Wunderlich Houses

The Wunderlich farm belonged to a county of small farms. By 1850 Gillespie farms produced more than 15,000 bushels of corn a year, and wheat rose from eighty bushels to 18,136 within a decade. Farms nearly tripled, from 327 in 1860 to 930 in 1890, and stayed between 1,153 and 1,444 through the twentieth century. The corn crop reached 476,168 bushels in 1920 and oats 634,163 bushels in 1959. In 1982 the county ranked first in Texas in peaches, second in turkeys and sixth in hogs, and its 13,532 people were outnumbered six to one by sheep.

What the plaque says

Wunderlich Houses When Adolph Wunderlich (d. 1935) married Martha Schumann (d. 1956) in 1883. He built the smaller of these two homes, combining log and stone construction. The family soon outgrew the first dwelling, and Adolph built the larger house of limestone blocks in 1892. On this farm, he raised cotton, corn, sugarcane for molasses and grapes for wine. The five Wunderlich children attended Live Oak School, 2.5 miles away, where classes were taught in German. The Wunderlich family owned this property until 1956. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vereins Kirche and Main Street — 1.1 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 — 1.2 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 — 2.8 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

• Fredericksburg Lodge No. 794, A.F. & A.M. — 0.6 mi
• First Methodist Church of Fredericksburg — 0.9 mi
• Sunday Houses — 0.9 mi
• Dambach-Besier Home — 0.9 mi