Rockne

The parish school that gave the town its name opened in 1900 as St. Elizabeth's and was later renamed Sacred Heart. Rockne had about 150 to 280 people in the 1940s and grew to 400 by 1976, when the church was renovated. In 1935 it was described as farm and cattle country doing well from nearby oilfields. The third church was dedicated in 1940. On March 10, 1988, Rockne opened a post office for a single day to issue the twenty-two-cent Knute Rockne commemorative stamp.

What the plaque says

Rockne Beginning as a farming community, Rockne traces its roots to German settlers who came to the area in the 1840s. In November 1846, the Daniel and Mortiz Lehman families arrived at Indianola, Texas from Schlesien, Prussia. They soon settled in this vicinity on Walnut Creek. Later, Andreas and Franz Meuth arrived from Wurges, Germany and settled on Sandy Creek. Also from Wurges, John Wilhelm, John Wolf, John Hartman and Philip Goertz arrived in 1856 and established farms along Walnut Creek. In 1876, Philip Goertz and Michael Wolf donated land to area settlers to build the first Catholic church, Ascension of Christ Church. The building was destroyed by an arsonist's fire in 1891. The next year, on land donated by John T. Lehman, local residents established the Sacred Heart Church and Cemetery. During its long history, the community has been known by many names. First called Walnut Creek because of its proximity to the stream, it was known as Lehman when a store and post office was established in 1900 with Martin Lehman as postmaster. The settlement later came to be called Hilbigville after William Hilbig and his sons opened a general store. In 1931, the children of Sacred Heart School renamed the town in honor of Knute Rockne, renowned coach of Notre Dame University, who had died in a plane crash earlier that year. Rockne continues to be a rural community, with Sacred Heart Catholic Church at its center. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bastrop State Park — 12 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.
• Lockhart Courthouse Square — 16 mi
  A cotton-era courthouse town named the Barbecue Capital of Texas, built near the 1840 Plum Creek fight that followed the killing of Comanche leaders at peace talks.
• McKinney Falls State Park — 22 mi
  Limestone falls on Onion Creek inside Austin, where people camped under a rock overhang for thousands of years and a financier of the Texas Revolution built his stone ranch house.
• Texas State Cemetery — 26 mi
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.

More markers nearby

• Thomas Osborn — 3.1 mi
• Old Red Rock Cemetery — 3.1 mi
• Young School House and Cemetery — 9.3 mi
• Stephen Scallorn — 9.6 mi