QUIHI, TEXAS. Quihi is at the intersection of Farm Road 2676 and Quihi Creek, nine miles northeast of Hondo in northeastern Medina County. It was laid out on Quihi Lake in 1845 by Henri Castroqv and named for the white-necked Mexican eagle buzzard, the quichie or keechie. In March of 1846 ten families of Alsatian immigrants from Castro's colonyqv arrived at the site and erected shelters. Within a week of their arrival Indian raiders killed two of the families, and the settlers erected a brush fortification as a defense against further incursions. Indian raids continued to plague the settlement until the 1870s. Other emigrant settlers from Alsace and East Frisia settled in the community in the 1840s and 1850s. The Bethlehem Lutheran Church was organized in 1852, and a post office opened in Quihi in 1854. The first private school opened in the community in 1856. Though the post office closed in 1872, the community established the first public school in Medina County in 1874. In keeping with their European heritage, Quihi residents formed the Quihi Schuetzen Verein in 1890. In 1994 it was known as the Quihi Gun Club and had 1,000 members drawn from all over Medina County. In 1907 a new school building was erected two miles west of the community. When Quihi school closed in the 1930s, the building was converted to a community center for the town. In the 1940s Quihi had two businesses, a church, and an estimated twenty inhabitants. By the 1960s the town's population was estimated at 100, and in 1969 the community had a church, a cemetery, and scattered dwellings. Quihi's population was still estimated at 100 in 1990. In 2000 the population was 104.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Castro Colonies Heritage Association, The History of Medina County, Texas (Dallas: National Share Graphics, 1983).
Mark Odintz
