Christian Dietert Mill

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way back before Kerrville was Kerrville, before the storefronts and the courthouse and all the rest of it, somebody had to figure out how to feed a community and house it. That somebody was a German millwright named Christian Dietert.

Now, Dietert wasn't new to this work. He'd already built mills at Comfort and at Fredericksburg before he ever set eyes on the Guadalupe River. The man had a resume.

So when he moved here in 1857, you can bet he wasn't coming to rest. He had plans. He had a river.

And he had a young German miller named Balthasar Lich to help him see it through. Together, those two constructed a mill and a dam near this very site. Picture that.

Two men, a river, and the kind of determination that doesn't ask whether something is hard. The pioneer settlers of the community, which they were calling Kerrsville at the time, needed someone to process their crops, needed lumber to build their homes and their buildings, and Dietert's Guadalupe River milling operation stepped right up to fill that need. The marker is plain about it: that operation played an important role in the growth of Kerrville.

Not a footnote. Not a footnote at all. Now, good things have a way of attracting attention.

The business was later bought and enlarged by Captain Charles Schreiner, a prominent local merchant, which tells you something about how valuable what Dietert built had become. A millwright comes to a river in 1857 with a helper and a vision, and what he leaves behind is something worth a captain's investment. That's a legacy the Guadalupe's been runnin' past ever since.

What the marker says

German millwright Christian Dietert built mills at Comfort and Fredericksburg before moving here in 1857. With the assistance of a young German miller named Balthasar Lich, he constructed a mill and dam near this site to serve the pioneer settlers of the community, then called Kerrsville. Dietert's Guadalupe River milling operation played an important role in the growth of Kerrville by processing crops and providing lumber for area homes and buildings. The business was later bought and enlarged by Captain Charles Schreiner, a prominent local merchant. Incise on base: Sponsored by Herring Printing Company