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Monday, July 31, 2006

Only Two Months until Oktoberfest


OKTOBERFEST, October 6-8, is a colorful, festive celebration of Fredericksburg, Texas' German heritage. OKTOBERFEST has become an annual tradition around the world. OKTOBERFEST is a community event of family entertainment featuring two stages and two tents with continuous oompah music, art & crafts, polka and waltz contests, Children's fun area ~ Kinder Park, a German Bier Tent, and Oktoberfest Vineyard area, plus delicious food and drink ... all weekend long! For more information on OKTOBERFEST, write to them at PO Box 222, Fredericksburg, Texas 78624, or call 830-997-4810.

Now is the time to make your Oktoberfest lodging reservations. By the end of August, there won't be any rooms left in town.

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Runnymede Cooking Classes - August 2 and 3

Molly Fowler, gourmet cooking instructor from Houston, returns to Runnymede Country Inn giving instructions for two new cooking classes, Tapas, and Cool Dishes.

WEDNESDAY, AUG. 2nd, 6:30PM - 9PM
Tapas: Small Dishes with Big Flavors will be the menu feature, and dishes included are honey mustard chicken skewers, ginger glazed pork ribs, sherried shrimp with garlic, Caribbean cocktail pizzas, beef canapes with tapenade, fruit topped with goat cheese tarts and macadamia nut bars.

THURSDAY, AUG. 3rd, 10:30AM - 1PM
Cool Dishes features creamy zucchini soup, asparagus and goat cheese salad, Mediterranean chopped salad, panzanella salad and ethereal banana coconut cream pie.

Cost is $35 per person and participants must register. Participants will taste all dishes prepared & take home a recipe packet.

Runnymede Country Inn is located at 184 Fullbrooke Lane south of Fredericksburg, Texas. Call (830) 990-2449 for more information.

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Saturday, July 29, 2006

Hill Country Auto Swap Meet - 7/28-30

An annual event featuring antique and classic cars, parts, and other miscellaneous related items for sale. The 29th Annual Hill Country Swap Meet will be held at Lady Bird Municipal Park, Friday through Sunday. Call (325) 388-2223 for more information.

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Friday, July 28, 2006

Italian Flea Market Event: Summer Sale at Villa Texas - 6/28 to 30

Shop Villa Texas for Summer savings on in-stock merchandise including: Chantal casualware (25% to 75% off) - Arte Italica Italian chocolate dinerware (50% off) - selected colors/styles Baggallini (25% off) - selected Caldrea products (25% off) - Milano photo albums (50% off) - Italian Murano glasses (50% off) - selected baskets (25% to 50% off) - furniture (25% to 50% off)- and more!

Villa Texas is at 234 West Main Street in Uptown Fredericksburg, Texas.

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Thursday, July 27, 2006

Dr. Pepper Junior Tennis Tournament - 7/28

Junior tournament for ages 10 - 18. Singles, doubles, and mixed doubles.

The tournament will be held at two locations:
• Fredericksburg High School HEB Tennis Courts on Highway 16 South
• Lady Bird Johnson Park on Highway 16 South

For more info, please contact Randall King at(830) 997-5667.

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Local Peaches at Burg's Corner in Stonewall

For the next two weeks, Burg’'s Corner in Stonewall will have Dixieland and Red Skin peaches fresh from Jimmy Duecker’'s orchards. They also have fresh vegetables, jams, jellies, pickles, salsas and many more items. For more information, call (830)644-2604.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Book Signing Event: The Architectural Legacy of Alfred Giles - 7/29


Meet author, Mary Carolyn Hollers George, and have her sign a copy of her newest book on Alfred Giles and his enduring contributions to Texas architecture.

Darlene Marwitz - local historical preservation consultant and owner of Villa Texas (234 West Mainin Uptown Fredericksburg, Texas)- will display a period photograph of the Gillespie County Courthouse (one of Alfred Giles' enduring legacies). A copy will be donated to the Gillespie County Historical Society Archives. Additionally, special orders can be placed at Villa Texas for a reproduction of the period photograph - a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Gillespie County Historical Society.

