Bohls House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it — and it's a story worth sittin' with for a minute. Now, Gottlieb William Bohls was born in 1878, the oldest of ten children belonging to Heinrich and Julie Schroder Bohls, right here on the family farm near this very spot. Being the oldest of ten in that era — well, that sets a certain tone for a man's life.

In 1906, G.W. married Bertha Timmerman, born in 1883, and together they got to work building something. Five years after the wedding, they purchased a 95-acre farm on the Austin-Hutto Road, on land that had formerly been the site of the Carrington Ranch School. They moved into a small home first — because that's what you do — and they waited while a proper house took shape around their life.

That house was completed in 1913. Two stories. Eight rooms.

And if you've laid eyes on it, you know it wasn't built to be modest about itself. The Queen Anne Free Classic style, the marker tells us, features a hipped cross-gabled roof with dormer windows and fishscale shingles. There's a wraparound porch, sidelights flanking the main door, a longleaf pine interior, and cutaway bays with wooden brackets on both the front-facing parlor and the side-facing dining room.

The kind of house that says: we intend to stay. And yet — after twelve years — G.W. sold the property. Not to a stranger.

To his younger brother, Otto Walter Bohls, born in 1898, and Otto's wife, Laura Emma Anna Fuchs, also born in 1898. Family land staying family land, just passing down a generation. Now Otto, he turned out to be a man with something to prove to the soil itself.

He served as chair of the Travis County Agricultural Adjustment Administration for thirteen years, and he promoted conservation practices that were ahead of their time in that part of Texas. Contour farming. Cover crops.

Stock tanks. Crop rotation. New seed varieties.

All of it aimed at reducing wind and water erosion and keeping the land intact when the droughts came — and in Central Texas, the droughts always come. Otto lived until 1973. Laura until 1992.

Between them, they watched nearly a century roll across that 95 acres. And the house itself had its own quiet systems keeping everything running. The original rain harvesting setup included a 4,000-gallon brick and concrete cistern buried underground and a 2,000-gallon galvanized tin cistern sitting above ground.

That combination was the only source of drinking water for the home until 1975. Think on that — from 1913 to 1975, every glass of water in that house came from what fell from the sky and was caught and stored on the property. The original outbuildings told the full story of a working farm: a barn, two homes for farm hands, a smokehouse, an outhouse, and a carriage garage.

In 1993, the Bohls family deeded the property to the City of Pflugerville — deeded it, as a gift — to promote and interpret the city's heritage and culture. Gottlieb William Bohls had been born near this site in 1878. He died in 1961.

The house he built in 1913 outlasted him, outlasted Otto, outlasted Laura, and it's still standing today, holding onto the story of a family that knew how to tend a piece of ground. That's not nothing. That's exactly something.

What the marker says

Gottlieb William Bohls (1878-1961), the oldest of Heinrich and Julie Schroder Bohls' ten children, was born on his family's farm near this site. In 1906, G.W. married Bertha Timmerman (1883-1967), and five years later they purchased a 95-acre farm on the Austin-Hutto Road, formerly the site of the Carrington Ranch School. They lived in a small home until this two-story, eight-room house could be completed in 1913. After twelve years, G.W. sold the property to his younger brother, Otto Walter Bohls (1898-1973), and his wife, Laura Emma Anna (Fuchs) (1898-1992). Otto promoted soil conservation practices on the farm and in the area, serving as chair of the Travis County Agricultural Adjustment Administration for 13 years. Contour farming, planting cover crops, building stock tanks, rotating crops and planting new seed varieties reduced wind and water erosion and kept the soil intact during periods of drought. The Bohls family deeded the property to the City of Pflugerville in 1993 to promote and interpret the city's heritage and culture. The Queen Anne Free Classic style house features a hipped cross-gabled roof with dormer windows and fishscale shingles. Prominent elements include a wraparound porch, main door sidelights, a longleaf pine interior, and cutaway bays with wooden brackets on the front-facing parlor and side-facing dining room. Original outbuildings included a barn, two homes for farm hands, a smokehouse, an outhouse and a carriage garage. The original rain harvesting system, including a 4,000-gallon brick and concrete underground cistern and a 2,000-gallon galvanized tin cistern above ground, was the home's only source of drinking water until 1975. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2005