GOLD, TEXAS. Gold, on North Grape Creek 13.5 miles northeast of Fredericksburg in eastern Gillespie County, was founded in 1869 by the families of two German brothers, Jacob and Peter Gold, who had died of cholera soon after their arrival in Texas in 1852. Their widows and six sons owned most of the community's land, the store, and the cotton gin. Therefore, despite the presence of other early settlers such as Heinrich Herbert, Gottfried Ottmers, Conrad Bock, Peter Herber, Heinrich Eckhardt, and Peter Fahrenhorst, the town became known unofficially as Rheingold, later shortened to Gold. The town's first school, taught by August Schuchard, was built around 1873. By 1889, when a new school building was erected, enrollment was around forty. The Gold post office opened in 1908. The community had a dance hall, a gin, a blacksmith shop, a filling station, and a grocery. Between 1925 and 1929 the estimated population rose from fifteen to 100, but in the 1930s the town started to decline. The post office closed in 1931, and by 1933 the population had fallen to ten. By 1945 a few small farmers made up the entire population of Gold. In 1990 the Rheingold school building was still standing and was used as a community center. Gold still appeared on county maps in 2000. No population estimates were available.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gillespie County Historical Society, Pioneers in God's Hills (2 vols., Austin: Von Boeckmann–Jones, 1960, 1974). Ella Amanda Gold, The History of Education in Gillespie County (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1945).

Martin Donell Kohout