THE ROCKNE MUSEUM, Hillbig Park, 4065 FM 535, Rockne, Texas

Call 512-940-7231

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Step back in time at Pioneer Village, where visitors can walk through replica log cabins of early German settlers like Goertz and John T. Lehman. For more general history about Rockne, visit the Rockne Museum. One of the first projects of the Rockne Historical Association (RHA), formed in 1990, was to establish a museum. In 1993, a room in Holtman Hall, the church's reception hall, was designated as the Rockne Museum. Land was acquired and a ground breaking ceremony for the new museum building took place in April 2002.

 

The first Germans settled along Walnut Creek in the 1840s. Beginning in the 1850s, German-Catholic settlers from Wurges, Germany – led by Philip Goertz – arrived in the area. The first Catholic church was built in 1876, but it was destroyed by arson in 1891. In 1900, the town got its first post office and took the name Lehmanville. In 1931, the children of the Sacred Heart School were tasked with renaming the town Rockne after football coach Knute Rockne.

 

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