The Christian Kraus Homestead

Duane's take

The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one passin' it along. Out here in Gillespie County, in a stretch of Hill Country once known as Klein Frankreich, Little France, a man named Christian Kraus set down roots. The year was 1859.

He and his wife, Anna Maria, started building a stone house. Not a grand house at first. A vernacular home, the kind built with your own hands and whatever the land gives you.

But it was a beginning. Kraus was the kind of man a community leans on. He farmed the land.

He taught school right here. And he helped build St. Mary's Catholic Church over in Fredericksburg.

One man, doing the work of several. Now here is where the story turns, and you want to let it settle before you move on. A neighbor named Peter Burg was killed during the Civil War, killed by a group known as the Haengebrande.

And when that happened, Christian and Anna Maria Kraus took in Peter Burg's seven children. Seven. They were already raising seven children of their own.

That stone house, humble as it was, became home to fourteen children and two adults who simply decided that turning away was not something they were willing to do. In 1879, Kraus added a wing and a second story to the home. The walls went up higher, the roof stretched out further, as if the house itself was trying to hold the shape of everything that had happened inside it.

That home is still standing. And now you know why it matters.

What the marker says

This house was begun in 1859 by Christian Kraus when he and his wife, Anna Maria, settled in the Klein Frankreich (Little France) community. Kraus farmed and taught school here. The Krauses reared their 7 children and the 7 children of Peter Burg, who was killed by the Haengebrande during the Civil War. Kraus, who was instrumental in building St. Mary's Catholic Church (Fredericksburg), added a wing and second story to his stone vernacular home in 1879. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1984