Frenstat, also known as Friendsted, is on Big Creek and Farm Road 2774 some seven miles northwest of Somerville in southern Burleson County. Settlement in the area began in the mid-1830s. The community was founded by Czech Catholic families, who first arrived in the area in 1884. Two years later about forty Czech families were established there, some from Caldwell, eleven miles to the north. The community was named Frenstat in the summer of 1886, after the town of Fren_tát, Moravia, from which most of the original inhabitants had emigrated. A school was soon erected, and by 1889 the settlers had constructed Holy Rosary Catholic Church, the first Catholic church in Burleson County. Land for the school, church, and a cemetery was donated by Adolph Polansky. A local post office was established in 1891, and a cotton gin and a general store were located in the settlement during the late 1800s. A population estimate of twenty-five was reported in 1892 and again in the 1940s, the last time for which a population figure is available. In 1931 some eighty-five Czech families lived in the vicinity. The community's post office was discontinued in 1908, and in 1948 the local school was consolidated with the Somerville Independent School District. In the late 1900s the community comprised a handful of farm dwellings scattered around the church and recreation center.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Burleson County Historical Society, Astride the Old San Antonio Road: A History of Burleson County, Texas (Dallas: Taylor, 1980). National Alliance of Bohemian Catholics of America, History of the Czech-Moravian Catholic Communities of Texas (Waco: Texian Press, 1974; trans. by V. A. Svrcek of Na_e Dejiny [Granger, Texas: Na_inec, 1939]).

Charles Christopher Jackson

Excerpted from the Handbook of Texas Online: FRENSTAT, TX http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/

The Handbook of Texas Online is a joint project of The General Libraries
at the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas State Historical
Association.

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