East Bernard, Texas

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D
Dujka Brothers
polka Pop: 15

Rivers & Roads in Song near East Bernard

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near East Bernard.

U.S. Route 59 7 songs Brazos River 37 songs Texas Colorado River 6 songs Interstate 10 32 songs US Route 90 8 songs Interstate 45 7 songs

History of East Bernard

Kolaches on the East Bank RoadyGoat

1880

After the 1880s, German and Slavic (Czech) families poured into East Bernard, farming cotton and rice and bringing their food, faith, and language with them. One anchor became the KJT, short for Katolicka Jednota Texaska, or Catholic Union of Texas, a Czech Catholic fraternal society founded statewide in 1889. Local Society No. 40 hosts events at Riverside Hall, built in 1927 on the east bank of the San Bernard River off Highway 90A on Buls Road. Since 1992 that hall has hosted the Czech Kolache-Klobase Festival, drawing crowds for polka, sausage (klobase), and hundreds of the sweet fruit-and-cheese pastries called kolaches. It is a fitting spot: the festival sits on the same east side of the river where Jethro Spivi's first cabin gave the town its name more than a century before.

Why It Is East Bernard RoadyGoat

1850

The name is a compass reading. Around 1850, Jethro Spivi built the first residence here on the EAST bank of the San Bernard River, so the settlement became East Bernard. Growth was slow until 1859, when the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway (the first operating railroad in Texas, begun at Harrisburg in 1853) reached Eagle Lake and crossed the river near here. A depot called Bernard Station opened, and by 1869 it was moved from the east bank to the west side, where Main Street grew up around it. A post office followed in 1866, and the community was probably not officially named East Bernard until 1874. Ironically, the town that carries an eastern name has spent its whole life on the river's west bank, at the junction of State Highway 60 and U.S. 90A.

RoadyGoat →

The Machines That Made Rice Country RoadyGoat

1898

East Bernard sits on the eastern edge of the Lissie prairie, flat coastal grassland ideal for flooding rice, which needs standing water to grow. This land does not flood itself, so around 1900 engineers built the plumbing to deliver it. Captain William Dunovant planted 40 acres of rice on the south end of Eagle Lake in 1898, and canal companies soon pumped water from the Colorado River across the prairie. Within a few years more than 150 shallow wells dotted the area, and in 1903 a steam electric-generating plant east of Lissie powered seven of them, until canal irrigation from the Colorado River made them obsolete. By 1930 irrigated land in Wharton County had grown to 21,384 acres, and the county produced about one million bushels of rice, a feat of hydraulic engineering as much as farming.

Powell Point School

1869

William E. Kendall, an Anglo lawyer from Richmond, Texas, subdivided his plantation here into 100-acre farm tracts in 1869. He sold the land exclusively to Freedmen and by the 1880s a distinctly African American community named Kendleton had developed here. In 1890 local A. M. E. churches built three one-room schools to form Common School District No. 4, an all-African American district which included the original land grant of Elizabeth Powell. Tellie B. Mitchell, a Kendleton native and graduate of Wiley College (1903), returned to Kendleton and established Powell Point School in 1904 in a two-room schoolhouse. The school prospered and in 1918 graduated six students, five of whom went on to college and became educators. In 1923 Mitchell persuaded the Rosenwald Foundation to grant funds to build a new Powell Point School facility here with six classrooms, a library, and an auditorium. The school became a model institution and entry into its student body was an advantage sought by African American throughout southeast Texas. T. B. Mitchell served as school principal until 1954. Powell Point, today an elementary school, is a locally revered institution which symbolizes Kendleton's unique cultural heritage and promise for the future. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995

Historical Marker → · 4.7 mi away

Holy Cross Catholic Parish

1880

Many Catholic Czechoslovakian immigrants settled in the prairies near East Bernard in the 1880s. Visiting priests served their religious needs. In 1900 the settlers began the establishment of a parish by purchasing cemetery property in East Bernard. The first Holy Cross Church, a small frame structure, was built in 1905 by Valentine Kozelsky on two acres of land donated by Jan and Anna Vacek. A rectory was built in 1921 for the first permanent resident pastor, the Rev. Joseph C. Kunc. The Holy Cross Catholic school was organized in 1922. A new church building was constructed in 1925 by R. H. Reese of Eagle Lake. Houston architect M. J. Sullivan designed the Spanish Colonial revival structure. It featured a 70-foot belfry and imported Czechoslovakian adornments including statues, painted copper wall hangings, and 10 large, unique stained glass windows of Roundel design. A new school and convent were built in 1928 in the same architectural style. The school operated until 1967. The Pioneer Chapel, a model of the original church, was built in 1994. Holy Cross Catholic Church is now the oldest Catholic church in continuous use in Wharton County. (1997)

