Fredericksburg & Luckenbach, Texas

Visited March 4 - 5, 2021

By Marty

 

I apologize in advance for including so many photos and songs in this post. And we were only in Fredericksburg and Luckenbach for a day and a half! Consider yourselves lucky that we didn't spend a week there!

From our KOA on the east side of Austin it was about an hour and 45 minutes to Fredericksburg. We knew that Fredericksburg was a must see (charming historic town with shops, restaurants, wineries, museums, and live music) so we didn't want to shortchange ourselves by trying to do it as a day trip.  We secured lodging in Fredericksburg for one night and left The Beast at the KOA in Austin.

Augusta Vin Winery

The area around Fredericksburg, in the Texas Hill Country, is known for its wineries. There are over 50 wineries in the Fredericksburg area and 100 in the Texas Hill country. Funny thing is, there are very few vineyards in the area.  

We visited Augusta Vin winery for a tasting. Don’t let the vineyard in this photo fool you. It was planted just two years ago and is the only one we saw in the area. I asked our server, David, where the grapes are grown. Between David and Google I learned that the Trans-Pecos Region in far west Texas and the Texas High Plains Viticultural Area in the panhandle contribute 80 percent of the state's wine grape acreage. Approximately 40 percent is planted in each area. Those areas are drier and higher in elevation (3,500’– 4,000’) than the hill country which provides the daytime warmth and nighttime cooling needed for wine grape production.

While Texas has a bit of a wine thing going now, and the tasting experience in the Hill Country is really nice, California still dwarfs Texas in wine production (not everything is big in Texas?) with 685 million gallons per year vs 4.3 million for Texas (#5 of US states.)  California produces 85% of all US wine.

This young fella (let's call him Groucho) met us in the parking lot of the Hoffman Haus.

I won't say I encouraged Groucho to enter our room, but I'd be lying if I said I tried to stop him...

Turns out Groucho was more thirsty than he was friendly!  He came into our room, went straight to the bathroom and jumped up on the counter. I turned on the water for him.  Groucho drank quite a bit, hopped down and went straight out the door!  It seems he knows his way around the Hoffman Haus, inside and out.

Fredericksburg's Pioneer Museum was really well done. The museum is a 3.5 acre site of historic homesteads and buildings. Two of the homesteads are in their original 1840's location on Main St. while other structures have been relocated to the site.

Fredericksburg’s heritage is an interesting tale. In the early 1840’s, when Texas was a country and not yet a state, the three million acre Fisher-Miller Land Grant in central Texas was created for the purpose of enticing 1,000 immigrant families from northern European countries to help settle Texas and build its economy.

The Germans came, landing in Indianola (on the gulf coast between Galveston and Corpus Christi). The hardships they endured upon arriving in Texas were formidable. The transportation and shelter they were promised never materialized. Of 6,000 German immigrants who landed almost half died a miserable death due to frigid weather, rain, inadequate shelter, disease, and lack of food and clean water. No more than 1,500 ever reached their destination.

On May 8, 1846, the first group of immigrants arrived in Fredericksburg. The rest is history.

The homes and structures were built of locally quarried limestone, easily cut and shaped due to its softness (relative to most stone).  The chisel marks are obvious and give it nice character.

This is a closeup of a larger piece of machinery that strings woven wire fences from post to post out in the field. Pretty ingenious.

Is it fair to say that the average male is taller in 2021 than he was in the mid 1840's?

How many of these items do you remember from mom's kitchen growing up?  Janell remembers six (beat that if you can!)

Interior corner of the 1849 Kammlah Homestead in pristine condition! You'd pay an interior designer big bucks today to specify something this cool for your home!

I found the use of construction materials quite interesting. Not your typical "log cabin" (think Lincoln Logs if you are of my vintage.)  Because trees were not that plentiful (or very tall, based on my observation of the Texas Hill Country woodlands) the builders of these homes used timbers with significant spacing that was filled with limestone slabs and mortar. The layer between the wood timbers is called "chinking".

Yep. It's a selfie. It helps to have a long arm. Janell took it.

Luckenbach, Texas became a destination for country music fans (Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and the like subset of country music fans) after the success of this song:

Luckenbach, Texas

Waylon Jennings recorded it with a little help from Willie Nelson. Luckenbach consists of just a few buildings (general store, saloon, dance hall and a couple of small outdoor stages.) We stopped by on our way back to Austin (it's a few miles off the beaten path, which was nice) and enjoyed listening to the Dan West trio.

Most of you know that I'm a big Willie Nelson fan. I mean a BIG Willie Nelson fan. I first saw Willie at Harrah's South Lake Tahoe in 1978 as he was becoming an overnight success at age 45 after 25 years in the business! 

For those that can't get enough of this stuff:

Luckenbach, Texas history article

Here you can listen to the "perfect country & western song". If you don't listen to the last verse you won't know why this is so...

You never even called me by my name: David Allen Coe

This photo was taken two days after the Texas governor (neanderthal?) announced the suspension of the mask mandate. The woman in the photo runs the shop. She seemed very serious about following the rules, but also made it clear that she'll be very happy on March 10th when the mandate is lifted.

This is a kissing booth. Honest. We had permission to smooch. The kind woman that took the photo didn't include the sign above our heads. Honest.

Leaving Luckenbach (sounds like a C&W song title?) we pulled over to turn around after missing a turn. We caught the interest of these cute fellas.

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