 Jeanne Dixon (left) and Marlene Richardson in front of the von Plehwe property, once a stagecoach stop, then an artist colony and now owned by country-western singer George Strait. The property is located on Boerne Stage Road. Photo by Joni Simon
Contributing Writer For 19 years, as senior projects producer at San Antonio’s public television station, KLRN, Marlene Richardson dealt with the likes of Ken Burns, Bill Moyers and David Frost. After she retired, Richardson turned all her attention to a project that has fascinated her and her friend Jeanne Dixon for the last 24 years: writing the history of Leon Springs. Richardson and Dixon say they hope to see their labor of love published later this spring. “Leon Springs from Prussia to Persia” is what they’re currently calling their tome, in honor of the homelands of some of the area’s most prominent pioneers. For the cover of their book, the authors chose a picture of Aue Station in the early days before it became known as Leon Springs. “I think there are going to be some book signings and we have talked to various merchants, who say they want to keep it in their stores,” Dixon said. “I think word of mouth will be the way most people will hear about it. We have been working on this for over 20 years, so there are a lot of people who know about the book and are waiting for it.” However, selling their manuscript was never their major priority. “Writing the story so that our children, who grew up in Leon Springs, will be able to know something about the town the way it was years ago is what’s important to us,” Dixon said. The authors roam their favorite haunts whenever they get the chance, including the von Plehwe property on Boerne Stage Road, once a stagecoach station, then an artist colony and now the property of country-western singer George Strait. Even though the buildings are in disrepair and vandals have smashed the windows, the authors say they’d like to see the complex renovated into what it once was, perhaps as a homestead museum. In that light, Richardson says there is no better time than now to publish a book about the history of Leon Springs. “Until about five or six years ago, there were a few subdivisions here and there, but it was still pristine, peaceful Leon Springs,” she said. “There wasn’t an H-E-B. There was no Starbucks. The creek used to run all the time and the kids used to swim in the swimming holes in the creeks.” Richardson says there are five historic areas, buildings and complexes that are “extremely crucial” to maintain. “If these are eaten up by development, all physical remnants of Leon Springs history will be gone,” she said. “They include the Von Plehwe complex, the Aue complex, the Heinemann place and the Herms place on Boerne Stage Road. This includes a building that many people think may have been built by the military because it doesn’t look like any of the other German construction and we think there may have been an old fort out there. “What I see now that upsets me so much is that the Hill Country is disappearing,” Richardson continued. “They’re gouging out the hills to build roads and subdivisions. They’re dynamiting and blasting the hills down. If we don’t remember these things, all of our history may be lost.” That includes, she says, the old family cemeteries that dot the area and provide the fuel and the fodder for countless ghost stories and other legends of Leon Springs’ colorful past. Like the Iraqi sheik, who lived on the hilltop with his three wives. Or the donkey lady who made her living by telling fortunes during the Depression. Her name was Lou Morhaute, but everybody called her “Crazy Lou.” She traveled in a gypsy wagon pulled by donkeys, parking alongside the road by Aue’s in the Rudy’s complex. She’d tell fortunes to earn money. “Mr. Kronkowsky, who had the San Antonio Drug Co., lived in Boerne and that was his route to and from work. He saw that lady and the story goes that he put her up in a little house and paid the rent for her, along the Boerne Stage Road,” Richardson said. “She lived there and she had her donkeys, and she would talk to her donkeys, and she would yell at her donkeys, and she would walk around at night with a lantern, and most of the kids in the area were afraid of her.” Several popular donkey lady ghost stories circulate around Leon Springs and Boerne to this day, along with some artwork “Crazy Lou” painted to earn money to buy beer at Rudolph’s, according to Richardson. No book about Leon Springs is complete without recounting the Aue family’s involvement. “They also came from the Prussia region. Max Aue was the first,” Richardson said. “He came over here alone.” That didn’t last for long. On the ship to America, he met the Toepperwein family and became enamored with their youngest child, Emma. “First, Max and Emma built this little house, which became the Settlement Inn and post office. They had a corral for horses there. Aue became a Texas Ranger and they had a stage contract, too,” Richardson said. “Of course, the springs themselves were vital for the area in the 19th century, because water was so important for travelers and the springs were always there. There were several stage lines along the Boerne Stage Road at the time.” The Aues built what is called a “dog run” house; then they built a two-story hotel. When the hotel business wasn’t very good, the family moved into the hotel. Max and Emma Aue had four children. One of them, Rudolph Aue, established Rudolph Aue’s store, and later on, a gas station. Before Rudy’s well-known BBQ restaurant, the establishment was a general store, a blacksmith’s shop and a building where the Aues processed oats and hay to sell to the military for their horses and mules at Camp Stanley and Camp Bullis. The blacksmith shop is long gone, as well as another general store, which burned. “They had quite an operation out there, way back to the ’teens,” Richardson said. “Then the second Rudy, which would have been the first Max Aue’s grandson, had four kids. Lorene Aue Voelcker was born in the two-story hotel. She recently died after celebrating her 100th birthday.” |
