What are those 2 buildings at Braun/1604? (Dallas, San Antonio: real estate, loft, houses) - Texas (TX) - Page 2 - City-Data Forum

majormadmax · 10-26-2007, 01:25 PM

Actually, I just stumbled across this (broken link)...

Cheers! M2

Quote:

Paula Allen: Homes built by German immigrants still standing on N.W. side

Web Posted: 11/18/2006 12:00 PM CST

San Antonio Express-News

There is an old building along Loop 1604 just before you get to Braun Road as you travel toward Bandera Road. It looks as if it's from the same era as the Huebner-Onion House and has a new fence around it as if someone is protecting it historically. Do you have any idea what it was? Was it a stagecoach stop or just a farmhouse?
-- Evalyn Fulmer

There are actually two significant buildings on the site at 9760 Braun Road, known in the historic preservation community as the Ruempel homestead, first settled by Philip Ruempel and his family.

"We believe that the first house he built was later used as a barn," says Joanna Parrish, chairwoman of the Historic Farm and Ranch Complexes Committee of the San Antonio Conservation Society.

The conclusion is based on a comparison of the stonework, with the barn made of naturally rough-hewn rumble stone and the probable second house — sited on the highest point of the property — a larger structure made of neatly cut limestone blocks about 18 inches thick.

You are right about the Ruempel house being about the same age as the Huebner-Onion House. Not far away, at 6613 Bandera Road, the original house is thought to date back to the 1850s, about the time German émigré Joseph Huebner settled there. The Huebner-Onion House — whose double-barreled name also salutes the second family to own the property — is another limestone house of similar construction, currently undergoing restoration under the auspices of the Historical Society of Leon Valley.

The homestead you ask about was established somewhat later by another German-born pioneer. Philip (sometimes spelled Philipp) Ruempel (1837-1909) came to Texas at age 18 in 1855, along with other families from his hometown, Offenbeck, Germany, says a biographical document compiled in 1998 by Calvin Galm for a church history project.

He and his wife, Carolina Braun, after whose family the road was named, had 11 children, nine of whom survived to adulthood. Though many mid-19th-century German newcomers settled in San Antonio, making them the city's largest ethnic group by 1860, the Ruempels were among the first European American inhabitants of the area that now comprises Leon Valley, Helotes and other communities.

"The pioneers cleared the land and built homes from limestone blocks," write Karen Petersen and Gloria Anderson in "A History of Zion Lutheran Church," available at http://lonestar.texas.net/&tildegdalum/history/history.html (broken link). "There were Apache and Comanche Indians who raided and killed. The pioneers gathered wild dewberries, plums, turkey, deer and wild hogs to eat, and eventually began to raise their own cattle, chickens, turkeys, domestic hogs and horses. They grew corn, sorghum cane, cotton, oats and vegetables, and sold butter, eggs, cotton, hay and furs in San Antonio for cash."

The Ruempels and their descendants were part of this do-it-yourself world, as evidenced by the old canning jars Parrish has seen in the root cellar of their former home. They lost one son, Willie, to snakebite when he was 10, and another, Christian, to influenza at age 24.

With his son Karl (Charles), Philip Ruempel became a charter member of Lutherischen Zions Kirche zu Helotes (Zion Lutheran Church of Helotes), just west of their family homestead. Founded on Feb. 14, 1904, this was the first church built in Northwestern Bexar County, say Petersen and Anderson in their online history.

The predominantly German American pioneers also built a post office and school, the co-authors note, "and turned an uncivilized territory into a community that still endures."

Both men, along with other family members, are buried in Zion Lutheran Cemetery at 9944 Leslie Road, east of Loop 1604 near Braun.

Currently, the former Ruempel Homestead is owned by the Fulcrum Property Group Inc., a developer of several retail/office complexes on San Antonio's far North Side. The historic structures were fenced to protect them during construction and to deter vandals, says Steve Braha, a Fulcrum partner.

"We are going to do a mixed-use development on the site," says Braha. "The Ruempel Homestead will either remain where it is or be relocated to another parcel within the 20-acre project."

hadleyzoo · 10-26-2007, 04:48 PM

Cool! Thanks for researching...

majormadmax · 10-26-2007, 05:31 PM

Speaking of homesteads, does anyone have any information on the two on Government Canyon SNA--the Zizelmann House, an 1880s-era L-shaped home constructed with hundreds of blocks of hand-hewn limestone, and the remnants of the Wildcat Canyon Historic Ranch?

Cheers! M2

majormadmax · 10-26-2007, 05:43 PM

And I am still trying to find out about that old homestead on Braun Road, about a half mile inside of 1604 and almost across from Nichols Elementary. I've sent an email to Paula Allen to see if she has any info...

Cheers! M2

The Right Side_TX · 10-26-2007, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by majormadmax

Actually, I just stumbled across this (broken link)...

Cheers! M2

Thanks for that info! Very intresting. Im just shocked, ive driven from Lackland to Helotes via 1604 for years. Before the construction of that strip mall, i had no idea a house was on that land.

majormadmax · 10-27-2007, 08:21 PM

majormadmax · 11-01-2007, 04:50 PM

Duh! I forgot I found out that the above site is the Grenwelge/Braun Farm Complex (http://epay.sanantonio.gov/historic/landmarkdetail.aspx?id=7808 - broken link), listed on the San Antonio Historical Preservation Society web site (http://epay.sanantonio.gov/historic/landmarkindex.aspx - broken link); but I cannot find any additional details on it. Does anyone know a good source for tracking down this kind of information?

Cheers! M2

sapphire · 11-01-2007, 08:32 PM

I pass that place all the time, and I've often thought, "Wow, what we could do with that place!" It's a real fixer-upper that could be an awesome home!!

majormadmax · 11-02-2007, 05:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sapphire

I pass that place all the time, and I've often thought, "Wow, what we could do with that place!" It's a real fixer-upper that could be an awesome home!!

Y'know, that's the same thing I think everytime I go by there! It is really a cool place, I wish I could get closer to check it out but I heed the 'No Trespassing' signs. I have emailed the SA Historical Preservation Society to see if they have any info on it.

Cheers! M2

940 · 11-02-2007, 10:48 AM

I remember driving by this place in the early 80s on the way to Marshall High...it was pretty much all by itself back then because there were no homes anywhere on that section of Braun Rd once you passed the original Braun Station neighborhood closer to Bandera....I don't remember if anyone lived in the house then either...I am glad these old German homesteads will be preserved though.