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Welcome Singing
Society's Building
Courtesy
Bellville Public Library |
Welcome sits
on a picturesque curve on Highway 109 between
Industry and Brenham.
It's not a blind curve, but let us say that when you visit, you
should be very attentive to cars following you and oncoming traffic
as well.
The population of 150 people got tired of their sign being stolen
so someone came up with the idea of making it larger (and harder
to conceal). It now reads: Welcome Community. They're still
on their first one.
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The curve at
Welcome
TE photo, 2000 |
History in
a Pecan Shell
The town dates
to the 1820s when it was an Anglo-American settlement with
no name. This displayed wisdom since a town with no name can't have
its sign stolen. It took German immigrant schoolmaster J.F.
Schmidt to come up with a name he felt reflected the hospitality of
the town.
A similar naming occurred in Industry,
just down the road, only this time it was the Anglos (according to
legend) who were commenting on the German work ethic.
A Singing Society was organized by this same J. Schmidt and
the Bellville Library
just happened to have an old photograph of the building which they
have graciously allowed us to use here.
The high-water mark for Welcome's population occurred in the 1930s
when it was an estimated 200. Shortly after WWII
the town had as few as 60 people. The 1990 census showed 150. |
The Welcome
Store c. 1890
TE photo, 2000 |
Native
Son
Hand-tooled
Holsters Tell Stories by Mike
Cox
"August William Brill was welcomed into the world by his parents
in Welcome, Texas on May 1, 1872. Welcome is a small town in Austin
County, which had a large population of German Texans. In fact,
Brill's father Henry was a farmer who had come to Texas in 1844
from Germany.
A.W. Brill (as he was later better known) apparently stayed in Austin
County through his teenage years. Seventy-two hours after Independence
Day in 1889, young Brill joined the Texas Militia (forerunner of
the Texas National Guard) and served in a unit based in Sealy.
Around the turn of the century, he moved to Austin, where he was
listed in the city directory as a saddle maker and salesman at W.T.
Wroe and Sons Saddlery. Somewhere along the way, Brill expanded
his leather-crafting skills and began making holsters. Brill holsters,
sometimes called Austin holsters, became particularly popular with
Texas Rangers as well as county and city lawmen...." more
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| Texas
Escapes, in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing
Texas, asks that anyone wishing to share their local history, stories,
landmarks and recent or vintage photos, please contact
us. |
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