High Hill: The Queen of the Painted Churches

High Hill is barely a community anymore, just a scatter of farmsteads on the Fayette County blackland, but it holds the church many Texans consider the finest of the region's famous painted churches. The Nativity of Mary, Blessed Virgin Catholic Church was built in nineteen oh-six by architect Leo Dielmann and painted in nineteen twelve. The interior designs were drawn freehand by the painters Ferdinand Stockert and Hermann Kern and fixed to the walls on canvas, which gives them the look of wallpaper.

The stained glass windows came from the parish's earlier church and were moved here when the new building went up. The entire building grew from a congregation of German Catholic immigrants who had been worshipping here since eighteen sixty-nine, on a site that now anchors the Catholic State League of Texas. People drive considerable distances just to stand inside it.