German Free School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, when the German immigrants came rolling into Texas in the 1840s and 1850s, they brought with them something maybe more stubborn than their furniture and more durable than their wagon wheels — and that was a fierce, almost ornery belief that their children were going to be educated. Texas, bless her heart, did not yet have a system of free public education.

What she did have was a subsidy program for students attending private tuition schools who couldn't pay. Not a perfect system, but the German-Texans were not the kind of people who waited around for perfect. They organized schools, they pooled state funds with donations and tuition, they hired teachers, they put up buildings, and they got to work.

Come September of 1857, the German-Texans in Austin held a public meeting. They had made up their minds: this city was going to have a proper German school. Now, a meeting is one thing.

Land is another. That is where a man named Wilhelm von Rosenberg stepped forward. Civil engineer by trade, and apparently a man of conviction, he donated the land right here at this very site.

Within a month — not a year, not a decade, a month — German-Texan volunteers were already putting up the building. That rammed earth construction, two classrooms and a basement, rising up out of the Austin soil on sheer community will. The very next year, 1858, the German Free School Association opened its doors.

It had the distinction of being the first school in Austin chartered by the Texas Legislature. The first teachers were August Weilbacher and Julius Schutze. Remember that second name, because Julius Schutze is not done with this story, not by a long measure.

The school grew with the city. Around 1872, they added a two-story limestone section, four more classrooms, the building expanding the way a good idea tends to do. But here is where the tale takes one of those long, slow turns.

In 1880, Julius Schutze came back to teach — came back to the very school he had helped open over twenty years before. And he did not just come back to teach. He moved his family into the schoolhouse itself.

Then, in 1881, Austin finally got its public school system, and the German Free School closed. Most buildings, when their purpose ends, just quietly fall apart. This one did not.

The Schutze family kept living there. Julius eventually published the Texas Vorwaerts newspaper out of that rammed earth and limestone building. In time, he gained the title to the property outright.

He died in 1904, but the building endured — through a fire in 1919 that damaged it, through decades of use as a single-family and then a multi-family residence, all the way to 1991, when it was deeded to the German-Texan Heritage Society. That is one hundred and thirty-some-odd years of a building refusing to give up. When a group of immigrants in 1857 decided their children deserved an education, they built something that outlasted the school, outlasted the newspaper, outlasted everything except the story itself.

And the marker placed here in 1962 makes sure you know it.

What the marker says

German Free School Education was a primary concern for the new German immigrants who arrived in Texas in the 1840s and 1850s. Although Texas did not have a system of free public education at that time, it did offer subsidies for students attending private tuition schools who could not pay. The German-Texans organized a number of schools under this system, paying for teachers and buildings with a combination of state funds, donations and tuition. In September 1857, the German-Texans in Austin held a public meeting to establish a German school for the city. Civil engineer Wilhelm von Rosenberg donated land at this site for the school. Within a month, German-Texan volunteers began construction of the school building. The first school in Austin chartered by the Texas Legislature, the German Free School Association opened in 1858 with August Weilbacher and Julius Schutze as its first teachers. The 1857 building with rammed earth outer walls contained two classrooms and a basement. About 1872, a two-story limestone section was added to provide four additional classrooms. Julius Schutze returned to teach in 1880 and moved his family into the schoolhouse. They continued to live in the building after the school closed in 1881 with the advent of Austin's public school system. Schutze (d. 1904) published the Texas Vorwaerts newspaper here for a time and eventually gained title to the property. The German Free School building, damaged in a 1919 fire, remained in use as both a single-family and multi-family residence until 1991, when it was deeded to the German-Texan Heritage Society. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1962