TEXAS CHARM AT YOUR DOORSTEP
History, wine, flowers or vistas — you can walk it while sipping a local beer — Fredericksburg won’t disappoint
I’m standing naked outside my Sunday house, wondering what president Lyndon Johnson or Admiral Chester Nimitz might say.
Showering outdoors, in wooden structures sheltering all but toes from public view, is de rigueur in Texas Hill County, where two of the most influential Americans of the 20th century were born and raised.
I’m in the region’s biggest town, Fredericksburg, where tiny Sunday houses were once weekend homes for ranch farmers and their families to trek into town for a weekend, load up on supplies and attend mass in the gothic revival Roman Catholic church or one of the town’s other places of worship.
The Sunday house tradition continued when Sugarberry Inn, off Fredericksburg ’s wide main street and its Magic Mile shopping district, was built as a series of eight unique Sunday houses, each based on the historical tiny homes.
One of my first stops — once I navigate shops such as the L.M. Easterling Custom Boot Company and Dogologie (a boutique for dogs) — is the three-building National Museum of the Pacific War and its George H.W. Bush Gallery.
Nimitz commanded the Pacific Fleet after Pearl Harbor and the original museum was set up in the former Nimitz family hotel. The museum has since expanded into a 2.5-hectare campus that includes a Japanese peace garden and Plaza of the Presidents.
The museum, which features a rare Japanese Rex float plane and the casing for an atomic bomb, opened the Bush gallery in 2009, complete with hundreds of artifacts and interactive displays relating to the war in the Pacific.
Like many of Fredericksburg’s early settlers, the Nimitz family immigrated from Germany. The German influence remains strong in places such as its busy Marktplaz (market square) park with its octagon-shaped former school, annual Oktoberfest celebration, and year-round craft beer culture.
A downtown brew pub, Fredericksburg Brewing Company, has an 11-room “bed and brew” upstairs. It was also one of the first brew pubs in Texas when it opened in 1994. Among the most popular of its rotating small batch brews is Chester’s Pilsner (named for Admiral Nimitz) and Enchanted Red Rock Ale, for a local hiking destination.
One can order a beer to go and stroll the downtown while sipping — it’s perfectly legal here.
Newer, is the Pedernales Brewing Company, highly regarded for its German-style beers and Lobo Texas American pale lager.
There are four must-do day trips from Fredericksburg.
For history buffs, there’s the LBJ Ranch, known as the Texas White House when Johnson was in office.
Now a National Historic Park, the ranch is where the 36th president conducted much of the nation’s business. Guests tour his tiny office, which still has the three TVs he watched, tuned to the three major networks of the day, the dining room with a hotline beside his chair at the head of the table, and the bedroom where Johnson died of an apparent heart attack just days after leaving office at age 64.
Among the displays are Johnson’s lagoon blue Amphicar, which could be driven on water.
Nearby is the rebuilt Johnson birthplace, his grandparents’ home where the president is buried in the family cemetery.
Outside Fredericksburg is wine country — one of the foremost in the U.S. — named one of the 10 best wine destinations in the U.S. by U.S. Today. Stops at Becker Vineyards and the Pedernales Cellars for tastings are recommended.
Wildflowers are a major attraction and there’s no better place to see them (and take some seeds home) than Wildseed Farms, the largest wildseed producer in the U.S. It has 80 hectares of fields where visitors can pick their own flowers. Owner John Thomas, is a noted national wildflower expert.
Enchanted Rock State Natural Area provides spectacular vistas atop the second largest granite dome in the U.S. Located about 30 kilometres from Fredericksburg, the rock was a favourite date place for Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson — and a splendid reminder that you’re in the spectacular Hill Country. Wayne Newton is a freelance journalist based in London. wayne.newton@bell.net