10/24/26 @ 10:30am –
10/24/26 @ 12:30pm
Meeting Room C
Mammen Family Public Library
Registration Encouraged
Registration for this program is encouraged, but not required.
Accessibility
The library makes every effort to ensure a welcoming and accessible environment. We can provide accommodations for people with disabilities or food allergies at library events. Please contact programs@mfplibrary.org at least seven days before the event to request accommodations.
Age Guidelines
Successful library programs are designed with age in mind. Please note this program’s age guidelines. Attendance at all library programs is subject to staff discretion.
Photo Permission
Library workers often take pictures during library programs to use in promotional materials and online. If you do not want your photo used, contact programs@mfplibrary.org.
Registration is required.
Registration starts: 10/03/2026 @ 10:30am
Registration end: 10/24/2026 @ 10:30am
10:30am-12:00pm Presentation at Mammen Family Public Library:
Join us as we learn about two of the families who lived in what is now the Guadalupe River State Park and Honey Creek State Natural Area. This presentation will consist of photographic and documentary history of the Doeppenschmidt and Weidner Families at their ranch. In addition to the photographic and documentary history, Sara Weidner Turner, descendant of Otto Carl Weidner, will recount her experiences as a frequent visitor to her grandparents’ house back in the
1960s. She has many stories to tell about her time at the ranch.
12:30pm-2:30pm Homestead Site Visit with Friends of Guadalupe River State Park and Honey Creek State Natural Area:
After the presentation at the Library, the Friends of Guadalupe River State Park and Honey Creek State Natural Area invite attendees to visit the Doeppenschmidt-Weidner Homestead in the Honey Creek State Natural Area. You may wish to bring a sack lunch. There will be picnic tables and snacks/drinks provided in the lawn area in front of the old ranch house. The trip includes a visit to Adam and Peter Doeppenschmidt’s homesteads and to the grave site of Jacob Doeppenschmidt. This area of the State Natural Area is not open to the public except for special occasions like this. More details regarding this visit will be provided at the presentation at the library.
More about the Doeppenschmidt and Weidner Families:
Jacob Doeppenschmidt and his wife Marianne were among the earliest German immigrant families to settle in the area that today is part of the Honey Creek State Natural Area. At age 47, Jacob had immigrated from Germany in 1854 with his wife and five children, including four sons. Near the end of the Civil War, Jacob bought a few hundred acres on the north side of the Guadalupe River in the Curry Creek area, and then in 1869 bought a 160-acre plot for $130, where he settled with Marianne and their three youngest sons, Philip, Adam, and Peter.
After repeated tragedies, including the death of Philip by rattlesnake bite in 1878, the murder of Peter’s 12-year-old daughter in 1888, and the burning to death of his wife Magdalena in 1892, Peter sold his share of the inherited property to his brother Adam in 1894. Adam eventually retired from ranching, in 1910, selling his by then 4,000-acre cattle and sheep ranch to two young second generation German immigrants, Otto Carl Weidner and Fritz Wilhelm Rust. Otto Weidner and his family continued to live at the ranch house that Adam Doeppenschmidt had built in 1872, which is still standing in the State Natural Area. The Rust family had acquired the part of the ranch to the west of Honey Creek and built a new home, now referred to as the Rust House, in 1917, that is now in the Guadalupe River State Park.
This presentation is offered in partnership with the Friends of Guadalupe River State Park and Honey Creek State Natural Area.
