HALFWAY TO EVERYWHERE: THE PAINTED CHURCHES, PART I

SCHULENBURG, TEXAS 

The pamphlets at the visitors center in Schulenburg, Texas read, “Schulenburg: Halfway to Everywhere.” This makes Sumant and I both laugh. It’s precisely the reason we find ourselves here, meeting in the middle between Houston and San Antonio along I-10 for a Saturday morning stretch. This is a railroad town and you can tell. There’s a lingering air of bygones and the local newspaper is named The Schulenburg Sticker and it’s been that way since 1894. ⁣
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Most famously, the surrounds of Schulenburg are home to the Painted Churches of Texas, a sputtering of intricately-decorated chapels built by the German and Czech immigrants who settled here in the mid-1800s. Nowadays, the churches are curiously isolated, found not in the heart of a main-street strip but aside the grassy roads of nearby unincorporated communities. It’s an odd feeling, opening the doors of a chapel planted in a prairie land, and finding inside a vaulted canopy of painted skies. Otherworldly, even. A local townsperson on a San Antonio news segment described this one as a Fabergé egg. It’s St. Mary’s at High Hill, also known as The Queen of the Painted Churches. ⁣
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On this Saturday, the church is empty. It’s closing early for a wedding. There’s a gift shop in the bungalow next door, and besides that it’s telephone wires and country houses and the double yellow strip down the middle of the road. For this sentimental observer, “halfway to everywhere” feels like a state of mind. And by the number of churches in this town, you’d think they meant heaven as well.

2.6.2020