Historical Marker →

K.J.T. St. Wenceslaus Society No. 40

1889

Beginning in the 1880s, Czech settlers came to this area, contributing to the development of East Bernard. To supprt Texas Czechs of the Catholic faith, residents of Bluff (Hostyn) established the Katolická Jednota Texasská, or Czech Catholic Union of Texas, in 1889. Known as the K.J.T., the group provided insurance and other member benefits. In 1905, men of East Bernard's Holy Cross Catholic parish organized a local chapter, K.J.T. St. Wenceslaus Society No. 40. Charter members were August E. Morris, R.W. Brandl, Frank Toman, John J. Vacek, Frank Polak, John Skalicky and John Slovak. By 1913, the group constructed a large hall at this site. It became a social center, with activities including conventions, bazaars and other events. The hall burned in 1939, and the members purchased Riverside Hall, built in 1925 east of town on the east bank of the San Bernard River. The large round structure had a tall central pole that helped support the circular ceiling and large roof beams. Over the next decades, Riverside Hall drew crowds to see acts that ranged from big band and polka musical acts to country and western and rock and roll performers. Thousands of people attended the klobase-kolache festivals held at the site in the late 1970s. In 1986, a fire destroyed the Riverside building. The K.J.T. built a new hall in 1987, and the group remains a social force in East Bernard, with more than 500 members. Now open to both men and women for membership, it offers insurance and clergy retirement benefits, youth activities and scholarships, and a host of other services. (2006)

Historical Marker →

East Bernard, TX

1850

East Bernard is on the west side of the San Bernard River at the intersection of State Highway 60 and U.S. Highway 90A, fifteen miles north of Wharton in northeast Wharton County. The community was originally on the east side of the river, where Jethro Spivi built the first residence around 1850; hence the name East Bernard. Settlement was slow until 1859 and the arrival of the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway. A bridge was built, and the depot, Bernard Station, though originally located on the east bank of the river, was moved by 1869 to the west side, to the site of East Bernard's future Main Street. The rest of the town grew up around the railway. The first post office was established in 1866, but the community was probably not officially named East Bernard until 1874. After the Civil War the community began to grow rapidly, as new settlers arrived with British surnames. Although Joseph Habermacher operated a store and saddle shop in Bernard Station some time before 1867, the main influx of German and Slavic immigrants came after the 1880s. In the mid-1890s the farming community had a population of 150, and businesses included a steam gin, a gristmill, a telegraph office, and two general stores. The first church in East Bernard was established in 1893, when German Methodist settlers dismantled their church in Content, three miles south of Weimar, and moved it by rail to East Bernard, where it was rebuilt in 1909. Catholic and Baptist congregations started holding services in private homes around 1900; their sanctuaries were completed between 1905 and 1907. The present Catholic church, built in 1925, has stained glass windows from Czechoslovakia, mosaics from Munich, a statue of St. Anthony from Italy, and statuary carved in the German Tyrol. An Assembly of God congregation began Pentecostal services in a private home in 1970 and moved into a new building by 1978. The first school building was erected around 1888 one mile north of the depot; by 1912 a brick high school had been built in town. Around 1916 East Bernard became an independent school district, and by 1956 nearby schools in Nottawa, Muldoon, Bernard Prairie, and Lissie were consolidated with the East Bernard school. A Texas historical marker now marks the site of the original school. East Bernard has had several newspapers, the first of which, the East Bernard Tribune , began in the 1920s. In the late 1980s the town was served by a weekly paper with the same name. Riverside Hall, built in 1927 on the east bank of the river, became a popular dance pavilion, where Paul Whiteman was once featured. In the early years of the settlement pioneer merchants H. P. Stockton and John G. Leveridge had operated a banking business in the back of Leveridge's General Store; by 1907 they had organized the Union State Bank. R. B. Boettcher purchased the controlling stock in 1911. In 1960 J. R. Peace, owner of a large furniture company, helped organize a chamber of commerce, which, since East Bernard was unincorporated, performed much of the duties of a city government. The community later incorporated in 2000. In the 1980s East Bernard's economy, though centered on agriculture, also included a gas pipeline company, a major kite-manufacturer, and several research corporations. In 1988 the population of 1,500 was served by sixty-three businesses. In 1990 the population was 1,544, and in 2000 it had grown to 1,729. In 2016 the population was estimated at 2,309.

