The Joseph Meyer Homestead

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Way out in Castroville, Medina County, there sits a little four-acre piece of ground that has a quiet kind of stubbornness to it. It has held together when everything around it split apart, and that story starts a long way from Texas.

Joseph Meyer was born in 1803, and Katherine, who came to the marriage as a Koos, was right there beside him. They were pioneers out of Alsace, that old borderland region that has always known how to hold its ground, and they carried that same disposition with them when they crossed an ocean and landed in Texas. In 1855, they bought this homestead, four acres sitting in the settlement of Castroville.

Now here is the part worth slowing down for. Back in 1844, a surveyor named John James had platted this land for Henri Castro, laying it out in clean, careful lines. And in all the years since, through all the transactions and divisions and changes of hand that tend to swallow up a piece of property, this tract never got divided.

Every other surrounding parcel got carved up somehow. This one, except for a roadway cut through it, remains exactly as John James drew it. The only undivided tract in Castroville.

That is not nothing. The house itself tells you where these people came from. The roof line, the way the rooms are arranged, it is typically Alsatian.

Joseph Meyer did not just build a house in Texas, he brought Alsace with him and set it down in Medina County. And those walls, thick rock walls, they were plastered with lime that Meyer burned himself, at his own kiln near the Medina River. When Meyer's time came to pass the land along, he gave it to his daughter, Mrs.

Leahr. From there it moved through several hands. Alex, Rosalie, and Fred Jungman owned it, and then the Robert Gerloffs.

In 1960, Colonel and Mrs. Irvin Keefer bought the tract. Joseph Meyer died in 1887, never knowing just how many owners would come and go, or that his stubborn four acres would outlast every division around it.

Some things just hold.

What the marker says

Joseph (1803-87) and Katherine (Koos) Meyer, pioneers from Alsace, bought this 4-acre homestead in 1855. Except for a roadway, it remains as platted by surveyor John James for Henri Castro in 1844, and is the only undivided tract in Castroville. The house is typically Alsatian in roof line and room arrangement. The thick rock walls were plastered with lime from Meyer's kiln near the Medina River. Meyer gave his land to a daughter, Mrs. Leahr. Alex, Rosalie, and Fred Jungman, and the Robert Gerloffs were later owners. Col. and Mrs. Irvin Keefer bought the tract in 1960. 1976