Czech America · Texas
From the old country to Texas
Czech Texas began at Cat Spring in Austin County, after Pastor Josef Arnošt Bergmann’s letters home in the 1850s drew families after him. By 1900 there were some 250 Czech communities, centred on Fayette County and spreading through Lavaca, Austin, Washington, Burleson and Brazos counties. Most settlers came from Moravia, which is why Texas Czech still sounds Moravian.
They built their own institutions — the KJT, the SPJST with its Czech Heritage Museum in Temple — and they kept baking: the kolache is the Texas Czech gift to the state. Christmas lives on too: the Fayette County Czech Heritage Society gathers every December at the Texas Czech Heritage and Cultural Center in La Grange for Czech carols on the accordion and a round of “Veselé Vánoce”.
Most Czech Texans came from Moravia.
See Christmas Eve in Moravia, the way it was kept back home.
Other Czech states
- Czech Christmas in Nebraska
- Czech Christmas in Iowa
- Czech Christmas in Wisconsin
- Czech Christmas in Minnesota
- Czech Christmas in Illinois
- Czech Christmas in Ohio
- Czech Christmas in Kansas
- Czech Christmas in Oklahoma
- Czech Christmas in New York