The Architectural Legacy of Alfred Giles (retail $60.00) contains before-and-after photographs of restored buildings in San Antonio and the Hill Country of Texas, including: the Albert Maverick Building, the Crockett, Soledad, and University Blocks, and the L. Wolfson’s Mercantile Store, all in downtown San Antonio; San Antonio residences including the Carl Groos Residence, the Maverick-Carter House, the Floyd McGown Residence, and the James Milton Vance Residence; the Second Gillespie County Courthouse in Fredericksburg; the August Faltin Store, Ingenhuett-Faust Hotel, and the Post Office, all in Comfort; and various other buildings in the Hill Country area.

After emigrating from England, Alfred Giles practiced architecture in Texas and northern Mexico from 1873 until 1920. He designed unpretentious domestic residences and showy mansions, county courthouses, and institutional and commercial structures throughout Texas. Giles was the architect-of-choice for prominent families of San Antonio, Comfort, Kerrville, and other central Texas towns. He designed a dozen county courthouses, of which six survive, as well as more than forty buildings at Fort Sam Houston, a National Historic Landmark.

In the last thirty years, many of Giles’s works, which were in sad states of repair, have been restored—largely as a result of the interest in Giles created by Mary Carolyn Hollers George’s first book on the architect, Alfred Giles: An English Architect in Texas and Mexico (Trinity University Press, 1972).

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

German Film & Discussion - Sophie Scholl: The Last Days - 7/25 - 6:30 pm


Texas Tech's International Film Series and Discussion Group occasionally shows foreign films and this particular film is in German with English subtitles - Sophie Scholl: The Last Days, directed by Marc Rothemund. The film has received numerous prestigious film awards in Europe and has only been released in the U.S. in limited locations.

The screening and discussion following the film are open to the public and free of charge. The film begins at 6:30 pm at 102 E. San Antonio St., Suite C. Call (830) 990-2717 for more information.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Cross Mountain

Cross Mountain has historical significance to Fredericksburg, Texas. The early German settlers in the Hill Country town reportedly found an old wooden cross on top of the hill that may have been left by earlier Spanish explorers who passed through the Texas Hill Country. As a result, this area became known as Kreuzberg (Cross Mountain). The original cross has been lost to history, but today a large metal cross stands in its place.


The City of Fredericksburg, which owns the property, has plans to develop the park and add facilities in the future. A master plan has been developed, but its implementation has not yet been funded and may be a few years away.


Cross Mountain stands 1,951 feet above sea level and offers a panoramic view of Fredericksburg, Texas.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Enchanted Rock

Enchanted Rock is a spectacular granite pluton in southwestern Llano County about twenty miles north of Fredericksburg, Texas, in the Texas Hill Country. The granite dome rises some 385 feet above the streambed of nearby Sandy Creek to a maximum elevation of 1,825 feet above mean sea level. This great granite monadnock is the second largest such mountain in the United States (the largest is Stone Mountain, Georgia). In 1992 a University of Texas geophysics researcher, Ian W. D. Dalziel, linked Enchanted Rock geologically with granite peaks in Antarctica. The name Enchanted Rock derives from Spanish and Anglo-Texas interpretations of Indian legends and related folklore, which attribute magical and spiritual properties to the ancient landmark.


