Search -
An Immigrant Miller Picks Texas: The Letters of Carl Hilmar Guenther
An Immigrant Miller Picks Texas The Letters of Carl Hilmar Guenther Author:Carl Hilmar Guenther After Carl Hilmar Guenther, 22, sailed from Germany in 1848 to seek his fortune, he began an odyssey of more than two years through the new United States. He tried construction and factory work in New York, did farming and milling in Wisconsin and Ohio, was a carpenter on a plantation in Louisiana. Then he learned of opportunities in Texas. In ... more »1851 Guenther built the only grist mill in the German community of Fredericksburg, Texas. Eight years later he built a new mill in nearby San Antonio and put down roots. His legacy continues through C. H. Guenther & Son, Inc., a San Antonio-based food products company making Pioneer, White Wings and White Lily flours and a host of other products. It is the oldest business in Texas and the oldest continuously-operating family-owned milling company in the United States. The first letters to and from Guenther's family in Germany were written at the time of his departure from Germany in 1848. They continue through the travails of getting established on the Texas frontier, then on through the Civil War to his only return visit to Germany, in 1891. They were translated from German by Regina Beckmann Hurst and by Walter D. Kamphoefner, Texas A&M University professor of history, who also contributed the foreword.« less