Comfort Heritage Foundation

640 High St., Comfort, Texas 830-995-2641

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Kendalia Community Church - Marker in/near Kendalia

Photo Credit: Col. Bettie Edmonds

Kendalia Community Church

Marker #2919 - 1979 In 1882 Boerne newspaper editor Carl Gustav Vogel and his wife Ettie began buying land in this area. After Kendalia Methodist Episcopal Church, South, organized in 1886, the Vogels deeded this site to the congregation. Community residents built this meetinghouse. The fellowship merged with First Methodist Church of Boerne in 1966. A new congregation, "Kendalia Community Church", acquired this building and continues to serve the area. (Jones and Arthurs Streets, Kendalia - two blocks N of SH 473)

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Weyrich Building - Marker in/near Boerne

Photo Credit: Janis and Ted Maxymof

Marker #16468 - 2010   Charles (Carl) Weyrich bought this lot in 1877, shortly after relocating from Gillespie County. Weyrich established himself as a tinsmith and married Sophia Beyer in 1878, commissioning this building around the same time. Weyrich’s business remained here until he divided the lot and sold the building in 1883. A series of businesses, mostly grocery stores, operated here for the next 37 years. The property was later a residence, an office and an art studio. The rectangular-plan vernacular rubble limestone building is one of the oldest commercial structures in Boerne. It features a stone parapet and paired double doors with raised, hood-shaped stone lintels and keystones on the primary façade. (714 South Main Street)

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James House - Marker in/near Boerne

Photo Credit: Dietert Historical Archives -
Patrick Heath Public Library (Boerne)

Marker #2726 -    This two-story limestone house is believed to have been built about 1880 by Ives Brown for Ichabod and Alice Kingsbury. In 1925 it was purchased by Maria (Williams) James (1859-1940), the pioneer surveyor and early community leader who platted the town of Boerne in 1852. Named `Puccoon` by Maria for her ancestral home in Hanover County, Virginia, the residence remained in her family following her death. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982

Records show that John Small originally owned the land where the house is now located. In 1853 his heir, Martha A. Solomon and her husband Alexander, sold 1280 acres to Dr. W.G Kingsbury for $300.00. Dr. Kingsbury in turn sold a part of the land to William Kernaghan. William Dietert acquired the Dietert Addition acreage in 1874 and town lots No. 3 and 6 were sold to Ichabod and Alice V. Kingsbury in 1879.

In 1891 the property was purchased by Bertha Biessner who later married H. H. McFarland. The McFarland heirs sold the house to Mrs. John H. James in 1925. She bought it to replace a summer home in Comfort that she and her late husband previously owned. (Judge John James was the son of John James, a well known land dealer who with Gus Theissen, platted and surveyed the city of Boerne in 1852 and later gave the Main Plaza and courthouse land to boerne and Kendall County)

The beautiful old house which was built around 1880 has been known variously as the Kingsbury-Biessner home, the Kingsbury Place, the McFarland Home and now the James House is presently owned by Maria M. Sykes, a great-grand- daughter of John James, the great frontier surveyor and businessman who contributed so much to the early development of Boerne.

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Peter Joseph Ingenhuett Homestead - Marker in/near Comfort

Photo Credit: Bryden Moon

Marker #3996 - 1986   German immigrant Peter Joseph Ingenhuett (1833-1923) came to Texas and settled on a farm near Comfort in the 1850s. In 1861, he married Marie Karger (1843-1913), and they moved into town in 1867. The Ingenhuetts opened various businesses along what is now High Street, including a hotel, saloon, and livery stable. Ingenhuett served for nearly 25 years as the Comfort postmaster. The small cottage at the back of this property was the Ingenhuett home until the larger dwelling at this site was built in 1888.

The homestead has two buildings involved. The 1863 cabin behind the big house was a home, a wash house, storage room, taxidery shop, garage and antique shop. It has fachwerk and outside stairs. The 1888 house is a one story, German Victorian limestone with gingerbread on porch.

 The original (1863) Peter Joseph Ingenhuett Homestead was located behind the later house. This cabin served as the Ingenhuett's home until they moved into the second floor of the "new" mercantile store building in 1880. In addition to a residence, the cabin has also served many other purposes. It was a wash house with inside hearth, a storage building, a taxidermy shop (when owned by Udo Letz) a garage, and an antique shop (which the Meyer's operated).

The larger house was built in 1888 for Peter Joseph and Marie Karger Ingenhuett. Mr. Ingenhuett was a prominent businessman in the community who built several businesses along High Street including the hotel, saloon, and the Ingenhuett Store. 