The local Comanche and Tonkawa Indians both feared and revered the rock, and were said to offer sacrifices at its base. One Indian tradition holds that a band of brave warriors, the last of their tribe, defended themselves on the rock from the attacks of other Indians. The warriors, however, were finally overcome and killed, and since then Enchanted Rock has been haunted by their ghosts. Another legend tells of an Indian princess who threw herself off the rock when she saw her people slaughtered by enemy Indians; now her spirit is said to haunt Enchanted Rock. Yet another tale tells of the spirit of an Indian chief who was doomed to walk the summit forever as punishment for sacrificing his daughter; the indentations on the rock's summit are his footprints. Finally, there is the story of a white woman who was kidnapped by Indians but escaped and lived on Enchanted Rock, where her screams were said to be audible at night. The Indian legends of the haunting of Enchanted Rock were probably bolstered by the way the rock glitters on clear nights after rain, and by the creaking noises reported on cool nights after warm days. Scientists have since theorized that the glittering is caused either by water trapped in indentations in the rock's surface or by the moon reflecting off wet feldspar, and the creaking noises by contraction of the rock's outer surface as it cools.


The first European to see Enchanted Rock was possibly Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca,qv who traveled through this area before 1536. The rock was visited and described by many during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Capt. Henry S. Brown, who came from Green DeWitt's colony on a punitive Indian expedition in 1829, appears to have been the first Anglo-Texan to visit the location. William B. DeWees described the rock in 1834.


A number of stories involve rumors of great mineral wealth to be found at Enchanted Rock. Spanish explorers believed it was one large chunk of silver or iron. They also sought legendary gold and silver mines nearby, and some early Texans believed that the lost "Bowie Mines" were in the vicinity west of Enchanted Rock. Some gold has in fact been mined near Enchanted Rock, but not enough to be commercially profitable. According to an account written in 1834 the rock was once supposed to be of platinum.


One of the most enduring and romantic stories involving Enchanted Rock is that of a young Spanish soldier, Don Jesús Navarro, and his rescue of the Indian maiden Rosa. Navarro supposedly came from Monterrey to San José y San Miguel de Aguayo Mission in San Antonio in 1750. At the mission he met and fell in love with Rosa, the Christian daughter of the Indian chief Tehuan. But Rosa was kidnapped by a band of Comanches bent on sacrificing her to the spirits of Enchanted Rock. Her daring lover followed them there and managed to rescue her as she was about to be burned at the stake.


Another tale, given official credence when the state of Texas commemorated it with a plaque near the summit of Enchanted Rock in 1936, relates a heroic episode in the life of Capt. John Coffee Hays. Cut off by Comanche raiders from his company of Texas Rangers on a surveying trip in the fall of 1841, Hays took refuge on Enchanted Rock and singlehandedly held off the Indians in a three-hour battle that ended when the frustrated Indians fled, convinced even more firmly than before that Enchanted Rock was possessed by malevolent spirits.


Enchanted Rock was the subject of a natural-area survey published by the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs in 1979. The site was acquired by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in that year and was opened as Enchanted Rock State Park in March of 1984.


The 1,643-acre park is roughly triangular, and Enchanted Rock is near its center. The first owners of this land were Anavato and María Martínez, to whom a headright certificate was issued on March 16, 1838. They sold it to James Robinson in 1841, and he in turn sold it to Samuel A. Maverick in 1844. Maverick, believing that Enchanted Rock might prove to be a source of mineral wealth, had part of the property surveyed in 1847, and it was patented to him by the state on September 22, 1851. Maverick's widow sold the property to N. P. P. Browne in 1880-81; on February 19, 1886, Browne sold it to John R. Moss, who sold it to J. D. Slator later that year. Two ranching brothers, C. T. and A. F. Moss, bought the property from Slator in 1895 and in November 1897 partitioned it between them, except for Enchanted Rock itself, which they held in common. Eventually C. T. Moss acquired his brother's holdings, and in 1927 C. T.'s son Tate inherited the property and opened it to the tourist trade. On October 26, 1946, he sold it to Albert Faltin, who later sold a half interest to Llano rancher Charles H. Moss, C. T.'s grandson. Charles and his wife, Ruth, managed and eventually acquired full title to the property but decided to sell it in 1978. Moss first offered it to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, but the agency could not pay his price. The Nature Conservancy, a private concern based in Arlington, Virginia, bought the property for $1.3 million on March 1, 1978, and agreed to act as interim owner until the state could take over, thus guaranteeing that the area would not be opened to private development. United States secretary of the interior Cecil Andrus told Governor Dolph Briscoe that a federal land and water conservation grant would be made available for purchase of the area when matched by state funds, and the Nature Conservancy deeded the land to the state on March 7, 1978, with the agreement that Moss would continue to operate it until June 1 of that year.


