Flatonia: Where the Czechs Arrived with the Rails

Flatonia was born on a specific date: April eighth, eighteen seventy-four, when the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway acquired land from William Faries and established a depot. The town was named for pioneer merchant F. W.

Flato. What the railroad brought besides commerce was immigration. Waves of immigrants, Bohemian Czech families among them, followed the railroad and its cheap land, layering a Central European character onto this stretch of Fayette County.

The annual Czhilispiel festival, its name a cheerful collision of Czech and Texan, has drawn visitors for decades and keeps the heritage visible. German, Bohemian, Greek, Arab, and Italian settlers all passed through, but the Czech influence is what Flatonia is remembered for.