Sisterdale gets its first postmaster, 175 years ago
On October 23, 1851, Ottmar von Behr became the first postmaster of Sisterdale, giving the young settlement its first formal federal institution, 175 years ago today.
Nicolaus Zink founded Sisterdale in 1847 on Sister Creek. Von Behr, a meteorologist and naturalist, was its second settler and suggested the village's name, drawn from the nearby Sister Hills and Twin Sisters landmarks. He ran the area's first post office out of his home and kept what is described as the county's first library.
Sisterdale became famous as a Latin Settlement, a community of German freethinker intellectuals, and a center of German abolitionism and Unionism in the years before the Civil War. Its settlers were among the most educated in frontier Texas, and the settlement's Unionist convictions later put it at odds with the Confederacy.
One sourcing note: the Texas Historical Commission's Sisterdale marker gives the postmaster date as October 23, 1847. The Handbook of Texas, published by the Texas State Historical Association, records that Sisterdale opened a post office in 1851, and biographical references for von Behr give his appointment as October 23, 1851, the date used here.