Dubina Historic District

Founded in 1856 by a group of Czech-Moravian immigrants, Dubina grew to be an important regional center in the rural economy of southeastern Fayette County by 1900. At its height, the town boasted a gristmill, cotton gin, and established commercial complex, along with a parish church and three schools. A tropical storm in 1909 followed by a fire in 1912 destroyed most of Dubina's buildings and devastated the town's commercial economy. The town's role as a social and cultural center for the area's ethnic Czechs did not wane, however, and has continued to the present day. The parish church, Sts. Cyril and Methodius were rebuilt shortly after the storm, completed in 1911, and a social hall for the KJZT, a Catholic, Czech-Texan benevolent organization, was constructed in 1936. Dubina's continuing use reflects its social and cultural significance in Fayette County's Czech community, and the Dubina Historic District is nominated under Criterion A in the area of Ethnic Heritage/European (Czech), at the local level of significance. Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church is also a significant example of the Carpenter Gothic in Texas, and characteristic of rural churches built in the state for Central European communities. KJZT Hall #6 combines American vernacular and Czech neo-baroque architectural features, a physical manifestation of Dubina's cultural origins. The Dubina Historic District is therefore also nominated in the area of Architecture, also at the local level of significance. The period of significance extends from 1866, the date of the earliest burial in the cemetery, to 1953, the fifty-year cutoff.

Early Development of Fayette County

Fayette County has supported human life for centuries, with early settlement concentrated along the fertile Colorado River valley that bisects the county from northwest to southeast. Prior to the arrival of Anglo settlers in the 19th century, the area was home to both Lipan Apaches and Tonkawa Indians. La Salle's party reportedly passed through the area in 1680, retreating toward the Mississippi River after the collapse of Fort St. Louis. Spanish explorers also traversed what is now Fayette County in the early 18th century, most likely following La Bahía Road, an east-west Indian trail in southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas that crossed the Colorado River near the present site of La Grange.

La Bahía Road, also known as the "Opelousas Road" and the "Lower Road," was the region's most significant thoroughfare in the 19th century and a driving force behind the area's earliest Anglo settlement. Two early white settlers established a trading post along the road, just west of La Grange, prior to any organized settlement. Fayette County was included in Mexico's 1821 land grant to Stephen F. Austin, on which Texas's first formal Anglo colony was established. Ten of Austin's original colonists, the "Old Three Hundred," received land grants in Fayette County between 1824 and 1828, most of whom established plantations along the Colorado River.

Despite frequent confrontations with hostile Indians, the colonists persevered, and many Fayette County residents played significant roles in the Texas Revolution. Fayette County was officially established in December 1837, in the early days of the Republic of Texas, and named for the Marquis de Lafayette. La Grange, named for Lafayette's retirement chateau, had long been the center of the area's settlement and was named the county seat. The county government was organized soon after, in January 1838. Fayette County grew rapidly in subsequent decades, especially after Texas joined the United States in 1846. Although subsistence farming had previously been the norm, a thriving plantation economy developed in the mid-19th century, producing and exporting significant quantities of corn, tobacco, wool, and cotton.

Although most of the county's early settlers emigrated from the Old South, Central Europeans made their mark on Fayette County from early on. A few German immigrants were among Austin's original colonists, and the county's first fully German community, the Biegel Settlement, was established as early as 1832. Large numbers of German immigrants, most of whom were farmers, arrived in Fayette County during the 1830s and 1840s, attracted to the area's rich soil and agrarian lifestyle. These early German settlements were concentrated primarily in northeastern Fayette County, at its intersection with Austin and Colorado Counties. (Jordan 1966)

Czech Settlement in Texas and Fayette County

Although isolated examples of Czech immigration to the United States began as early as 1620, it was not until the mid-19th century that they began to arrive in significant numbers. Ethnic Czechs, Slavic people who lived in the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, had endured over 200 years of Austrian rule when they rebelled in the Revolution of 1848. After that rebellion was ruthlessly crushed by the Hapsburg monarchy, many Czechs lost hope of ever establishing a free state in their native land and began to look for opportunities in the New World. A number of Czechs immigrated to America's larger cities, like New York, Chicago, and Cleveland, but Czech farmers naturally gravitated toward the rural setting and agricultural potential of places like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and, of course, Texas.

