Fayette Heritage Museum & Archives
La Grange, Texas
Celebrating Fayette County's History
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We appreciate your interest in the Fayette Heritage Museum and Archives! Keep reading to learn about upcoming events, as well as recent happenings, in the Museum and Archives.
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Upcoming Events
How the War Between the States Changed Texas
Tuesday, May 7th, 6:30 p.m., Library Meeting Room
Merle R. Hudgins will present an overview of her two-volume set of books on Texas before, during and after the Civil War.
The Kreisches of Fayette County
Saturday, May 18th, 10:30 a.m., Museum and Archives
Charles Hebert will present a program and sign copies of his new book about the Kreische Family and their struggles.
Current Exhibits
The Photography of Louis Melcher
More than150 of Melcher's photographs of Fayette and Wharton Counties from the 1890s through 1920 show his talent for capturing everyday life in crisp images that are both beautiful and instructive.
When White Dresses Were in Vogue
We have begun staging our latest exhibit, which features some of our favorite women's clothing from the Museum's textile collection, along with early 1900s photographs of local women who made that style memorable.
Crayon Portraits
See examples from our large collection of portraits enhanced with conte crayons and charcoal.
Upcoming Exhibit
The Texas Liberator Project: Witness to the Holocaust
From September 10th through October 22nd, FHMA will be hosting a traveling exhibit designed by the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission. Among other topics, the panels describe events leading up to World War II, American attitudes during the war, Nazism and antisemitism, concentration camps and ghettos, and the difficulty many Texas liberators had in sharing wartime experiences.
Symposium in Hallettsville
The Texas Digital Newspaper Program: Walking the Footprints of Your History
Saturday, May 18th, The Friench Simpson Memorial Library, 705 E. Fourth Street, Hallettsville
The Friench Simpson Memorial Library's 13th annual 3S Genealogy Symposium will feature Ana Krahmer, PhD., who oversees the University of North Texas's digital newspaper program. FHMA has worked with Ana in getting our historic newspapers online at the Portal to Texas History. The free symposium begins at 9:15 a.m., breaks for lunch, and then lasts until 3:30 p.m. For more information, contact Brenda Lincke Fisseler at 361-798-3243 or visit the library's website at www.hallettsvillelibrary.org.
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Hattie Kruschel is shown here wearing one of the white dresses in our new exhibit, When White Dresses Were in Vogue. The second photo from the exhibit demonstrates the predominance of white dresses worn in the early 1900s.
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The Luck and Loessin Collection Trust has just given the Museum and Archives an original translation of the 1846 lease contract for the Nassau Plantation near Round Top. This lease, between the Baron von Meusebach and Dr. F. A. Shubbert (an alias for Friedrich Armand Strubberg), set off a chain of events that led to the shootout at the Nassau Plantation and the death of the artist Johann Caspar Rohrdorf. We are very fortunate to add it to our collections as a companion to our wonderful lithograph by Rohrdorf, Panorama der Stadt Neu-Braunfels in Texas, shown here. This unsigned translation of the original April 7, 1846 contract was filed September 27, 1847 with the Fayette County Clerk. It is unclear whether this is the copy filed with the clerk or if it was a copy made for one of the parties involved.
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Among other recent gifts we have received:
- Gloves, sewing items
- Travis Street Methodist Church commemorative plate
- Permission to scan, print and accession numerous early Speckels family photographs
- von Rosenberg ledgers and miscellaneous receipts
- Press photo of Marie Dach
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Recent Facebook Posts
Like our page at www.facebook.com/FPLMA to see our "In the Archives" posts every Tuesday and our "Flashback Friday" posts every Friday.
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The Library, Museum & Archives is excited to announce that our director, Allison Shimek, was named Small Community Librarian of the Year by the Small Community Libraries Round Table - Txla (SCLRT) at the Texas Library Association’s Annual Conference last week. Every year the SCLRT honors a small community librarian serving a population of 12,000 or less. The selection committee looks at programming, grants, support of the community, and innovative marketing in determining the honoree. Allison and the library also received a generous monetary donation from the Tocker Foundation.
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#FlashbackFriday to 1907. This fun photograph of Irma Amberg, daughter of Otto and Agnes (Prause) Amberg, at age 14, was posted just as the MS 150 was about to roll through Fayette County.
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#FlashbackFriday to 1911 and the interior of the Heintze-Speckels General Store, located at 130 North Washington Street in downtown La Grange. Employees on the left are Ignac Parma, Ignac J. Cernosek, unknown, and store owners, Henry W. Speckels and Alfred Heintze. Monica Struve is standing in the middle, wearing a white apron. Do you recognize others? The store sold groceries, hardware, crockery and glassware. Notice the bananas hanging from the ceiling on the right!
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