Vogt-Clegg Log House

Duane's take

Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and I'm just the one passin' it along. Way out in Kendall County, there stands a log house that has been quietly watching the Hill Country change for well over a century. Wilhelm Vogt, born in 1826, and his wife Ernestine, born in 1830, were German immigrants who put down roots here and, around 1860, built themselves a one-room log structure.

One room. That was the start of it. Now, one room sounds modest enough until you consider that Wilhelm and Ernestine were raising nine children.

Nine. You do the math on the elbow room and it tells its own story. So they built.

Two additional log pens, connected by dog trot passages, those open-air breezeway connections that kept the whole arrangement breathing in the Texas heat. The house grew the way a family does, one addition at a time, each one earned. Then came the 1870s, and Wilhelm and Ernestine moved into a larger home right next door to the log house they had started with.

The old structure didn't come down, though. It stayed. Ernestine lived until 1907, and Wilhelm until 1912, and after they were gone, the property passed on to their heirs.

In 1919, Luther and Laura Clegg, residents of San Antonio, purchased the place from those Vogt heirs. The Clegg family held onto it for a good long while, all the way until 1984. What you find there today, that original cabin and the adjacent historic smokehouse, are reminders of pioneer German architecture in Kendall County.

One room became three. Three became a legacy. And the logs are still standing to prove it.

What the marker says

German immigrants Wilhelm (1826-1912) and Ernestine (1830-1907) Vogt built this house about 1860 as a one-room log structure. As their family of nine children grew they built two additional log pens connected by dog trot passages. In the 1870s they moved into a larger home next to the log house. San Antonio residents Luther and Laura Clegg purchased the property from the Vogt heirs in 1919 and it remained in their family until 1984. This cabin and the adjacent historic smokehouse serve as reminders of pioneer German architecture in Kendall County. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1993