Staffel Family and the Staffel Store

Boerne grew in the years the Staffels kept its post office. The town quickly gained a reputation for a healthful climate and became known as a health resort, and by 1884 it had five hotels, assorted businesses and 250 residents. Cotton, wool and grain were the main shipments, and timber, cedar posts and building stone also paid. The San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway reached Boerne in 1887, and by 1890 the population was 800. The Boerne Schuetzen Verein, a shooting club formed in 1864, was still active in 1990.

What the plaque says

Staffel Family and the Staffel Store German immigrant August Staffel arrived in Texas in 1852 and in due course made his way to Boerne, where he purchased property at this site in 1854. When Boerne was granted a postal station in 1856, Staffel served as first postmaster and housed the post office on his property. Staffel's other businesses included the Staffel store, stagecoach office, saloon, livery stable and wagon yard. After August's death in 1870, his wife, Bertha, operated the post office out of the Staffel store until 1881 and sold the property in 1905. Reminders of early economic development in Boerne, the Staffel store and the Staffel family played a significant role in that heritage. (2001)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Treue der Union Monument — 17 mi
  An 1866 German-language monument in Comfort over the graves of Hill Country Unionists killed at the Nueces in 1862, its flag of thirty-six stars kept at half-staff.
• Frontier Times Museum — 21 mi
  A museum built of fossils, petrified wood and cave formations in Bandera, holding a printer-historian's collection of frontier relics and oddities.
• Old Tunnel State Park — 22 mi
  A railroad tunnel abandoned in 1942 that now shelters up to three million Mexican free-tailed bats, who fly out each evening from May through October.
• Natural Bridge Caverns — 24 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

• Homesite of Albert Paul Kutzer — steps away
• Kendall County — 0.2 mi
• German Music in Boerne — 0.3 mi
• Early Kendall County Jails — 0.3 mi