor of Baron Ottfried Hans Freiherr Von Meusebach, whose colonization efforts led to the founding of Fredericksburg. In 1987 the city purchased the property from the school district. The Market Square has served as a gathering place for special community activities and has remained a focal point of the city. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vereins Kirche and Main Street — steps away
  The octagonal Society Church on Fredericksburg's market square, rebuilt in stone in the 1930s, beside a main street laid out like a Rhine village.
• National Museum of the Pacific War — 0.4 mi
  A museum of the war in the Pacific in Chester Nimitz's hometown, dedicated at his request to the two million who served with him, with a garden given by Japan.
• Fort Martin Scott — 2.4 mi
  An army post of 1848 on Barons Creek beside the German town, where soldiers kept the peace of a Comanche trade and paid the merchants in hard cash.
• Luckenbach — 9.6 mi
  A store, saloon and dance hall on Grape Creek that a humorist bought in 1971, declared a free state of mind, and turned into a pilgrimage for Texas music.

More markers nearby

• Gillespie County — steps away
• Bethany Lutheran Church — steps away
• Old Central Drugstore — steps away
• Fredericksburg Social Turn Verein — 0.2 mi