Schulenburg: Gateway to the Painted Churches

Schulenburg was founded in eighteen seventy-three when the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway built through and Louis Schulenburg donated land for the depot. A post office came in eighteen seventy-four, incorporation in eighteen seventy-five. The surrounding area had already attracted German, Austrian, and Czech settlers, and what made their community remarkable was what they built to worship in.

These immigrants, far from home and missing the great churches of Central Europe, constructed elaborately painted sanctuaries across the countryside, a number of them within a short drive. Schulenburg became the hub for visiting what Texans now call the painted churches, with tour programs and an annual festival drawing visitors from across the country. The Czechs who settled here had learned German in Austrian schools, which smoothed their integration with the German neighbors, creating an unusually cohesive immigrant corridor.