Czech settlement in Texas followed these broader trends, with a few pioneers arriving in the 1830s before immigration began in earnest in the early 1850s. The first organized group of Czech immigrants to arrive in Texas landed at Galveston in 1852. The group, which included 16 families, was fleeing the backlash of oppression that followed the unsuccessful Revolution of 1848. They had chosen Texas-based largely on a series of letters praising the state that was written by Arnost Bergmann, a Bohemian Protestant minister who had settled in Austin County in 1848 and published in a Moravian newspaper. Most of these arriving settlers followed Bergmann's lead to the predominately German northeast corner of Austin County, between Cat Spring and New Ulm, an area that became known as the New Bremen Settlement.

These earliest Czech Texans tended to settle within existing German communities around the intersection of Austin, Colorado, and Fayette Counties. Germans had already established themselves in the area, and as their European neighbors, it was a culture with which Czechs were already familiar. Such was the case at Fayetteville, a German town in eastern Fayette County that became known as an informal way station for arriving Czech immigrants in the 1850s. In Fayetteville, which is now predominately Czech, settlers could rest and obtain supplies and information before venturing out to agricultural lands in the surrounding area.

These Czech farmers settled near one another and soon began to establish their own communities. In Fayette County, Czechs began to gravitate away from more German-dominated areas, settling south of the Colorado River in the southeastern part of the county. One of the earliest of such settlements was Hostyn, a village five miles southwest of La Grange. The town occupied land formerly held by an Irish priest, Father Michael Muldoon, whose "parish" included all of Anglo-Texas during Mexican rule. Founded under the name of Bluff in the early 1840s, the town was established prior to the arrival of Czech immigrants in the 1850s. Czechs soon became the dominant cultural presence in the town, however, first renaming it Moravan, before the name was changed again, to Hostyn, in the 1920s.

Early Development of Dubina, 1856-1870

Founded in 1856, Dubina was unique in that it was established entirely by Czech Moravians, a distinction that has earned it the title of the first Czech settlement in Texas. A small Anglo community named Hacklyville had occupied the area in the 1830s, but it was completely decimated by a cholera epidemic in the early 1840s. The Czechs who settled in Dubina were, therefore, starting from scratch.

The story of Dubina's founding has achieved a kind of legendary status, and while some facts may be impossible to verify, it represents an experience that was likely fairly typical for arriving immigrants. Dubina's founders left Europe in August 1856, departing from the Austro-Hungarian port of Bremen aboard a small ship called the Elizabeth. The passengers included the families of Frank Marak, Joseph Kahlich, Ignac Sramek, Joseph Peter, Valentine Holub, Ignac Muzny, Valentine Haidusek, and Frank Kossa. After enduring a difficult fourteen weeks at sea, the immigrants arrived at Galveston, Texas, from which their journey would continue inland. A ferry transported them up Buffalo Bayou to Houston, where they arranged for a five-day trip by ox cart to Cat Spring, in northeastern Austin County. While many of the settlers rested in Cat Spring, a group scouting party explored the area for favorable land, which they found in Fayette County.

After arriving in La Grange, the group separated into two smaller parties, one of which continued to the German town of Bluff and developed what would become Hostyn. The other party contracted with two men, Charles and Joseph Brasher, for transportation by wagon to undeveloped land south of La Grange. Their journey ended at a clump of oak trees on the east bank of the Navidad River, where they were essentially left to their own devices. It was late November 1856, and the settlers' first night would be a difficult one. A terrible sleet storm lasted through the night, from which their only shelter was the grove of oaks. They huddled together under the trees and built a large fire, but few slept and many undoubtedly questioned their decision to come to America. The sky cleared the following morning however, and the settlers were able to build a temporary shelter, beginning the development of a town known as "Navidad," which would become Dubina.

