Gatesville in 1884
As with many cities in the late 1800s, Gatesville was recovering from a fire. The rebuilding had already begun when Koch made this view, and the Texas and St. Louis Railroad, which initiated service from Waco in October 1882, had accelerated growth in this small Central Texas community. Gatesville was primarily a regional agricultural center, with Benjamin Worley’s Flour and Planing Mill and Cotton Gin operating on Still House… [More]
Houston in 1873
Shortly after Texas won its independence on the nearby battlefield at San Jacinto in 1836, Augustus C. and John K. Allen founded Houston at the head of tide on Buffalo Bayou to be the leading metropolis of the new nation. Sam Houston, elected first president of the Republic of Texas, was honored to have the city named after him and considered the site “far superior” to all others for… [More]
La Grange in 1880
Augustus Koch began his second tour of Texas probably in late 1880 with a drawing of La Grange, the county seat of Fayette County. Following Anglo-American immigration into the area in the 1820s, the region had quickly developed a plantation economy built on slavery and the fertile lands along the Colorado River. With increasing German and Wend immigration after the Civil War, the size of farms decreased, but their… [More]
New Braunfels in 1881
In depicting New Braunfels, founded in 1845 under the auspices of the Adelsverein (also known as the Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas), Augustus Koch chose the perspective from the Sophienburg (Fort Sophia), the headquarters that Prince Solms-Braunfels established for the colony. Built on a hill on the south side of the new settlement with a view of the Comal River and its confluence with Comal… [More]
San Antonio in 1873
Unlike most Texas bird’s-eye views, Augustus Koch’s depiction of San Antonio does not include a train, because the railroad did not arrive in the Alamo City until 1877. The most obvious aspects of the city, viewed from the northwest, are its many public plazas and the winding San Antonio River. San Fernando Church is located on the west side of the Main Plaza, with the Bexar County Courthouse immediately… [More]
