Pioneer Farms (formerly known as Jourdan-Bachman Pioneer Farm) demonstrates the rigors and joys of 19th century farm life. A walking tour includes village square stores, homes and three farms where reenactors tend crops, work animals and perform chores. The James Bell home and detached kitchen embodies a prosperous cotton grower’s life. The Frederick Jourdan cabin and outbuildings replicate an 1870s homestead. The Fredric Kreuger Farm reflects the simple life of 1860s German immigrants. Jourdan-Bachman Pioneer Farms also features a Tonkawa Indian campsite.

As Texas’s agricultural economy grew, German Texans were right there reaping the benefits and contributing to its success. Early settlers raised crops for their own families’ subsistence and for commercial sale – and most did it quite well.

“We have not lacked any good here; we eat meat every day,” wrote Nicholas and Anton Riedel in 1845.

Among five themed historic areas on its 90 acres, Jourdan-Bachman Pioneer Farms features a reconstruction of an 1868 German immigrant farm. Visit the one-room log cabin where Fritz Kruger raised 13 children, smell biscuits baking in the outdoor oven, and marvel at the stacked cedar post fence.