Texas Historic Sites Inventory
This database, compiled in the late 1980s and sponsored by the LBJ-Heartland Council, contains brief documentation on historic sites in Blanco and Gillespie Counties, an area rich in German heritage and known as the home of former President Lyndon B. Johnson. Included in the survey are residences, stores and other commercial buildings, schools, and churches, with some sites dating to the mid-1800s.
Data from this survey can be located in neighborhood surveys from Blanco and Gillespie Counties and is identifiable by the name "LBJ-Heartland Council" listed at the top of the document as project sponsor.
What will I find?
Each document may include the following identifying information: project/area/sponsor, serial number, county, city/rural designation, site number, USGS quad number, UTM coordinates, property name, address or location, and owner's name and address.
Additional information which may be noted includes construction date; block and lot numbers; property style, form, history, and significance; original/present use; approximate acreage; notations on usage (farmland, ranchland, natural vegetation, residential, commercial, parkland, or other); topography; trees and plantings; accessibility; other existing surveys (National Register, Historic Areas Building Survey, National Historic Landmark, Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, and local); location in historic district; condition (excellent, good, fair, deteriorated, ruinous); danger of demolition; property moves; bibliography; recorder and date; and photo/slide information.
- Property history routinely lists a physical description of the property, rather than its history.
- Property significance was used to record previous owners/businesses at the site and alterations to the property, i.e. its history.
How can I use it?
Information from this survey may be useful as a starting point in researching the history of the local area and its small German communities. Especially prominent in the brief documentation offered here are listings of late nineteenth and early twentieth century community schools and of the popular L-shaped residences of the area.
What else should I know?
In addition to the irregularities mentioned above in recording property description and history, searchers should be aware that many of the documents in this survey contain little more than property name, location, and estimated date of construction.