Schertz

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way back in the 1840s, German immigrants were pushing out from the New Braunfels area, looking for good farm land. And they found it.

They settled in, worked the soil, and built a community rooted almost entirely in agriculture. That was the economic foundation, plain and simple. For a good while, this little place didn't even have a proper name people could agree on.

They called it Cibolo Pit, or Cutoff, depending on who you asked. Not exactly the kind of name you'd put on a welcome sign. Then came 1877, and with it the Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio Railroad.

Now, a railroad line doesn't just bring passengers. It brings possibility. Suddenly this agricultural community had a link to San Antonio and a way to ship goods to other parts of the state.

Things were looking up. And then in 1882, when the post office was established, the town finally got a name worth keeping. Schertz.

Named in honor of Sebastian Schertz, an early area settler born in 1822 and gone by 1890, a man the community clearly thought deserved to have his name carried forward. From Cibolo Pit and Cutoff to Schertz, Texas. Some names you earn, and some names you leave behind.

What the marker says

The first settlers in this community were German immigrants from the New Braunfels area who arrived in the 1840s in search of good farm land. The early economic base of the community was agricultural. The arrival of the Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio Railroad about 1877 gave the town a link to San Antonio and enabled goods to be shipped to other parts of the state. Known in earlier days as Cibolo Pit and Cutoff, the name Schertz, honoring early area settler Sebastian Schertz (1822-1890), was adopted when the post office was established in 1882. (1984)