Olga Kohlberg

The kindergarten came out of a study circle whose members bought equipment and hired a teacher from St. Louis before persuading the school board to take it on; it opened in September 1893. A year earlier, stirred by the death of a sick man left on the railroad depot platform, Kohlberg had formed the Ladies' Benevolent Association, which opened El Paso's first hospital. She was first vice president of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs and chaired the library board from 1903 until her death.

What the plaque says

Olga Kohlberg was an El Paso civic leader who championed women's rights, public education and welfare for the poor. Born Olga Bernstein in Elberfeld, Westphalia (Germany) in 1864, she was raised in an upper-middle class German-Jewish family. She moved to El Paso in 1884 after marrying Ernst Kohlberg, a prominent El Paso businessman who emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1875. They had four children. In 1891, Olga co-organized the child culture study circle and in 1894 the current topics club, forerunners of the El Paso Woman's Club, which was founded in 1898. She served as president of the woman's club twice and remained an honorary board member for the rest of her life. In the 1890s, she played a leading role in the establishment of a free public kindergarten in El Paso, the first in Texas. She was instrumental in the construction of the El Paso Public Library and the formation of the ladies' benevolent association. During the following decades, she was a leading member of many other public health and charity organizations, including the charity union, health league, women's charity association, associated charities and the Cloudcroft Baby Sanatorium. She also played a key role in the establishment of El Paso's Mount Sinai Jewish congregation in 1898 and the construction of Temple Mount Sinai in 1903. Olga Kohlberg's activism was shaped by the social traditions of reformed Judaism and by the progressive era's focus on public education, health and welfare. Her tireless efforts on behalf of the community made her one of El Paso's most admired and beloved reformers. (2013)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Magoffin Home State Historic Site — 1.1 mi
  A U-shaped adobe of the 1870s in central El Paso that joins Mexican building to an Anglo plan, closed for restoration through 2027 while its visitor center stays open.
• Chamizal National Memorial — 2.4 mi
  A park on land the Rio Grande once put in dispute, where a century-old border quarrel between the United States and Mexico was settled by treaty and a new concrete channel.
• Ysleta Mission (Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur) — 11 mi
  The Tigua mission church at Ysleta, rebuilt in 1908 around the walls, bell and Santo Entierro that came through fire, its interior painted with rain clouds and corn.
• Franklin Mountains State Park — 12 mi
  Almost 27,000 acres of desert mountains inside El Paso, with the oldest rocks in Texas, more than 100 miles of trail and campsites in the Tom Mays Unit.

More markers nearby

• Sunset Heights — 0.5 mi
• First Christian Church of El Paso — 0.5 mi
• First Baptist Church of El Paso — 0.5 mi
• The University of Texas at El Paso — 0.6 mi