Moravia General Store

Moravia began when a store moved. In 1881 Ignac Jalufka and James Holub (the plaque writes Jakob Hollub) hauled an existing store to the junction of three roads; a smithy, a cotton gin and a school followed, and a post office opened in 1882. The settlers came from northeastern Moravia and kept its dialect. In 1912 the parish raised the Catholic church of Ascension of Our Lord, designed by its first pastor, Emil Schindler, and listed on the National Register in 1983. The Handbook counted forty people here in 1933 and 165 in 2000.

What the plaque says

Moravia General Store Ignac (J. E.) Jalufka and Jakob Hollub brought their families to northern Lavaca County in 1874, followed by several other Czech families. Founded in 1881, Moravia was so named to honor Moravia, Czechoslovakia, the settlers' homeland. The first commercial structures here were a blacksmith shop, cotton gin, and school. In 1889 Jalufka built a two-story frame saloon on this site. Grocery and mercantile supplies took up the rear half of the ground floor; the saloon was located in the front. The second floor served as a dance hall. Masquerades, seasonal celebrations and other events made it a popular gathering place for the entire community. From 1891 to 1900 Jalufka also was United States Postmaster for the area, operating the post office from his store. The saloon was popular and successful until 1920, the year that J. E. Jalufka died and prohibition was passed into law. Agnes Jalufka inherited the business, and sold it to Annie Chromcak and Lillian Blahuta in 1922. Annie Chromcak sold her interest to Lillian and Frank Blahuta the following year. In 1930, a new dance hall was erected across the road. The second story was torn down, leaving the one-story Moravia General Store. The new dance hall across the road was torn down in 1950. The Moravia store remained in the Blahuta family until 1979. In 1990 the store was closed for the first time in 109 years, but it was reopened in 1996. The Moravia General Store remains a link to the past and to the spirit of the pioneers of Lavaca County. (1998)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• St. Mary's Church of the Assumption (Praha) — 7.4 mi
  The mother parish of the Czech settlements around Flatonia, a stone-fronted church of 1895 whose ceiling Gottfried Flury turned into a turquoise garden, with an August 15 feast since 1855.
• Nativity of Mary, Blessed Virgin Catholic Church (High Hill) — 9.5 mi
  A red brick Gothic Revival church of 1906 in a German farm settlement, where two San Antonio painters spent 1912 faking marble columns and stone vaults on wood.
• Lavaca County Courthouse — 10 mi
  A limestone Romanesque courthouse of 1897-99 on the square of a town founded by a widow trader, in a county seat that once printed the Socialist Party's state paper.
• Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church (Dubina) — 13 mi
  The church of Texas's first Czech settlement, under a sky-blue painted ceiling that was whitewashed in the 1950s and brought back from faint traces by its own parishioners.

More markers nearby

• Site of Moravia School — 0.3 mi
• Novohrad School — 5.3 mi
• Radhost School — 5.9 mi
• Hackberry — 6.4 mi