Sauer-Beckmann Living History Farm

Sauer-Beckmann Living History Farm. Step back in time ... to experience German Texan farm life from 1915 to 1918. Here, costumed interpreters carry out the day-to-day activities of a turn-of-the-century German-Texas farm family. You might spot them plowing the garden with a team of horses, or watch them tend the farm animals. Daily chores include milking, gathering eggs and slopping the hogs. Household duties include cooking, scrubbing the floors with homemade lye soap, canning, churning butter and making cheese. , , Johann and Christine Sauer and their four children settled this land in 1869. By 1885, they had built several stone buildings near the original rock and log cabins. Eventually, the Sauers had ten children. One of those, Augusta Sauer Lindig, served as midwife at President Johnson’s birth. , , The Beckmann family acquired the property in 1900. A good cotton crop in 1915 allowed Emil and Emma Beckmann to make several improvements to the homestead. They built porches connecting to a lovely Victorian house covered with fashionable tin. They also added a frame room onto the old rock structure and built a new barn. , , In 1966, Edna Beckmann Hightower sold the site to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Archeological surveys and restoration work were undertaken, and the farm opened to the public in 1975. , , , The 1915-1918 Sauer-Beckmann Farm is the most recent German Hill Country home in the park. Contrast the Sauer-Beckmann Farm's Victorian refinements with the humble cabins elsewhere in the park.