SHARING THE PAST
Thoughts of the tiny hamlet of Bergheim evoke memories of the iconic Engel Store (today’s Bergheim Meat Market) that has anchored State Highway 46 for 122 years.
The next time you are cruising through Bergheim, take a good look at the old cypress water tank in the field next to the store. This wooden structure was raised to support a cotton gin, the first venture by Austrian immigrant and early settler Andreas Engel.
Andreas played a continuing role in the life of Bergheim. When Bergheim got a post office in 1901, Engel was named postmaster. When Engel established the store in 1903, it became the center of local commerce.
Andreas always had an enterprising spirit. Prior to moving to Bergheim, he lived four miles north at the Curry’s Creek Road crossing on the Guadalupe River.\\ He purchased this 96-acre site from Casper Sueltenfuss and settled. He married Honey Creek’s Eva Bechtold in 1891 and his first three children, Rudolph, Alfred and Henry, were born there.
He established a store and developed a base of clientele. But in 1900, atypical rainfall produced flooding that cut access to his store. He lost half his customer base and was forced to relocate.
He moved four miles south onto five acres of land at the promising intersection of Boerne-New Braunfels (today’s State Highway 46) and Blanco-San Antonio roads. Andreas Engel never looked back.
The sign over the porch in the photo tells it all: A. Engel Groceries - Gen Merchandise.
His son, Alfred Engel, once told, “Daddy Engel had dreamed of building his allrock store.”
Once again, a friend came to the rescue. William Stendebach was a rock mason builder. It was about August of 1903 when the store was finished. And like most building projects, it was too small by the time it was finished.
In the front a small partition was fenced off for the post office and in the back a curtain separated the store and the living quarters. The newly constructed store held Andreas and Eva’s growing family, the post office and his retail enterprise.
Andreas, and later his sons, Rudolph and Alfred, expanded their ventures. In 1913 the Bergheim Telephone Company was established and operated out of the store. Bergheim Telephone Co. initially served 42 neighbors.
Six years later, Andreas turned the store management over to sons Alfred and Rudolph, Andreas’ sons and later his daughter, Helen Marquart, followed by Andreas’ great-grandson and Alfred’s grandson, Stanley Jones. It continued to be operated as a family business until its closure in 2018.
The Bergheim General Store was the oldest continuously operating general store in Kendall County, open 115 years as a store (1903-2018) and 117 years as post office (1901-2018).
The Engel Store was honored with a Texas Historical Commission marker in 1983 and with the commission’s Texas Treasure business award in 2014.
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