The young Augustin Haidusek accompanied his family on this original journey to Dubina, and although just eleven years- old at the time, he later recalled the group's earliest experiences at the new settlement:
With shelter provided, all began clearing the land, made rail fences, and prepared the land for tilling. In the following fall, only one small bale of cotton was made by the whole group. It was loaded on a sled and pulled by oxen to La Grange, where it was sold. Indeed this first struggling effort at making a living was filled with foreboding. By now, the savings brought from Europe were spent. Flour was $20.00 a barrel, and an epidemic broke out, caused by hard work and contaminated water. It was truly a fight for survival. But God was with us. The following year, crops were better and with the kind help of those of English-speaking extraction, we became firmly established.

Thus, the settler's early years at Dubina were extremely trying, but conditions improved steadily after their initial struggles. Frank Kossa is credited with building the first log cabin in Dubina, in the spring of 1857, with Joseph Peter, Sr. adding a second log home in 1858. The latter became Dubina's first meeting place for Catholic services, with a priest from Frelsburg, in northern Colorado County, offering mass three to four times a year.

The Civil War was especially difficult for recent Czech immigrants, including those at Dubina. Most had no vested interest in the war's causes, and many had fled their homeland to avoid conflict, as well as compulsory service in the Austrian Army. Having faced years of oppression in their homeland, many Czechs were especially hesitant about fighting to preserve slavery. A number of Texas's Czech immigrants were, nevertheless, drafted into the Confederacy. Some supported the Confederacy and volunteered to fight while others refused or deserted to the Union, but every community was affected. Many men not involved directly in combat served as teamsters, transporting Confederate cotton to Mexican ports. In rural communities, women assumed the daily duties of managing the farms, struggling to keep their families alive when even basic necessities were scarce. Dubina's settlers persevered and managed to sustain the community, but the town lost some of its own citizens in the war and the constraints of the wartime economy slowed its development significantly.

Growth and Prosperity, 1870-1909

Despite the setbacks brought about by the Civil War, by 1870 Dubina's settlers were making significant strides in their farming techniques and beginning to achieve a good level of success, adding additional land as their efficiency improved. Like many immigrants, they wrote to their families and friends in their homeland, sharing their achievements and encouraging more to come. With new immigrants arriving almost daily, Dubina grew rapidly in the 1870s.

The community's original settlers continued to guide its development, although the younger generation had begun to assume leadership roles. Joseph Peter, Jr. (1845-1924) was an especially successful and influential citizen. A tradesman who first established a blacksmith shop at Dubina, Peter soon began to expand his business interests. He developed an entire commercial complex, the ruins of which remain just north of the district boundary, that included a grocery store, saloon, meat market, blacksmith shop, and post office. He also operated a gristmill and a cotton gin, located east of the commercial complex, and owned over 1000 acres of land farmed by tenants and employees. Peter was the unofficial patriarch of Dubina in the late 19th century and was elected to two terms in the state legislature, as a representative of Fayette County, beginning in 1890.

Joseph Peter, Jr. also donated land for the construction of a permanent Catholic church. Although it required commitments of money and labor from the entire community, Dubina's first church was completed in 1877, along with a home for a parish priest. The construction of a church and establishment of a parish was a momentous event in the early history of Dubina. It not only affirmed the permanence and faith of the community itself, but it also established Dubina as a regional cultural center for Czech Catholics. The parish soon included some 600 families, stretching as far as Weimar, in western Colorado County, and the church had to be enlarged in 1890.

