Ernst Altgelt - Comfort, TX
Posted by: 
WalksfarTX
N 29° 58.042 W 098° 54.830
14R E 508312 N 3315172
The bust was installed by the Comfort Historical Society in honor of Ernst Hermann Altgelt, founder of the town of Comfort, Texas.
Waymark Code: WM1622J
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 04/17/2022
Views: 3
Art Inventories WebsiteA portrait bust of Ernst Altgelt dressed in a coat, vest, and bow tie. The bust is mounted on a rectangular pink granite pedestal on a cement foundation.
Texas State Historical Association
"ALTGELT, ERNST HERMANN (1832–1878).Hermann Altgelt was born on July 17, 1832, at Düsseldorf on the Rhine, the son of a privy counselor of that city. Upon completing military service, he immigrated at age twenty to New Orleans and worked briefly for the cotton firm of John Vles. In 1854 he led a surveying party into the Hill Country of Texas and laid out the town of Comfort on property owned by Vles. Soon, German freethinkers from New Braunfels began to settle in the area and to develop the communal life that they wanted. The Comfort area, in spite of floods and drought, offered lands for both farming and ranching, as well as an abundance of timber and water. Altgelt began lumber and grist mills, but neither was successful. He married another immigrant from the Rhineland, Emma Murck, in July 1855 and thereafter took up the practice of law. Though he was never a fire-eating supporter of secession, during the Civil War Altgelt aligned himself with the Southern cause. He traveled to Germany, allegedly as a result of strained relations with his fellow countrymen. After this trip he joined the Confederate Army in time to participate in the battle of Palmito Ranch after Lee's surrender."