The Engel Store

Andreas Engel came to Texas from Austria in 1885 to avoid military service. Two years later Casper Seltenfuss hired him to cut the cedars on his land on the Guadalupe, then used for fencing and charcoal, and Engel and his new wife bought land from Seltenfuss and opened their first general store. The Bergheim gin began running on September 15, 1900. When the boll weevil ended cotton ginning, the gin ground cornmeal, and cedar again became the area's main income; Bergheim was said to run the largest cedar yard in the state, where posts were traded for groceries.

What the plaque says

The Engel Store A native of Austria, Andreas Engel (b. 1864) migrated to Texas in 1885. In 1900 he purchased land here and built a cotton gin, around which an agricultural community developed. When the area post office was moved here in 1901 and Engel became postmaster, he named the town Bergheim, German for "home in the hills". He and his wife Eva opened a store at this site in 1903. Their son Alfred added later services, including a cedar yard, to meet community needs and aid local development. A symbol of Bergheim's pioneers, the store has remained in the Engel family. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Natural Bridge Caverns — 17 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.
• Treue der Union Monument — 23 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.
• Old Tunnel State Park — 24 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.
• Luckenbach — 27 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

• Pinta Trail in Kendall County — 5.3 mi
• Anhalt Halle and the Germania Farmer Verein — 5.9 mi
• Cascade Cavern — 7.6 mi
• Specht's Crossing — 8.4 mi