Joseph Peter, Jr. also donated land, with Ignac Muzny, for the extant cemetery, as well as a school and convent to be run by the Sisters of Divine Providence. The school and convent buildings, which stood east of the cemetery, were completed by 1886. Surprisingly enough, this was actually the third school established at Dubina. In 1875, a group of the town's settlers purchased land with the intent of establishing a parochial school, the Slavonic Catholic Academy. Plans for a parochial school were apparently put on hold, however, as a public school was established on the site in 1876. (School taxes were levied in Fayette County beginning in 1867.) The Dubina area also had a substantial enough African American population to warrant the establishment of a Negro school in 1886. With Dubina native Augustin Haidusek serving as county judge, Fayette County funded the construction of the school, which was named the Lee School, for Tom Lee, a prominent African American in the Dubina community. By 1893, Dubina's three schools enrolled approximately 200 students.

It was in this period of intensive development, and perhaps in response to the establishment of a school, that Dubina acquired its name. Although referred to as Navidad, the community had never really been formally named. The public school was initially called Bohemian Settlement East Navidad, but it was renamed Moravia only a year after its founding. The townspeople were increasingly determined to establish an appropriate and permanent name. Recalling the shelter of the oaks on their first night at their new home, the residents decided to name their town "Dubina," which in Czech means "oak grove." The town began to be referred to as Dubina around 1886, and the public school was officially renamed in 1888 to reflect the change.

The late 19th-century growth of Dubina reflected the broader influx of Czech immigrants into Texas and their development of a significant cultural presence in Fayette County. Although there were only about 700 Czechs in Texas at the time of the Civil War, by 1900 that number had risen to over 9,000. By 1910, it would reach 15,000. The vast majority of those immigrants were farmers, and they tended to settle in the rich agricultural land of Texas's Blackland Prairies. Of the approximately 250 Czech communities established in Texas by 1900, most were concentrated in a relatively small area of the state, centered in Fayette County.

Another of Dubina's younger original settlers, Augustin Haidusek (1845-1929), would play a prominent role in securing Czechs a place in Texas's statewide society and politics. After serving in the Civil War, Haidusek attended law school and, in 1870, became the first Czech Texan licensed to practice law. He was elected mayor of La Grange in 1875, apparently the first American mayor of Czech descent. He went on to serve two terms in the state legislature, beginning in 1880, representing Lee and Fayette Counties, and was elected Fayette County Judge in 1884, 1886, and 1888. Haidusek became president of La Grange's First National Bank in 1896 and was appointed to the Texas A&M College Board of Regents in 1905.

Although Haidusek strongly encouraged immigrants to learn English, he was the first editor, and eventually owner, of Svoboda, a Czech-language newspaper published in La Grange beginning in 1885. Under Haidusek's leadership, Svoboda would amass over 2,000 subscribers, establishing an influential voice in the Czech community. Several other Czech-language newspapers were established in Texas, illustrating the strong cultural ties that bound Czech-Texans. Although most of the Czech-language newspapers disappeared as the younger generation became fluent in English, a few survive to this day.

Czechs were also bound by social traditions and gathered frequently for festivals of music, food, and dance. Baca's Band, Texas's oldest and most famous Czech band, was established in Fayetteville as early as 1882 and, generations later, members of the Baca family continue to play today. Not surprisingly, then, Dubina hosted countless concerts and social gatherings in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an important function of the Czech community.

Fraternal, benevolent organizations are also an important part of Czech-American culture, meeting practical as well as social needs. They were, and are, common in Czech communities across the country, providing insurance and building social halls. In the late 1880s, Czech Texans were relying on organizations in the northern United States. Because of stereotypes surrounding outsiders' perceptions of Texas, however, insurance rates were significantly higher in the state. In response, a group of Czech Catholic men organized the Katolicka Jednota Texaskaä, or KJT, in 1889, specifically to serve Czech Texans, with one of the six original local societies located at Dubina. With the KJT membership restricted to men, a sister organization, the KJZT (from the Czech Cesko-rimská katolická podporující jednota zen texaských), was formed in 1897, with its Dubina society established by 1900.

