The Easter Fires

Each Easter eve the fires burn on as many as twenty-two hills around Fredericksburg: at the appointed hour the church bells toll, lights go out and the hilltops burst into flame. Fires were reputedly once lit elsewhere in the Hill Country, as on the Kreutzberg east of Boerne, but Fredericksburg's is the only surviving celebration. The custom has Old World roots. People of northwestern Germany, especially Westphalia and Lower Saxony, light identical Easter-eve fires, a practice from pre-Christian spring festivals. Those provinces sent almost half the Hill Country's settlers, and Hanoverians were one of Fredericksburg's two largest groups.

What the plaque says

The Easter Fires Blazing on the hills around Fredericksburg each Easter Eve, combined with a local pageant, these fires recall an old tale. In March 1847, when Comanches and whites signed a major peace treaty, the Indians lighted huge signal fires on these hills. To calm her children's fears, one mother-- recalling Easter fires in her native Germany-- told them the smoke came from pots in which the Easter Bunny was dyeing eggs with flowers. As the tale spread and pioneers kindled the fires in each year of peace with the Indians, the local yearly celebration arose. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Martin Scott — 1.2 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.
• National Museum of the Pacific War — 3.3 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.
• Vereins Kirche and Main Street — 3.6 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.
• Luckenbach — 6.0 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

• Site of Fort Martin Scott — 1.3 mi
• The Pinta Trail — 1.5 mi
• African American Community in Gillespie County — 2.9 mi
• Christian Methodist Episcopal Church — 2.9 mi