Biegel, Texas. (original) (raw)

The Biegel log home in the Winedale Historical Center near Round Top.
TE photo, January 2009

History in a Pecan ShellJoseph Biegel, a German immigrant from Alsace-Lorraine, received his land from an 1832 Mexican land grant. By the mid 1840s all but 400 acres of his grant had been sold. An agricultural community of German, Swiss, and Alsatian immigrants developed here in the 1860s and in 1866 storekeeper Helmuth Kroll opened for business. The town opened a post office in Kroll�s store in the mid 1870s.

With Kroll�s store as a cornerstone, other businesses opened and formed a town center. A dance hall was in operation under the auspices of a community organization and the town supported a school. When the railroad crossed Fayette County in the late 1880s, Biegel was bypassed and withered on the vine. From an estimated population of 250 in the early 1880s, Biegel shrank to a mere 50 by the mid 1890s.

In 1974-75 the Lower Colorado River Authority built the Seymour Smith power plant - a coal-burning electricity producing facility. The cooling reservoir became either Power Plant Lake or Lake Fayette � depending on which map you use or whom you talk to.

The Biegel log home was moved to the Winedale Historical Center near Round Top and the cemetery was moved nearby � but remains on LCRA land. As of early 2009 the Biegel cabin was undergoing restoration.

The Biegel cabin interior
TE photo, January 2009

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