Site of Dietz Community

The land agent who chose this spot was raised in England and trained as a printer in Philadelphia, and in 1834 he and his brother started the Kingston Daily Gleaner in Jamaica. In Texas from 1839, De Cordova served a term in the legislature, helped lay out Waco in 1848-49 and with Robert Creuzbaur compiled a state map that Sam Houston praised in the Senate. His books, among them The Texas Immigrant and Traveller's Guide Book of 1856, drew settlers. He died in 1868, and in 1935 he and his wife were reburied in the State Cemetery.

What the plaque says

Site of Dietz Community In 1851 Jamaica native Jacob De Cordova (1808-1868) settled here. He selected this spot for its beauty, rich soil and nearby springs. He built his first home, "Wanderer's Retreat". It served as a stage stop on the San Antonio Road and as a mail delivery station. De Cordova, acting as a land agent, sold over 90,000 acres of Texas land including this site. Nine German bachelors purchased the property and it became known as "Bachelor's Hall" and "Nine Men's House". Two brothers, Ferdinand Michael and J. August Dietz, cowboys for De Cordova, bought out the other men and the community became "Dietz". Johann Phillip Stautzenberger (1838-1904) bought the land in 1861, built a substantial house and general store, and became the first postmaster. Formal education began in a small room adjacent to Stautzenberger's store with Frankfort School starting later. "The Frohsinn Maennerchor", a singing group, was organized in the schoolhouse. Later they adopted the present name of "Frohsinn Mixed Chorus of Clear Springs". In 1895 a group of farmers founded present-day Friedens Church in the school building. Consolidation of the schools, closing of the post office, and good roads and automobiles caused this early community to disappear. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 5.6 mi
  The hilltop where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels raised the Adelsverein's headquarters in 1845, now the museum and archive of the German colony that became New Braunfels.
• Gruene Historic District — 6.8 mi
  A cotton town on the Guadalupe that the boll weevil emptied, rescued in the 1970s by a kayaking architecture student, with a dance hall that says it has never closed.
• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 18 mi
  The headsprings of the San Marcos River, among the longest-inhabited places in North America, once an amusement park with a swimming pig and now seen from glass-bottom boats.
• Natural Bridge Caverns — 18 mi
  The largest known cavern in Texas, found in 1960 by four college cavers under a ranch family's land, entered beneath a 60-foot limestone bridge and still growing.

More markers nearby

• Clear Spring Hall and Store — 1.8 mi
• Comal County — 4.5 mi
• New Braunfels — 4.6 mi
• Navarro School — 4.7 mi