Sunday Houses

Sunday houses grew out of the way German towns were planned. Fredericksburg, New Braunfels and Castroville were laid out as farm villages, and farmers were granted town lots, expected to live in town and travel to their fields. But the Germans soon moved out to isolated farmsteads, while the Catholic and Lutheran churches stayed in the county seats, so devout families built weekend houses. Clusters survive on West San Antonio Street near St. Mary's Catholic Church and on West Main and South Milam streets. The custom faded in the 1920s and revived in the late 1970s.

What the plaque says

Sunday Houses Small townhouse built by German settlers who lived in distant rural areas. Used over weekends by families while they traded or attended church. A typical early Sunday House had one room with a lean-to kitchen and a half story above, which was reached by outside stairway or ladder. Built during 1890s-1920s, most Sunday Houses were frame but some were rock. Homes found use during school sessions, periods of religious instruction or serious illness. Some of the larger ones made comfortable retirement homes for elderly German farmers. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vereins Kirche and Main Street — 0.3 mi
  The octagonal Society Church on Fredericksburg's market square, rebuilt in stone in the 1930s, beside a main street laid out like a Rhine village.
• National Museum of the Pacific War — 0.7 mi
  A museum of the war in the Pacific in Chester Nimitz's hometown, dedicated at his request to the two million who served with him, with a garden given by Japan.
• Fort Martin Scott — 2.7 mi
  An army post of 1848 on Barons Creek beside the German town, where soldiers kept the peace of a Comanche trade and paid the merchants in hard cash.
• Luckenbach — 9.9 mi
  A store, saloon and dance hall on Grape Creek that a humorist bought in 1971, declared a free state of mind, and turned into a pilgrimage for Texas music.

More markers nearby

• Dambach-Besier Home — steps away
• First Methodist Church of Fredericksburg — steps away
• Gun Cap Factory — steps away
• Gillespie County — 0.3 mi