The house originally had clapboard siding. The stucco exterior was added in the first half of this century to improve the fire resistance as several fires had occurred in the vicinity. The house was renovated in the early 1970s with turned balusters and a new fretwork design being installed on the front porch. It was purchased in 1986 by Bill and Helen Meyer. Working from old photographs, the Meyers replaced the balusters and fretwork design in 1991 to more nearly approximate that of the original construction. The stairway in the central hall, giving access to the expanded attic, was moved from the Ingenhuett-Faust Hotel.

The Homestead received a Texas Historical Marker in 1985.

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August Ebers House - Marker in/near Fredericksburg

Photo Credit: Dietert Historical Archives -
Patrick Heath Public Library (Boerne)

Marker #236 - 1983   Grapetown, TX

In 1860 August Ebers, a German immigrant, built the east portion of this stone house. It included a kitchen, a "big room", and an upstairs loft bedroom. Before 1880 he added the west wing. Ebers was killed in a well accident in 1884, and his family continued operating the farm. The home became a social center where community dances were held, and served as a polling place during elections. The home remained in the family until 1962. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1983 (from Comfort take Old State Road 9 fourteen miles to house in Bankersmith)

Two story rock, attached to an earlier 1 1/2 story rock with shallower roof pitch; end chimneys.

August Ebers, German immigrant, built the east portion of this large stone house. It included a kitchen, a "big room" and the upstairs loft bedroom. Before 1880 the west wing was added. Ebers was killed in a well accident in 1884 and his family continued operating the farm. The home became a social center where community dances were held and served as a polling place during elections. The home remained in the Ebers family until 1962 and from that time until 1980 when Stanley and Barbara Hammer bought it, it was unoccupied and unattended. It was sadly delapidated, but the Hammer's saw the beauty in the fine old building and have completely renovated and restored it to its former grandeur. In 1983 this house was designated as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.

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Theis House - Marker in/near Boerne

Photo Credit: Dietert Historical Archives -
Patrick Heath Public Library (Boerne)

Marker #5460 - 1984   This pioneer home was built in 1858 by German immigrant Phillip Jacob Theis (1809-1876), an early Kendall County blacksmith and wheelwright. The original part of the Theis house is a dogtrot plan of palisade construction. Willow branches were woven around cedar support posts to form the walls, which were then packed with clay and rock and finally stuccoed for protection. The Theis house is a rare surviving example of this construction type. (on Newton Alley behind 242 Main Street, Boerne)

One story, four room. The structure is supported by hand hewn beams and poles that are held together with wooden pegs.

Built in 1858 by Phillip Jacob Theis, a blacksmith and wheelwright who immigrated from Germany in 1855, the Theis House was one of the ten residential structures existing in Boerne in 1958. Newton Street, adjoining the south boundary of the Theis property, was initially surveyed in 1852 as a public access alley to the Cibolo Creek. It was left open for the use of bucket brigades and later fire hoses when there was a fire in town. 

The Theis property line ran from Main Street to the creek and Mr. Theis operated his blacksmith shop under a mulberry tree in his front yard where the Adler Bakery Building later stood. Jacob Theis and his wife, Margaretha, raised seven children at the old Theis homesite. One son, August Theis, later took over his father's blacksmith shop and he and his wife, Agnes, continued living in the same house where they also raised seven children. Mrs. Edgar (Ruby) Bergmann refurbished the house and filled it with appropriate furniture of the early period. She opened it to the public on special occasions to showcase the life style of the early settlers.

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Cascade Cavern - Marker in/near Boerne

Photo Credit: Cascade Caverns click to their website

Marker #749 - 1984   Probably formed during the Pleistocene epoch by the underground passage of the Cibolo River, Cascade Cavern presents an interesting mix of geological, archeological, and historical features. It exhibits a combination of the joint and the dip and strike types of caverns, and is the home of a number of unusual animals, including cliff and leopard frogs, Mexican brown bats, and Cascade Cavern salamanders. Archeological evidence uncovered near the cave indicates the presence of two Indian sites. It is probable that the Indians used the cave for shelter, and soot found on the sides of a natural chimney suggests that they had fires. Commercial development of the cave, known earlier as Hester's Cave, began in the 1930s. The current name, taken from the seven waterfalls at the entrance to the cathedral room, officially was adopted in a 1932 ceremony led by State Attorney General, and later Governor of Texas, James V. Allred. Over the years, Cascade Cavern has provided visitors and Boerne area residents with many opportunities for recreation and exploration, and it remains one of the state's important geological sites. (1984) (at main building at Cavern on Cascade Cavern Road, off I-10 exit 543, south of Boerne)

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Ingenhuett-Karger Saloon - Marker in/near Comfort
Photo Credit: Bryden Moon	Marker #15937 - 2009 More info and Map Link