Fischer House

Duane's take

The official marker for the Fischer House in Comal County tells it this way, and I'm just along for the ride. Now, picture this: somewhere around 1860, a German immigrant by the name of John Heinrich Fischer set about building himself a log cabin. Not just any cabin thrown together out of whatever was handy.

Fischer cut cedar and shaped limestone, hand-hewn, piece by deliberate piece. He'd purchased the land from a man named August Forcke, and on that ground, he meant to build something that would last. And friend, it did.

John Heinrich and his wife Auguste, she was born a Koch, they raised their whole family inside those cedar and limestone walls. The house had a front shed roof porch where you could watch the world go slow, and out back, a shed roof kitchen keeping the cook fire at a respectful distance from the sleeping quarters. Right down the middle of the house ran what folks called a dog trot, an open hallway splitting the structure clean in two, catching every breeze that cared to pass through.

Now, the Fischers held onto that cabin for years, raising children, building a life. Then in 1881, they sold it, not to a stranger, but to their daughter Anna. Kept it in the family, kept it on the same ground.

The dog trot got enclosed sometime in the mid-twentieth century, so the house changed a little with the times. But the bones of it, that hand-hewn cedar, that limestone, that original site, none of that moved. What you're looking at when you see the Fischer House is something genuinely scarce: an early log cabin still standing exactly where it was built.

Texas has a deep German heritage running through its Hill Country, and the Fischer House is one of the few places left where you can walk up and put your hand on it.

What the marker says

German immigrant John Heinrich Fischer built this log cabin about 1860 on land he purchased from August Forcke. He and his wife, Auguste (Koch), reared their family here until selling the cabin to their daughter Anna in 1881. Built of hand-hewn cedar and limestone, the Fischer House includes a front shed roof porch and rear shed roof kitchen. The original dog trot (open hallway through the center of the house) was enclosed in the mid-20th century. A scarce example of an early log cabin on its original site, the Fischer House is a reminder of Texas' German heritage. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2000