Tsha Handbook →

J. D. Hudgins Ranch

1882

The J. D. Hudgins Ranch was established in 1882 by Rachel Ann Northington McKenzie Hudgins and her four sons in Wharton County with main operations in Hungerford, fifty miles southwest of Houston on U.S. Highway 59, and six miles northeast of Wharton, Texas. The ranch is recognized by the Family Land Heritage as a 100-year-old family-run ranch, and it is acknowledged by the American Brahman Breeders Association as having the largest number of registered Gray Brahman cattle in the world. The J. D. Hudgins Ranch has never hired outside management and is one of the few United States ranches of its sales volume to be totally family run. After the death of Joel Hudgins in 1873, Rachel asked their son Josiah Dawson (J. D.) to take over the family interests. The family began purchasing land in Wharton County; acquiring over 10,000 acres, in addition to their other holdings. In 1897 the four brothers divided the property between themselves and operated independently. In 1908 J. D. and his wife Mollie (McKinney), formed a partnership with their four children, to be known as the J. D. Hudgins Ranch. J. D. took over ranch management and was in charge until his death in 1928, when his son, Walter J. Hudgins, directed ranch operations until his death in 1943. His son, Edgar H. Hudgins, supervised it until 1962, at which time the ranch was divided into five divisions, representing the family groups of the grandchildren of J. D. Hudgins. The ranch was still operating in 1985 under the Hudgins, Mangum, Locke, Forgason, and Koonce divisions. Originally the ranch maintained herds of slick-haired Louisiana cattle with a small amount of Brahman blood in them. In 1915 Hudgins purchased the ranch's first purebred Brahman cows from A. P. Borden; these animals were descendants of the herd brought from India by Borden in 1906. In 1933 the Hudgins Ranch purchased the gray Brahman bull Manso, a descendant of a pureblood Brazilian Brahma bred by the Sartwelle Brothers of Palacios, Texas. Manso sired 316 offspring in ten years, and today 65 percent of all the Brahman cattle registered by the American Brahman Breeders Association can trace their lineage directly back to this gentle, very beefy bull. Before Manso, Brahman cattle generally were wild, thin, and leggy. The half-circle "L" brand on the right hip of each animal is the registered J. D. Hudgins Ranch firebrand. Formerly the brand was used by J. D. Hudgins's nephew; it was chosen and bought by Hudgins because it was almost impossible for rustlers to alter. In addition to the ranch brand, each division has its own firebrand on the right forearm of each animal. In the late twentieth century the J. D. Hudgins Ranch shipped purebreds to forty-two different countries and thirty-four states in the United States. In some years up to 85 percent of all their cattle sales were shipped to foreign countries. The ranch began international sales in 1932. The National Cattleman's Association recognized J. D. Hudgins Ranch as being among the ten largest purebred (all breeds) cattle producers in the United States. The Hudgins Ranch, an original backer of the Houston Fat Stock Show, won the champion Brahman cow award at the first show in 1932 and at the fiftieth anniversary show in 1982. The cattle continued to capture awards, and by 1990 had won over 1,500 championships in exhibition rings in the U.S. and in foreign countries. The ranch was featured in Edgar H. Hudgins's book, Hudgins: Virginia to Texas , a first-place winner in the 1983 Texas Historical Commission Publication Contest. It is frequently featured in magazines like Texas Highways . The family office building, from which the operations of the ranch are currently directed, stands at the crossroads of State Highway 60 and Old U.S. Highway 59, directly across from an official Texas historical marker commemorating the ranch.

Tsha Handbook → · 8.7 mi away

Kendleton, TX

1860

Kendleton is at the intersection of U.S. Highway 59 and Farm Road 2919, fourteen miles southwest of Rosenberg in western Fort Bend County. It was once the site of a plantation belonging to William E. Kendall. In the 1860s Kendall divided the plantation into small farms, which he sold to former slaves. The community that resulted became known as Kendleton. In 1882 the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway Company laid track between Rosenberg and Victoria, passing through Kendleton. A post office was established in 1884 with Benjamin F. Williams as postmaster. In 1890 Kendleton had a general store and twenty-five residents; by 1896 it had grown to include three general stores and a Methodist and a Baptist church, which served some 2,000 people in the surrounding rural area. The census of 1900 reported 116 residents in the town itself. The Kendleton schools also served a wider population than Kendleton proper. In 1903 the community had two schools for twelve White students and three schools for 202 Black students. The population of Kendleton fell to thirty-six in 1933 but rose again to 100 by the late 1940s. It fluctuated between 150 and 200 in the 1960s and early 1970s but, after voters chose to incorporate Kendleton in 1973, rose to more than 600. In 1990 Kendleton reported 496 residents. Locals estimated that there were around 2,200 people in the town and the surrounding area, however the 2000 census still reported a population of 466.

Tsha Handbook → · 7.2 mi away

Things to Do in East Bernard

quirky 19.4 mi away
Trio of Jumping Cows

A trio of multicolored fiberglass steers mounted to look like they are leaping skyward and salvaged from the 2001 CowParade Houston charity event now rises…

Everything Near East Bernard

552 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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