Besides Enchanted Rock itself, the Enchanted Rock State Natural Area includes Turkey Peak and Enchanted Rock Cave among its natural features, as well as a wide variety of native flora and fauna. Among the more than 400 species of plants in the park are live oak, Texas hickory, blackjack oak, cedar, American elm, honey mesquite, and pecan trees; lily yucca, prickly pear, barrel cactus, strawberry cactus, and pencil cactus; and about 100 species of mosses, lichens, and liverworts. Animals found in the park include white-tailed deer, armadillos, bobcats, raccoons, black rock squirrels, red foxes, cotton rats, four kinds of hawk, turkeys, great horned owls, turkey vultures, copperheads, diamondbacks, cottonmouths, bull snakes, checkered ribbon snakes, and spotted whiptails. The park also contains some 114 archeological sites, at which various Indian artifacts have been unearthed. The area has long been a favorite destination of hikers, campers, rock-climbers, hang-gliders, and other outdoor enthusiasts from around the state. In 1977 an estimated 50,000 people visited the area; the park drew 30,000 visitors in three months when it reopened in March 1984 after eighteen months of renovation. With $1.9 million in improvements made during those months, in 1986 the park had a new headquarters building, a visitors' center, fifty-two tent sites, sixty primitive campsites, forty picnic sites, and numerous hiking trails.


Sources:

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "ENCHANTED ROCK LEGENDS," http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/EE/lxe1.html
(accessed August 9, 2005).

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "ENCHANTED ROCK," http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/EE/rje13.html
(accessed August 9, 2005).

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "ENCHANTED ROCK STATE NATURAL AREA,"
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/EE/gie1.html (accessed August
9, 2005).

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Roots Music in the Texas Hill Country - 7/22

Roots Music in the Texas Hill Country is a concert series now in its 4th season that presents concerts focusing on America's main genres of music. This month hear live blues & gospel on the grounds of the Pioneer Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas. Great food, cold drinks, and good people. The concert is from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Tickets are $10, with children under age 11 admitted free. Visit the Roots Music page for a admission discount coupon!

Monday, July 17, 2006

Red is Open on West Main Street

Graphic design, textured antiques, modern lines and sink-into- me linens will greet shoppers to the newest store on West Main. Red, is located at 218 West Main, in Fredericksburg, Texas' Uptown. Stop by and check it out! For more information, call (830)990-0700.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Navajo Grill Now Serving Dinner Seven Nights

The Navajo Grill, located at 803 East Main Street in Fredericksburg, Texas, is now serving dinner seven nights a week, starting at 5:30 p.m. Reservations suggested. For more information, call (830)990- 8289.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Night in Old Fredericksburg - 7/14-15

Night in Old Fredericksburg (NIOF) is an annual event held every year downtown at Marktplatz. A fun, family-friendly event, NIOF features great German food & drink, German music on two stages, Texas music, arts and crafts, a kids area, and historical exhibits.