For about a decade on either side of the turn of the twentieth century, then, Dubina was a significant regional center of the Czech community for commercial, educational, social, and religious purposes. The town itself had developed into a substantial rural community with important leaders and significant connections to the Czech community statewide, which was, itself, centered in Fayette County. A brief string of disasters around 1910, however, would soon take their toll on Dubina.

Destruction and Rebuilding, 1909-1912

In July 1909, a severe tropical storm reached Dubina from the Gulf of Mexico, destroying the 1877 church. With the community thriving, however, plans for the construction of Sts. Cyril and Methodius began almost immediately. The community collected approximately $5,500 from insurance and the sale of lumber from the old church and commissioned San Antonio architect Leo Dielmann to design the new building. Local contractors Frank and Leo Bohlmann of Schulenburg oversaw construction, but oral history holds that most of the labor was provided by volunteer parishioners. It seems likely that this was in fact the case, as the church was not completed until late in 1911. Three pieces of the original building had survived and were incorporated into the new building. A chandelier was placed at the back of the church. The original bells were also reused, and a metal cross, fabricated by Tom Lee, was replaced atop the new church's spire.

Leo Maria Joseph Dielmann (1881-1969) was a formally trained architect. He graduated from St. Mary's College in 1898 before traveling to Germany in 1900, where he received classical training in architecture and engineering. He spent the early part of his career employed in his father's business, the J.C. Dielmann building materials firm. He served as a city building inspector for San Antonio from 1909-1911, where he also served two years as an alderman. He was completely devoted to architecture for the first half of the 20th century, maintaining a prolific pace and earning a reputation, particularly for his church designs. Dielmann designed churches across Central Texas, including the Fort Sam Houston Post Chapel and the Conventual Chapel at Our Lady of the Lake University, both in San Antonio, and St. Peter's Church in Boerne.

During the first decade of the 20th century, Dielmann designed several Gothic Revival churches for small Central Texas communities. Although his 1906 design for St. Mary's Catholic Church in Fredericksburg is much larger and more elaborate, his design earlier that same year of the Nativity of Mary, Blessed Virgin Church in nearby High Hill clearly provided the precedent for Sts. Cyril and Methodius. Although executed in red brick, the form of the church at High Hill, just a few miles east of Dubina, is nearly identical to Sts. Cyril and Methodius, and the plan and interior vaulting are also very similar.

Although Sts. Cyril and Methodius were reconstructed relatively quickly, yet another disaster would strike Dubina in 1912, when a devastating fire destroyed the gristmill and cotton gin, along with Peter's entire commercial complex. With commerce already consolidating in larger towns with rail access, only the general store was rebuilt, and Dubina would never again establish any significant commercial presence.

A Persistent Cultural Center, 1912-2003

Although Dubina's sphere of influence was diminished significantly by its fall from commercial prominence, it has, nevertheless, remained an active cultural and social center to the present day. The business could just as easily be conducted in La Grange or Schulenburg, but there was no replacement for Dubina's equally significant role as a gathering place for the surrounding rural community. A close-knit, communal social structure is a defining characteristic of Czech communities in Texas, and it is illustrated well at Dubina.

In addition to the continued use and maintenance of Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church and Cemetery, the KJZT Hall #6 provide a clear indication of Dubina's lasting significance as the center of a Czech community. Although virtually no business was conducted in Dubina after 1912, area residents continued to gather there on a regular basis for religious, social, and cultural celebrations. Construction of the new social hall as late as 1936 attests to the resilience of the cultural ties that bound the community. As with the church, Dubina's parishioners constructed the hall themselves, under the guidance of Mr. Stoch, a local residential builder.

