Stanley L. Kostoryz
Historical marker location:The Bohemian Land Colony, a vision of Sanley L. Kostoryz, changed the landscape of the coastal bend and drew residents from all over the U.S. and Czechoslovakia to south Texas. Stanislav l. Kostohryz was born in 1866 in Strakonice, bohemia. In 1886, he and his wife, Alice, moved their family to New York. The family lived in Chicago and then moved to Nebraska where Kostoryz earned his teaching degree at Western Normal College. In addition to his teaching abilities, Kostoryz was also a journalist, politician and land developer. In 1902, he traveled to south Texas looking for land investments and established the bohemian land colony two miles southwest of Corpus Christi.
Over the next two years, Kostoryz purchased over 7,783 acres that he subdivided into 80-acre lots for purchase. Utilizing his journalistic prowess, he placed advertisements for the Bohemian Land Colony in Czech newspapers throughout Texas, the mid-west and Czechoslovakia. He labeled the colony the “winter vegetable garden of America,” where farmers could raise several crops a year. In 1906, Kostoryz and his family moved to Nueces County where he continued to sell acreage to Czech pioneers. In 1907, Kostoryz established the Kostoryz common school district No. 26 and, in 1909, a one-room schoolhouse was erected. When Kostoryz’s youngest child died during a football game in 1921, he and his wife returned to Czechoslovakia. He died in 1924 and is buried in Prague. By the time he left Nueces County, the Bohemian Land Colony boasted a school, church and several mutual aid societies. Kostoryz’s vision and determination turned 10,000 acres of brush into a productive Czech agricultural community.