Brill Holsters LbNA #74546
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Add Location| Owner: | Baby Bear
 |
|---|---|
| Plant date: | May 3, 2020 |
| Location: | |
| City: | Welcome |
| County: | Austin |
| State: | Texas |
| Boxes: | 1 |
| Found by: | JUST 2 NUTS |
|---|---|
| Last found: | Mar 29, 2023 |
| Status: | FF |
| Last edited: | May 4, 2020 |
Difficulty: Easy
Distance to Letterbox: 40 yards
Placed in unnamed cemetery near Welcome, Texas (next to Old Salem Lutheran Cemetery). Here is the history behind the letterbox:
August William Brill was welcomed into the world by his parents in Welcome, Texas on May 1, 1872. Welcome is a small town in Austin County, which had a large population of German Texans. In fact, Brill's father Henry was a farmer who had come to Texas in 1844 from Germany.
A.W. Brill (as he was later better known) apparently stayed in Austin County through his teenage years. Seventy-two hours after Independence Day in 1889, young Brill joined the Texas Militia (forerunner of the Texas National Guard) and served in a unit based in Sealy.
Around the turn of the century, he moved to Austin, where he was listed in the city directory as a saddle maker and salesman at W.T. Wroe and Sons Saddlery. Somewhere along the way, Brill expanded his leather-crafting skills and began making holsters. Brill holsters, sometimes called Austin holsters, became particularly popular with Texas Rangers as well as county and city lawmen. Of course, anyone was welcome to buy one of his hand-tooled holsters.
Brill had married in 1895 and a year later his wife gave birth to a son they named Arno William.
By 1912, Brill had either established his own business or bought out Wroe & Sons. Not hide-bound to saddles, holsters and other handmade leather goods, Brill survived the transition from oat-eating four-footers to gas-burning four-wheelers and by the 1920s was making everything from harnesses to holsters to leather for automobile interiors.
As a youngster, Arno began working with his father, having learned the leather-working trade from him. Though the A.W. Brill Company continued to sell holsters and other leather goods into the 1950s, they did not live by tanned cowhide alone. In the 1940s, father and son got into the dirt-selling business as well. They either already owned or purchased for a song a fair amount of acreage around newly created Lake Travis and subdivided the acreage for sale by the lot.
Directions:
From Industry, Texas (Hwy 159), go north on FM 109 to Welcome. Continue past town, and past FM 2502. You will see church on right, and soon cemetery on left. Turn in the main cemetery road that has marker for old Schoolhouse. Park next to the shelter area.
To the Letterbox:
Walk right along the first row of headstones to the far end stone for Sara Rinn. To the right of that is the fence. Look for where metal pole and big wood pole are next to each other. To right of the wood pole on ground is the box, under cement rock.
Distance to Letterbox: 40 yards
Placed in unnamed cemetery near Welcome, Texas (next to Old Salem Lutheran Cemetery). Here is the history behind the letterbox:
August William Brill was welcomed into the world by his parents in Welcome, Texas on May 1, 1872. Welcome is a small town in Austin County, which had a large population of German Texans. In fact, Brill's father Henry was a farmer who had come to Texas in 1844 from Germany.
A.W. Brill (as he was later better known) apparently stayed in Austin County through his teenage years. Seventy-two hours after Independence Day in 1889, young Brill joined the Texas Militia (forerunner of the Texas National Guard) and served in a unit based in Sealy.
Around the turn of the century, he moved to Austin, where he was listed in the city directory as a saddle maker and salesman at W.T. Wroe and Sons Saddlery. Somewhere along the way, Brill expanded his leather-crafting skills and began making holsters. Brill holsters, sometimes called Austin holsters, became particularly popular with Texas Rangers as well as county and city lawmen. Of course, anyone was welcome to buy one of his hand-tooled holsters.
Brill had married in 1895 and a year later his wife gave birth to a son they named Arno William.
By 1912, Brill had either established his own business or bought out Wroe & Sons. Not hide-bound to saddles, holsters and other handmade leather goods, Brill survived the transition from oat-eating four-footers to gas-burning four-wheelers and by the 1920s was making everything from harnesses to holsters to leather for automobile interiors.
As a youngster, Arno began working with his father, having learned the leather-working trade from him. Though the A.W. Brill Company continued to sell holsters and other leather goods into the 1950s, they did not live by tanned cowhide alone. In the 1940s, father and son got into the dirt-selling business as well. They either already owned or purchased for a song a fair amount of acreage around newly created Lake Travis and subdivided the acreage for sale by the lot.
Directions:
From Industry, Texas (Hwy 159), go north on FM 109 to Welcome. Continue past town, and past FM 2502. You will see church on right, and soon cemetery on left. Turn in the main cemetery road that has marker for old Schoolhouse. Park next to the shelter area.
To the Letterbox:
Walk right along the first row of headstones to the far end stone for Sara Rinn. To the right of that is the fence. Look for where metal pole and big wood pole are next to each other. To right of the wood pole on ground is the box, under cement rock.