The Junior Historian, Volume 28, Number 1, September 1967 Page: 3
[2], 32 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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THE JUNIOR HISTORIAN
early in life to show the traits of inde-
pendence he had inherited from his fath-
er. Like his father he was eager to make
his own start in life; he, too, had dreams
of making a success of his future.
Probably discouraged by his unfor-
tunate ventures driving cattle to Utah
and Kansas in 1870-1871, Henry D. re-
turned to Texas in 1872 and made a
new start. He married a girl whom he
had known in New Braunfels, Bertha
Simon, and settled on the north bank of
the Guadalupe River about four miles
northeast of New Braunfels. Here he
built a small frame house for his wife
and his parents.
The land which Henry settled was vir-
tually uninhabited. Except for a few
small farms, the only attempt to settle
outside of New Braunfels had been the
establishment of the West Texas Univer-
sity by the Reverend L. C. Ervendberg
and his wife, which had been the re-
sult of an earlier asylum for the care of
orphans; this school stood right across
the Guadalupe River from Gruene's land.
With great ambitions for taming the vir-
gin land, Gruene decided-in spite, so
to speak-to take up farming. The ten-
ant system seemed most efficient to him
and, deciding to experiment with it, he
made it known he was looking for share-
croppers. The news spread quickly and
many tenants of Latin-American descent
came from all parts of Texas, but mostly
from north and east of Gruene's land-
Maxwell, Lockhart, and southeast of San
Marcos. Several families came from the
area of New Braunfels itself; others,
hearing the prospects in letters from rel-
atives, came all the way from Germany.
Within several months, Gruene had be-
tween twenty and thirty tenant families.
To each he assigned a plot of either one
hundred or two hundred acres, depend-
ing upon the size of the family. The land
was the naturally fertile black soil char-
acteristic of the Guadalupe region. The
flatness of the terrain would conserve
water and thus prevent soil erosion. Al-though perfect for cotton raising, which
was to be the cash crop of these fam-
ilies, the climate was favorable for any
crop.
There were two types of tenant farm-
ing under the system of H. D. Gruene:
"half-renters," whose implements were
furnished and whose food and clothing
were to be bought on credit and who
gave one-half of their crop earnings to
Gruene, and "third-renters," who had
their own implements and teams but gave
one-third of their profits to Gruene.In 1878, in keeping with the share sys-
tem of farming, H. D. Gruene established
a mercantile store in a white frame build-
ing on the road leading from San Anto-
nio to Austin, where tenants could, if
necessary, buy their essentials on credit,
"settling up" after harvest time each year.
The Gruene store was much like any
other mercantile store during that period
of Texas history. On one side of the
store the customer could find the groce-
ries and canned goods he needed; on the
other, implements and hardware sup-
plies could be bought. To make for
quicker and easier reach of merchandise,
ladders with rollers were fixed on tracks
along the shelves. Goods were fairly in-
expensive, and the tenants found that
they could get almost anything they
needed at the Gruene store.
Although the tenants could buy many
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Texas State Historical Association. The Junior Historian, Volume 28, Number 1, September 1967, periodical, September 1967; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth391552/m1/5/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.