Since its construction, the KJZT Hall has housed most all of Dubina's social gatherings, which are relatively frequent and often large. The reuse of the sisters' home from St. Edward's School, added in the 1970s to enlarge the hall's kitchen, as well as the ancillary concession buildings, illustrate the continued importance of such gatherings, which have preserved the community's traditional Czech cultural practices. Even today, an annual gathering in the first week of July brings together hundreds of former and present Dubina area residents to celebrate their community with Czech food, music, and dance.

The persistence of Dubina's schools, all three of which continued to operate through the mid-20th century, provides another indication of its continued significance in the community. All three schools, including St. Edward's, were originally funded and maintained with public money. For some time, they also shared a common set of trustees. Both Dubina Public School and the Lee School continued in operation until 1947 when they were consolidated with the Schulenburg District. The buildings were purchased for their materials, but markers along FM 1383 continue to mark each school's location.

The history of St. Edward's is somewhat more complicated. From its establishment in 1886 until 1915, the school was supported by the state, with the sisters who ran it paid as state employees. State support ended in 1915, and in what was most likely a related decision, control of the school was changed from the Sisters of the Divine Providence in San Antonio to the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament in Victoria. State funding resumed in 1935, and a new school building was built in 1936. St. Edward's was consolidated with the St. Martin's school in nearby Ammannsville in 1952, but St. Martin's burned in 1954 and all of its students were reassigned to a reopened St. Edward's in Dubina. Additional students from Holman were added in 1958 when their own school closed, but St. Edward's itself would close permanently when state funding was once again cut off in 1959. The school building was purchased in 1961 and moved to Weimar, and the convent building was incorporated into the KJZT Hall in the 1970s. Today, only a small marker, just north of the cemetery, remains as evidence of the school's existence.

Dubina's continued role as a social and cultural center, despite the decline of its commercial economy, indicates the significance of the community's shared ethnic heritage. The town's function as a gathering place for the area's Czech- Texans, first to ease the transition to the New World and later to preserve and maintain their cultural traditions, superseded any economic purpose. At places like Dubina, Czech Texans have continued their traditions to the present day, celebrating their heritage and maintaining a strong and unique cultural presence.

Architectural Significance of the Dubina Historic District

In addition to its significance as a lasting Czech community, resources within the district also illustrate some important architectural practices. Sts. Cyril and Methodius is an excellent example of the Carpenter Gothic, a wood-framed version of the Gothic Revival that drew on the predominance of wood construction materials and carpentry skills in America. Leo Dielmann, the church's architect, was well-suited to design in this style, having just returned from architectural training in Europe. With his deep knowledge of original Gothic precedents, Dielmann was able to recreate the feel of Europe's soaring cathedrals on a scale appropriate to this small rural community. Dubina's residents would have been especially receptive to the design, as it provided a tangible link to the Old Country. For this reason, a number of Czech and German immigrant communities erected similarly styled churches during this period, despite the Catholic hierarchy's attempts to encourage Spanish Colonial or Mission style church designs in Texas.

The KJZT Hall #6 also exhibits a unique blend of contemporary American and traditional Czech architectural features. In many ways, the hall resembles the domestic architecture of the 1920s and 1930s, perhaps in part because a residential builder oversaw its construction. Its gabled main roof and front porch, both of which have open eaves with exposed rafter tails, as well as its wood siding and 6/6 double-hung wood windows would all have been common on a house from the period. The building's neo-baroque front façade, however, with its unique curved parapet, clearly distinguishes the building from any typical American architecture of the time. Across the country, the social halls of Czech-American benevolent organizations built during the late 19th and early 20th centuries often incorporated similar façades. The use of the neo-baroque followed a contemporary trend in the Czech provinces of Central Europe, where the style manifested strong if unfulfilled, nationalist sentiment.

Period of Significance

The period of significance for the Dubina Historic District spans from 1866, the date of the cemetery's earliest burial, to 1953, the fifty-year cutoff point. Significant dates include the first burial in the cemetery and the 1911 completion of Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church, and the 1936 construction of KJZT Hall #6.