Comfort Zone

Since moving to the Sisterdale area in the Hill Country, I often drive over to Comfort, a town known for its rich history, restored historic district, and antique shops. My route takes me west on FM 473, a scenic road marked with low-water crossings and curves. As I drive, I find myself imagining Comfort’s earliest settlers following the same course on horseback or in wagons when they migrated from Sisterdale in 1852. When they first glimpsed this expansive green valley, ringed by distant hills and crisscrossed by the clear waters of Cypress Creek and the Guadalupe River, they must have been euphoric. Massive cypress trees lining the banks promised ample lumber for building, and the fertile bottomland stretching beyond meant good crops.

These pioneers were German Freethinkers, intellectual, classically educated people who had left their native land to escape the religious and political ideologies forced upon them by the state. The Freethinkers placed strong emphasis on education, reason, and self-reliance.

Legend has it that these founding fathers considered naming their new settlement Gemütlichkeit. Hard to pronounce and harder still to translate into English, the word encompasses qualities of tranquility, coziness, comfort, a sense of belonging, and an atmosphere in which community is celebrated. Ernst Altgelt and his survey crew had similar feelings when they arrived on the scene to plat the town in the summer of 1854. Hot, tired, and dusty after traveling by wagon from San Antonio, they camped on the bank of Cypress Creek, dubbing the place Camp Comfort. In the end, the town, which has never been incorporated, became known simply as Comfort.

See the full article in the October 2007 issue.

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