The hill country of central Texas has some fascinating history. So much of our history gets "re-written" to favor certain factions. The original German immigrants who were pre-dominate in setteling the hill country has been overlooked. You dont think of Texas cowboys speaking with a german accent but many cattleman and cowboys were of first or second generation german descent.
Here is an interesting little tid-bit of history. One of our forum members (Fred Kelly) lives in the Leon Springs/Boerne area. About 1900 a well known citizen of that area was one Ad Topperwein. Ad became well known for his ability with a six gun and went on to perform on vaudeville and around the world. He was so good that the famous Buffalo Bill declined contests with him. Ad's stage name was "Dead-Eye Dick". In 1907, he set a worlds record that still stands. He fired 72,500 times at 2 1/4 inch wood blocks tossed into the air and missed only 9 times.
As if that story is not amazing enough, Ad had a cousin named Rudy Aue and Ad always insisted that Rudy could outshoot him. When Rudy was asked why he didnt get into show business with his shooting ability, he said he thought that was just a waste of good ammunition.
When we think of the famous Texas Rangers, our history books and movies may cause us to visulize a John Wayne type character speaking in what has become known as a "Texas drawl." Thats probably true up to a point but its a fact that many of them spoke in a german accented version of english with maybe a little spanish throwed in, "Ach tung, hombre, throw don ze gon!" A few miles west of the Boerne/Leon springs area is a little german community named Comfort. That community is said to have supplied more men to the Texas Rangers than any other Texas town and also has the most rangers buried in its local cementary.
Seems like when we read history, we need to do a lot of reading between the lines to dig out all the facts.
Here is an interesting little tid-bit of history. One of our forum members (Fred Kelly) lives in the Leon Springs/Boerne area. About 1900 a well known citizen of that area was one Ad Topperwein. Ad became well known for his ability with a six gun and went on to perform on vaudeville and around the world. He was so good that the famous Buffalo Bill declined contests with him. Ad's stage name was "Dead-Eye Dick". In 1907, he set a worlds record that still stands. He fired 72,500 times at 2 1/4 inch wood blocks tossed into the air and missed only 9 times.
As if that story is not amazing enough, Ad had a cousin named Rudy Aue and Ad always insisted that Rudy could outshoot him. When Rudy was asked why he didnt get into show business with his shooting ability, he said he thought that was just a waste of good ammunition.
When we think of the famous Texas Rangers, our history books and movies may cause us to visulize a John Wayne type character speaking in what has become known as a "Texas drawl." Thats probably true up to a point but its a fact that many of them spoke in a german accented version of english with maybe a little spanish throwed in, "Ach tung, hombre, throw don ze gon!" A few miles west of the Boerne/Leon springs area is a little german community named Comfort. That community is said to have supplied more men to the Texas Rangers than any other Texas town and also has the most rangers buried in its local cementary.
Seems like when we read history, we need to do a lot of reading between the lines to dig out all the facts.
