Fayetteville: Fayetteville Area Heritage Museum

Small building in a commercial square with sign – Fayette Area Heritage Museum. Person with bicycle sitting under a vendor tent across the street

Fayetteville Area Heritage Museum

Small two storey wood frame courthouse with central clock tower, construction dated to 1880

Fayetteville Precinct 2 Courthouse, built in 1880.

Small commercial buildings including Orsak’s Café

Fayetteville’s downtown square

People standing in front of a saloon and furniture store on an unpaved, commercial street

Businesses on the square, ca 1895-1905. (UTSA Special Collections Library)

Unpaved street in a residential area with a two storey building with covered walk on one side, small homes with picket fences across the street. Photo labeled H. Zapp Sons for groceries, Fayetteville, Texas

Main Street, ca. 1910. (UTSA Special Collections Library)

Large group of barefoot children and three adults in front of a school building

Outside Bordovitz School, a German Protestant school, in Fayetteville, ca 1880-1890 (UTSA Special Collections Library)

Small white church with narrative sign in front about Saint Paul Lutheran Church

St. Paul Lutheran Church

Painting showing Jesus speaking with two men holding a cross, caption is in Czech language

One of the Stations of the Cross inside St. John the Baptist Church, a largely Czech congregation.

White wood panel construction on a pier and beam foundation, shutters closed on all windows, covered porch, and painted star with the letters SPJST 1 at the top of the building in need of paint

SPJST Lodge #1, a Czech fraternal organization much like the German Sons of Hermann.

Group of men posing for a picture and toasting with bottles of beer

Prost! Na zdravi! German or Czech, this community worked and played together.

When Czech families arrived in Texas in the 1850s, they gravitated toward the communities of Germans with whom they felt culturally similar. Fayetteville already had a strong base of German immigrants when an influx of Czechs arrived and made it “the cradle of Czech immigration.” In blended communities like these, attempts were made at first to keep the German and Czech cultures distinct. This especially applied to the churches. St. John the Baptist Church, erected in 1870, ministered primarily to the Czechs. St. Paul Lutheran Church ministered primarily to the Germans. Over time, however, the boys and girls of the community began to intermarry, and the cultures blended.

Fayetteville Area Heritage Museum contains many exhibits relating to the region’s history, including artifacts and photos of the early Czech and German settlers.

Fayetteville Area Heritage Museum

  • Hours: Saturday, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. or by appointment
  • Admission: None
  • 119 W. Washington St., Fayetteville, TX
  • 979-877-5290
  • Visit Website
SITE MAP
PREVIOUS
SITES
NEXT