Schreiner Mansion

Charles Armand Schreiner was born in Riquewihr, in Alsace, in 1838 and came to San Antonio with his family in 1852. He rode with the Texas Rangers from 1854 to 1857, then took up cattle on Turtle Creek in Kerr County and in 1858 bought a small store at Camp Verde, the army post that was headquarters for the experiment with camels in the Southwest, selling beef and supplies to the army. He served the Confederacy for three and a half years.

In 1869 he moved to Kerrville and, with money from August Faltin of Comfort, opened a general store. He bought out Faltin in 1879, the year this house was built. The Charles Schreiner Company grew into banking, ranching and the marketing of wool and mohair, and Kerrville came to be called the Mohair Center of the World. The YO Ranch, bought in 1880, became headquarters of his cattle company, and by 1900 his lands ran unbroken from Kerrville to Menard, more than 600,000 acres. In 1893 he separated his bank from the store as the Charles Schreiner Bank.

The mansion stands downtown and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is now a historic site and event center, shown on guided tours on Thursdays from 10 a.m., with the last tour starting at 1:30 p.m.