Join the Friends of GRSP/HCSNA at the Mammen Family Public Library for this unique presentation!
10:30am-12:00pm Presentation at Mammen Family Public Library (Meeting Room C):
Join us as we learn about two of the families who lived in what is now the Guadalupe River State Park and Honey Creek State Natural Area. This presentation will consist of photographic and documentary history of the Doeppenschmidt and Weidner Families at their ranch.
12:30pm-2:30pm Optional Homestead Site Visit with Friends of Guadalupe River State Park and Honey Creek State Natural Area:
The Friends of Guadalupe River State Park and Honey Creek State Natural Area invite attendees to visit the Doeppenschmidt-Weidner Homestead at the Honey Creek State Natural Area. This trip includes a visit to Adam and Peter Doeppenschmidts’ homesteads and to the grave site of Jacob Doeppenschmidt. There will also be a conversation and discussion with Sara Weidner Turner, descendant of Otto Carl Weidner, in the picnic area in front of the old ranch house. She was a frequent visitor to her grandparents’ house back in the 1960s and has many stories to tell about her time at the ranch. This area of the State Natural Area is not open to the public except for special occasions like this. More details regarding this visit will be provided at the presentation at the library.
More about the Doeppenschmidt and Weidner Families:
Jacob Doeppenschmidt and his wife Marianne were among the earliest German immigrant families to settle in the area that today is part of the Honey Creek State Natural Area. At age 47, Jacob had immigrated from Germany in 1854 with his wife and five children, including four sons. Near the end of the Civil War, Jacob bought a few hundred acres on the north side of the Guadalupe River in the Curry Creek area, and then in 1869 bought a 160-acre plot for $130, where he settled with Marianne and their three youngest sons, Philip, Adam, and Peter.
After repeated tragedies, including the death of Philip by rattlesnake bite in 1878, the murder of Peter’s 12-year-old daughter in 1888, and the burning to death of his wife Magdalena in 1892, Peter sold his share of the inherited property to his brother Adam in 1894. Adam eventually retired from ranching, in 1910, selling his by then 4,000-acre cattle and sheep ranch to two young second generation German immigrants, Otto Carl Weidner and Fritz Wilhelm Rust. Otto Weidner and his family continued to live at the ranch house that Adam Doeppenschmidt had built in 1872, which is still standing in the State Natural Area. The Rust family had acquired the part of the ranch to the west of Honey Creek and built a new home, now referred to as the Rust House, in 1917, that is now in the Guadalupe River State Park.
This presentation is offered in partnership with the Friends of Guadalupe River State Park and Honey Creek State Natural Area.
Registration for this program is required and will open up on October 4, 2025 at 10:30am. Please note: this program is suitable for ages 13 and older.
You may also like the following events from Guadalupe River State Park - Texas Parks & Wildlife:
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Meetups in Bulverde,
Trips & Adventurous Activities in Bulverde.
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