Monument Hill is a memorial to the men who died in the Dawson Massacre and in the Black Bean Episode of the ill-fated Mier Expedition.

[2] Kreische Brewery’s ruins are a relic to the golden age of Texas craft brewing and represents the contribution of German immigrants to the unique culture of the state.

[3] On September 18, 1848, the remains of Texans killed in the Dawson Massacre and the Black Bean Episode, which had been retrieved from their original burial sites, were reinterred in a common tomb with a sandstone vault at the location now known as Monument Hill.

According to newspaper reports, the location was “preferable to any other in the surrounding country; it is a commanding position, and can be seen at a great distance, and will not fail to attract the attention of everyone who passes through the country.”[4] More than 1,000 people from all over the state attended the ceremony.

[5] Recent German immigrant and stonemason, Heinrich Ludwig Kreische of La Grange, was chosen to build the limestone tomb using resources quarried from the bottom of the bluff.

Trained as a master stonemason, he built a three-story German-Texan style house on the property and, in the late 1860s, began building a brewery.

In addition to owning and operating his brewery, Kreische continued to work on stonemasonry projects in the area, including the construction of an icehouse in downtown La Grange.

This alkaline soil is favored by several species of plants and animals normally found in, or even endemic to the Texas Hill Country, 70 miles northwest.