Willow Springs, a Community Known by Many Names
The Willow Springs community lies west of Cummins Creek in the James Miles and John Andrews Leagues in the southeastern corner of Fayette County. David and Sarah Davis Breeding who came from Kentucky were early settlers in the area. The first known school session in the county occurred on the Breeding’s land in 1834, taught by a Mr. Rutland. McGinnis was another early family in the area.
With the first permanent German settlement in Texas only a few miles to the east at Industry, it’s no surprise that immigrants also established farms in the Willow Springs area. The Albrechts, Hennigers, Krebs, Muellers, Muenzlers, Pagels, Sauers, Schulzes, Scharnbergs, and Weidemanns were some of the earliest immigrants to locate there. In the late 1850s and 1860s, the term “Briten” Settlement—and other similar spellings that appear to be variations on the Breeding name—was used by the German-speaking Lutheran Pastor at nearby Frelsburg, Rev. J. C. Roehm, to describe the birthplace of local children.
In 1870 Rev. Roehm used the term “Pagel settlement” to describe the community. The Pagels had immigrated in 1850 and farmed just west of Cummins Creek. In 1866, after his father and most of his siblings had moved on to Lavaca County, the oldest son, F. Wilhelm Pagel, bought additional property at what is now the intersection of State Hwy 159 and FM 954. He dug a root cellar and built a house over it with thick rock walls covered with stucco. Pagel ran a general merchandise store on his property and the local community became known as Rock House, named after Pagel’s home, when he became its first postmaster on October 12, 1871. The name Rock House was still in use long after Wilhelm Pagel died in 1873 and his wife relinquished the post office, which was officially moved a few miles east into Austin county where the new postmaster, Ernst Witte, lived.
In 1880 Charles T. Zapp purchased one and a half acres to build a house and store across the road from the Pagels at the location of today’s Minssen Store. The following year he established a post office in the store, and the community was known for a time as Zapp or Zapp Post Office. Charles F. Garlin bought the store and served as the Zapp postmaster from 1892 until 1902, before selling it back to C. T. Zapp, who ran the post office again until it was discontinued in 1906.
Since the 1870s the community’s school located near the Willow Springs branch was called the Willow Springs School. Throughout all the post office changes the community was alternatively known as Willow Springs, the name it bears today.
Photograph: The Rock House at Willow Springs, ca 1893. From left: Johanna Pagel; Oscar, Emma, Lillie, Ed, Willie and Ernst Albrecht; and possibly Franz Brauner
by F. Lotto, 1902:
