Milburn Beitel has a copy of a book that was given to him by his great aunt and generously shares it with us. It tells a little of how his family came to Texas. Enjoy!

Have you, somewhere in your rambles about the world, seen an old house that impressed you with its dignity, and fixed itself so firmly in your mind that you could see it long afterward, and ponder upon the structure and its history?

These things appear a bit peculiar to us when we first think of them, but there is nothing that holds a more important place in psychology, than an Old House. Not a tumble down ruin, in which nothing but bats and crickets and ghosts of the past will dwell, but a dignified, staunch old house that reflects the character of it founder, that has weathered the storms of many winters, and the blistering heat of as many summers.

Often one stands before such an old structure, looking at its grim and stately front, the gnarled trees about its doors, the quaint old windows that glint in the sunlight with their tiny panes, and as he does so is almost constrained to remove his hat as in an honorable presence. This is no fancy, it may be a fact that has escaped the notice of the psychologist, but it is a fact nevertheless. Age is honorable in men, because in most cases it denotes an honorable and an upright life. The man who lives a life of dissolute habits rarely lives to be old.

The Old House is likewise a symbol of uprightness and care. The master dreamed of it in his youth, perhaps, and when he reached man’s estate builded it with care of mature judgment, and the manly strength of his early years. From time to time he improved, beautified and adorned it, and added to it the comforts and the ornaments that make houses homes. This Old House saw the first happy days of a bride and groom, who with a smile on their lips and a song in their hearts came to make it home. A few years later it heard the prattle of a little child, and anon the silvery laughter and gladsome shouts of children at play within it’s halls. On a day the wedding bells voiced a new found joy, and at another time the slow, muffled step is on its stair, and the stifling smell of cut flowers is its hall. Staunch, old grey pile, thou wert builded wisely. You have seen all the griefs and sorrows that befall man, froma broken toy to a broken heart, from a wedding day to a mother’s pride in a noble son, or a good and virtuous daughter. The winters tempests have made their fierce onslaughts upon your walls, and capricious moods of spring have hurled bolt and debachle about your doors and yet you shook not.

Consider the pictures the Old House has seen. On a day when snow lies like a mantle of virtue over the earth, when the sun, shining through the icicles on the eaves, turns their prisms into a kaleidoscope, and makes the world a seeming fairy land. Night comes, the lowing cattle seek shelter of the spacious and inviting barns, the fowls seek their roosts, while the peacock, that fearless king of winter’s storms, wrapped in his coat of gaudy feathers, huddles on the “comb” of the Old House, close beside the wide chimney upon which he is wont to sit in grandeur in the summer time, and with his breast turned defiantly to the chilling blast settles himself to rest for the night.

It was Christmas Eve, no night bird called. The shadows came, but found the earth in a shield of white, while stars twinkled the story of Bethlehem’s hour, and they slunk away, as sin gives way to virtue. We have viewed the dignity of the Old House, its indefinable air of security and integrity, from without; come now, and let us softly raise a corner of the curtain, and look within at the picture. Ah, does it not make our hearts bound with gladness to know that there is so much of joy and of goodness in the world? Seated in an old arm chair, before the wide fireplace with its generous heap of blazing logs, sits the grey haired master of the Old House. Upon one knee is his own little granddaughter, with ringlets of gold and eyes of blue, while on the other side sits a crippled waif who, too weak to battle the storms of life alone, has found shelter in the Old House. The old man is telling them a Christmas story, and in round eyed wonder they listen to the tale. The great wood fire sputters and “treads snow,” and its ruby light transforms the golden curls into a halo, and makes brilliant sapphires of the wide blue eyes of the little girl; it softens the lines of the twisted limb and burnishes the shallow face ot the orphan boy until it makes of him a classic statuette of patience, admiration and gratitude. And the master of the Old House, the firelight on his rugged face and shaggy grey hair increases the lights and shadows, and makes of him in the stillness a statue of benevolence and manly virtue. Over by the candle sits the good wife, peacefully knitting a little sock for the crippled child, and the while contemplating the picture before her. A tiny stocking hangs on each end of the mantle, ready for Santa Claus who will come down the wide chimney anon, and opening his wonderful pack fill them to overflowing with presents. Is it not a beautiful picture? Let us drop the curtain and tiptoe away, leaving them to their joy.

There are many other pictures of the Old House. Look at the old road that leads around the hill and approaches its door. Think of the times that the master of the Old House has come along that road at the close of a day of honest toil. Think of the times that the friend in need has come along that same road, and of the beautiful story that tells you that he never went away empty handed.

And again, of the day that the violets were in the hedge row, and the blue skies of spring were laughing at you from a glassy pool in that brook, as a youth and a maid strolled along that same old road, and on toward the Old House talking of their approaching wedding day.

Look again, and the scene has changed. The way is strewn with stones, gashed with ruts and scarred by wheels. It is night, the stars are hid, and darkness wraps the earth like a sticky pall of weeping sadness. A lone light burns in a window of the Old House on yonder hill, like a blessed beacon of hope. Hist! Who comes there? Ah, ‘tis the old family doctor, going again to the Old House to visit the little sick child. The scene shifts, and morning comes again, the sun breaks over the hill and dale in all its glory and splendor. An industrious hen is scratching in the door yard for her lusty brood, a watch dog barks, and as the wayfarer looks about him the very air of the Old House seems to say to him “ I am old, tried and true. Many others have been builded upon weaker foundations than mine, and they have passed away, but my master builded me wisely, my girders are strong and my rafters staunch. Year have flown as swallows skim by in the gloaming, but still I stand and offer you comfort and cheer.

Have you never had such a feeling as this when you stood before an old house with its worn door stone, over which countless thousands had passed? Do not aged things often impress you so? Not alone, old houses, old mills, but countless other things whose firm establishment makes them a part of human history. In this country, with its youth of a few paltry centuries, there are of course no places that would attract the archaeologist, but still things are old, or young, by comparison. In this nation are many things that are very old by comparison to the age of the nation; in Texas there are some things that are old by comparison to the age of the state. The early settlers of Texas and the institutions they founded, the trails and hardships they endured, and the final successes they achieved, furnish a theme of romantic beauty in the telling that outrivals the fabled songs of ancient heraldry, and the mystic legends of the Orient.

We have in mind an “old House,” in this state, and in part of the state, that was builded wisely. Founded by a man in his youth, strengthened and adorned in his prime, and when he departed as the master of a house going on a long journey, left it as a heritage for those who came after him to perpetuate and perfect.

Nearly a century ago, in the little village of Baden-Baden, Germany, there dwelt a boy and a girl. The village, with its narrow streets and quaint, tall houses, was built upon a steep spur where the great Black Forest ran down and stood upon an eminence overlooking the junction of the rivulet of Oosbach and the river Rhine. Here in the borderland of the mystic Black Forest, where thrilling fact and weird legend of the forest were told to children of the village when they were gathered around the cottage hearths at evening, this boy and girl were imbued with the spirit of adventure. Here they passed their childhood, sang and danced through the fleeting years of youth, and on a happy day plighted their troth.

Stories of adventure by land and by sea had lured the young man to America. He bade his sweetheart goodbye, and left her to sit on the terraces of her native village and watch the lights come and go that kissed the vineyards into ruby flame, turned the rives and the lakes into silver mirrors, and deepened the shadows of the great forest until its avenues faded into mystic darkness.

The young man landed at Philadelphia, the country was at peace, the city at that time had a population of more than eighty thousand, boats plied peacefully upon the Schuylkill, and the land of adventure was not yet in sight. He heard strange tails of the West, and felt its call. There came a day when the longing for the playmate of his childhood, for the sweetheart of his youth, and for the plighted bride he had left behind grew strong in his heart and battled with the spirit of adventure. He decided to send for her, and when she came he and his maiden would wed, and they had gathered flowers together in their infancy, danced around the maypole in their youth, and stood pensively watching the sun at evening as it sank like the mystic golden apple into the sea far beyond the sunny slopes of France, would be married, and hand in hand would turn their faces again to the West, and journey to the true land of adventure and of golden opportunity – the new Republic of Texas.

With the intrepid spirit of adventure that actuated the men and women who made America the greatest and most wonderful of all the nations of the earth, and those who made the Lone Star state the Golden Empire of the West, this young couple left the Quaker City in the early part of the year 1830, as soon as there was grass for the ox team to eat on the way, and traveled the entire way from Philadelphia to the little settlement at the junction of White Oak and Buffalo, which six years later became the village of Houston, and the seat of government of the Republic of Texas. They made the journey all those weary miles in an ox wagon, over untrod wilderness by far the greater part of the way. A few months later, answering the call, “further west,” they loaded their scanty accumulation of household effects into the old ox wagon and journeyed still westward to that beautiful section of Texas, where the town of Lockhart now stands. Still looking for the ideal spot in such a boundless field of splendid opportunity, they finally went a little further westward, and settled on a stream about eight miles south of San Antonio, which took the name of Beitel Creek from the ranch of Joseph Beitel, and is so called to this day. There was established the Beitel Ranch which grew to be one of the formost ranches of the section, in its time.

To Joseph and Elizabeth Beitel were born ten children, five sons and five daughters. The sons of the House of Beitel were born and reared in the wide places of Texas. They were herdsmen from their infancy, and as they grew to manhood gathered their cattle, like Abraham of old, “from a thousand hills,” and drove them sometimes a thousand miles through lands beset by dangers from red men and desperadoes to the marts of men for sale. At the age of 14 years, Albert Beitel, the present head of the house, took a herd of cattle from the plains that surrounded the village of San Antonio de Bexar, to Hastings, Nebraska. The lad for a general, and the cowboys for an army, the long march was made and they “delivered the goods,” and returned safely. The sons of the House of Beitel were men who did things. Taught the philosophy of life from the book of nature, and trained in the ways of men who formed the vanguard of American progress, they were men of action, men of prompt decision and mature judgement, and of that wide knowledge that tends to progress and success.

The House of Beitel was a house of the South and after more than a quarter of a century upon the liberty loving plains of Texas, Joseph Beitel, born a patriot in another land, was a lover of his country, and of her institutions. In 1861, when the cannons that reduced Sumpter reverberated through the land, drums rolled and bugles called to war, Joseph Beitel called all the sons of his house about him except Albert, his youngest, then a little boy. He bade his family goodbye, commended them to the God of mercy and justice, and marched away with his sons to where glory beckoned beneath the stars and bars of the Confederate flag.

Shielded by the hand of Providence, when the war was over, wounded and weary, they all returned to their home. The sons of the House of Beitel were Charles, Rudolph, Frank J., Henry and Albert.

Returning to the old ranch, and to the city of San Antonio, after the war, Frank J. Beitel conceived the idea of engaging in business. Four years in the army had broadened his view of things, had given him a realizing sense of what Texas was destined to be. He believed that railroads would be built into San Antonio, that the plains of Texas would become a producing country, that American progress would unlock the door to this great storehouse and that the world would recap a rich harvest. Realizing that progress would bring building, he decided to engage in the lumber and building material business, and accordingly in the 60’s soon after the close of the war, he opened a lumber yard in San Antonio, on Alamo Street, about where the Plaza Theater now stands. Thus was founded the Commercial House of Beitel in Texas.

The story of the lumber business in Texas at the time reads like a romance. In the first place, with all her wonderful forests of pine, Texas did not produce any lumber at that time. The lumber used in San Antonio then was sawed in the mills of Florida, conveyed thence in barges to the coast of Texas at Port Lavaca and Indianola. It was then carried overland to San Antonio by ox teams and it required months for the wagon trains to complete a single trip. The was of the finest quality of Florida pine. Upon each piece was branded with a hot iron the length, width, thickness and the number of feet contained therein, and the name of the dealer to whom it was consigned.

Owing to the scarcity of lumber and its very high price, San Antonio was at that time a city of adobe houses, many of which are still standing. As the House of Beitel made it possible for builder to secure lumber, the better class of houses were constructed of it. In tearing away old building in San Antonio today, for the purpose of giving place to modern sky scrapers, workmen frequently come across timbers that bear the brand “F.J. Beitel” or “Beitel Bros.”, that have served their purpose well for half a century, and are still sound and true, because they were “honest goods” whenthey were put there, and are symbolic of all dealings of the house of Beitel.

Subsequently, in order to secure a location more in the center of the building activities of the town, the yard was removed to the corner of North Flores and West Houston Streets. In 1876, when the Southern Pacific Railroad began to put out its iron bands that were to link the active, bustling East to the Golden Gated of the West, F.J. Beitel, ever alert to the call of progress, established yars at the termini of the advancing railroad, first at Kingsbury, and as the road advanced, at Old Marion, New Mrion and at last with the advent of the railroad into the Alamo City, at the Sunset Depot. The purpose of these yards was not only to supply the needs of the people of the country that was being developed by the advancing railroad, but also to receive lumber and builders’ supplies by rail and forward it to the mother yard at San Antonio. When the yard was established at Kingsbury, Albert Beitel, the present head of the House of Beitel, who had been the little boy that could not go to war because he was too small to shoulder a musket, had reached man’s estate, and at the age of 20 years was placed in charge of that large business, followed the road into San Antonio establishing yard after yard as the road progresses, and had charge of the yard at the Sunset Depot until 1880, when with the advent of the International & Great Northern Railroad better facilities were offered in the vicinity of it depot, and F.J. Beitel consolidated the two yards at the corner of West Commerce and Medina Streets, where it has been conducted for the last thirty-one years.

On the 7th of January, 1898, the Dark Angel summoned F.J. Beitel to go on the long journey from whence none return. Albert Beitel, the present senior member of the House of Beitel, purchased the business from his brother’s estate, and subsequently took into partnership his son, R. M. Beitel, now the junior member of the Beitel Lumber Company, unincorporated.

In 1886, when Ganahl, now Center Point, was the terminus of the Kerrville Branch of the San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railroad, the House of Beitel established at that place a branch yard. The following year, when the road was completed to Kerrville, the yard was removed to that place, and became a prosperous business. A year ago when a new manager was needed for the Kerville business there was another son of the House of Beitel, Albert Beitel Jr. who had been trained to the business under the discerning eye of the man who at the age of 14 could pilot a herd of cattle from Texas to Nebraska. Eminently qualified for the business both by natural ability and though training, Ally Beitel as manager, with his brother, Frank Beitel, as assistant, has charge of the Kerrville business of the Beitel Lumber Company.

The parent house, at San Antonio, is directed by Albert Beitel Sr., assisted by the eldest son and partner, R.M. Beitel, and also by the youngest, Jesse Beitel, who is the head of the clerical force.

Thus, the House of Beitel, now nearing a century since that bride and groom, Joseph and Elizabeth Beitel, crossed the boundary of Texas in an ox wagon on their honeymoon trip, is still the House of Beitel.

It is an “Old House,” founded upon sills of flawless timbers of business integrity, with girders of the heartwood from forests of justice and fair dealing, and rafters from flexible but unbreakable fibre of the wood of the Golden Rule.

The master of the House of Beitel meets no man with blare of trumpets and glitter of pomp and pageantry at the draw bridge of his castle, but a Texas born, a child of wide places, he stands upon the level with all good men and true, and meets the world squarely, man to man; not only this, but all the sons of the House of Beitel are trained in the same way.

These men are in the lumber business for profit, but that is not all. They have a love for the honor of the House of Beitel, the Old House, and they stand at its door and extend a welcoming hand to all who enter, and say for the House of Beitel, “I am old, tried, and true. Years have passed, as swallows slim by in the gloaming, but still I stand, and offer you comfort and cheer.”