Beginning in 1856 a wave of Czech immigrants came to settle on the west bank of the Colorado River in Fayette County, Texas. Czech immigrants coming to Texas hailed from three provinces of the Austrian Empire – Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. These three provinces were collectively known as the Czech Crown Lands. For centuries they had been possessions of Czech kings.

Czech immigrants brought a bit of the Old Country to the New World. They bought farms, built churches and set up schools; they established their own communities. All the while they kept a strong attachment for the Old Country.

The Czechs who came to Texas never quite forgot the villages of their birth. When they died their birthplaces were often remembered in the inscriptions on their tombstones. A record was thus preserved for posterity of the areas of the Czech Crown Lands from whence the immigrants came.

Czechs were not new to Texas in 1856. The immigration of that year, however, culminated in the establishment of Texas’ first Czech communities. One group of families settled near the Navidad River in southern Fayette County. They gave their community the name Dubina. They came from the north-eastern Moravian villages of Ticha and Mnisi.

Other families traveling with the Dubina settlers came from the neighboring villages of Frenstat, Trojanovice and Sklenov. They chose to settle in central Fayette County, across the Colorado River from La Grange, the county sear. Their settlement later came to be known as Hostyn.