Castell Community

Store painted yellow with sign “Castell General Store” and a covered porch

Castell General Store

L-shaped church with arched windows along the side and a steeple and bell tower in front. To the left and down a slope is a smaller building

Trinity United Methodist Church was founded in 1852.

Detail in a cemetry showing two obelisk grave stones

The earliest documented graves in this cemetery date to 1871.

White building with banks of eindows on one side, formerly used as a school house

This 1929-era school house began in 1890 as two-room building. Restored, it now serves as a community center.

School room in early 1900s, showing children seated at desks, a teacher standing with an open book, a coal stove in the center of the room with stove pipe venting from the roof. Interior walls show wood plank construction

Original two-room schoolhouse in Castell, 1916. (UTSA Special Collections Library)

Portrait sketches of Emil an Amelia Kriewitz

Emil and Amelia Kriewitz (UTSA Special Collections Library)

Portrait of John O. Meusebach

John O. Meusebach (UTSA Special Collections Library)

Color illustration of a group of Native Americans and one white person seated on animal hides in a circle between two trees with additional members of both groups in an outer circle with horses. In the background are large hills and a village of tipis in

Illustration of treaty signing (Texas State Library and Archives)

The former utopian community of Castell features several points of interest, including the Old Schoolhouse, now used for weddings and functions; Trinity United Methodist and St. John Lutheran churches, which were organized in 1852 and 1983, respectively; and the historic General Store and Post Office.

A mile from Castell is Bettina, which at one time was the largest German commune in Texas; today, only a historical marker remains.

Castell Community

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