ABSTRACT
In the 1840s, German immigrants settled in the Texas Hill Country. Among their numbers were skilled stonemasons who quarried readily available stone to construct residences and mercantile establishments. Within a decade these tradesmen were called upon to adapt their craft to construct military encampments on the Texas frontier. This paper seeks to present how these German tradesmen advanced their design and building methods to adapt to the construction of large scale military installations on the high plains of Texas. It presents the construction techniques and specific detailing of Fort Chadbourne, Fort McKavett, and Fort Concho in comparison with the traditional Germanic architecture of Fredericksburg, Texas.
