Dangers Stone House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Back in 1851, a man named the Reverend Gottlieb Burchard Dangers set out to build himself a house in Fredericksburg, Texas. Now, Reverend Dangers had not been in this country long.

He'd emigrated from Germany just two years before, in 1849, and already he'd made his mark, serving as the second Protestant minister in Fredericksburg. The man wasn't wasting any time. He bought a town lot from a fellow named Friedrich Pape, and then he got to work.

What he built was a stone house, constructed in the pioneer German style, with some walls done in fachwerk, that's half-timbered construction, the kind of craft these German settlers brought straight across the Atlantic with them. It wasn't fancy by some measures, but it was solid, and it was his. Then, around 1857, Reverend Dangers expanded the place, adding two rooms in the rear and a cellar beneath.

He was born in 1811, and he lived until 1869, and the house he raised on that Fredericksburg lot outlasted him by more than a century. That stone and timber didn't forget who put it there.

What the marker says

Built in 1851 by the Rev. Gottlieb Burchard Dangers (1811-69), soon after his purchase of this town lot from Friedrich Pape. Dangers, who had emigrated from Germany in 1849, was the second Protestant minister in Fredericksburg. The two rooms in the rear and the cellar were added by Dangers about 1857. The house was constructed in the pioneer German style, with some walls of fachwerk (half-timbered) construction. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1974