Josef Arnost Bergmann is considered the father of Czech immigration for having come to Texas to minister to a large population of German Protestants living in Austin County in 1849. What basically happened is that he wrote a letter back home in which he described Texas in very favorable terms for the struggling and disenfranchised farmers of the central European ethnic groups. By 1851 his letter had had an effect, and the first group of settlers from North Easter Bohemia set sail out of Hamburg, Germany - in route for Texas.

I can only guess that those families then wrote home with similar favorable reports - as more and more families made the long journey - and the city of Cat Spring in Austin County was where they all originally settled before moving on into Fayetteville, which latter became known as the "Cradle of Czech Immigration."

Now, it should be noted that at the exact same time and even on the same ships German immigrants were coming to Texas too, right alongside the Czech immigrants. Though the German and Czech cultures and languages are certainly distinct and unique - and have maintained some distinction over time - the reality is that in Texas, we are all Texans now.

By the time that the American Civil War started there were around seven hundred Czech immigrants in Texas, but after the war the Czech immigration here really took off in waves. Ellis county where nearby Ennis, Texas is located - was a major settlement, as it is near to Dallas. Other bastions of Czech culture and settlement were and ARE Victoria County, Brazoria County, and Fort Bend County. While some estimates are that there are now around a million ethnic Czechs living in Texas, the numbers are very debatable as the ancestry or country of origin originally had often been called Austria on the official immigration papers, and then there is the matter of the boats leaving out of Germany. As I stated before, though I am not personally of Czech heritage, we are all TEXANS now.