Live music will be featured on two different stages, with this year's entertainment lineup as follows:

FRIDAY, JULY 14TH
The Sauerkrauts
6PM - 7:30PM & 9PM - 10:30PM
Dujka Brothers
7:30PM - 9PM & 10:30PM - 12AM

SATURDAY, JULY 15TH
Shiner Hobo Band
12PM - 1:30PM & 3PM - 4:30PM
Jodie Mikula Orchestra
1:30PM - 3PM & 4:30PM - 6PM
Seven Dutchmen
6PM - 7:30PM & 9PM - 10:30PM
Bobby Jones Czech Band
7:30PM - 9PM & 10:30PM - 12AM

Monday, July 10, 2006

American Yankee Assoc. National Fly-in - 7/10-14

The 2006 Annual Nation Fly-in of the American Yankee Association will take place at the Gillespie Co. airport from July 10-13. AYA enthusiasts from around the US will enjoy a week of fellowship, flying and fun. Call (325) 388-2002 for more information.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Giant Store Closing Sale Underway at Homestead

After 21 years of business, Homestead is closing its Fredericksburg store. Tim and Carol Bolton made the decision based on family commitments and a lifestyle change. The store has been a great draw for Fredericksburg over the years. Stop by 230 East Main Street, or call (830) 997-9551 for more information.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

FTC's "Beauty and the Beast" - June 23 - July 9

This delightful musical has been lifting the hearts of young and old on Broadway for 11 years and is still drawing full houses. It's the story of the prince who was cursed because he only looked for beauty on the outside, and whose heart is changed forever by young Belle.


The play runs on Friday & Saturday at 7:30 pm & Sunday at 2:00 pm. Ticket prices are $20/adults and $5/18 & younger, and can be obtained during the run of the show, or in advance via the Fredericksburg Theater Company's Box Office at 306. E. Austin St. Box Office hours are Wednesday – Friday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Group discounts are available for groups of 25 or more; contact the box office for more info: 888/669-7114 OR 830/997-3588.

Summer Color Sale at Wildseed Farms

Wildseed Farms is offering 20% to 50% off all plants and pottery from July 1- 31. Great time to add some color to your summer landscape. For more information, call (830)990-1393.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Cactus Pear Music Festival - July 7

The Cactus Pear Music Festival is chamber music that sizzles! The artistic director of this travelling festival is Stephanie Sant'Ambrogio, Concertmaster of the San Antonio Symphony. The concert will be held at Fredericksburg United Methodist Church, 1800 N. Llano Street in fredericksburg, Texas. Call (210) 824-5377.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Fredericksburg July 4th Events

Cannon Shoot: Becker Vineyards hosts this annual celebration of America's independence with the firing of a replica Civil War cannon every 30 minutes. Becker Vineyards is located 10 miles east of Fredericksburg, 3 miles west of Stonewall off Hwy 290 on Jenschke Lane.

Fourth of July Parade: This year's grand marshalls are the Our National Guard. The parade will begin at 10 am on Fredericksburg's Main Street. The Parade will turn left out of Nimitz Parkway, then right on Main Street and then make a U-turn in front of the Nimitz Museum, travel west on Main Street to BOWIE St. Afterwards, everyone is invited to Market Square for a Patriotic Program & live music from Sentimental Journey.

The Lyndon B. Johnson State Park & Historic Site presents Fourth of July at the Sauer-Beckmann Living History Farm: Come celebrate our nation's birthday at this United States presidential historical park in Stonewall, Texas. Visitors will experience life as a German family and their friends would have in the early 1900s. The barns and houses will be open as period costumed interpreters carry out the day-to-day farm activities. Throughout the day, you can take part in activities such as horseshoes, washer pitching, stick-horse races and other games and activities. LBJ State Park & Historic Site is located 2 miles east of Stonewall, 14 miles west of Johnson City on US Highway 290 toward Fredericksburg. Adjacent to both Ranch Road 1 and US Highway 290; enter on Park Road 52.

July 4th Fireworks: The fireworks begin at dusk at Lady Bird Johnson Park, 4 miles from Main Street on highway 16 South. Bring lawn chairs and an ice chest. The best vantage point will be had from The Hanger Hotel. The Officers' Club opens at 6 pm, and concessions will be available from 6 pm to 10 pm. Bring your lawn chair, but leave your ice chest at home. For more information, call (830)997-9990.