Born in 1851 in Kappaln, Schleswig, Germany, August Heintze emigrated to the United States in 1873 after serving in the Franco-Prussian War. He first settled in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas but soon moved to Warrenton, Fayette County, Texas. In 1878 he married Johanna Speckels with whom he had one son, A. J. Heintze. In 1883 Heintze moved to LaGrange, Fayette County, Texas, and engaged in the mercantile business. As a boy Heintze began collecting curios and relics associated with the history of countries where he visited and lived. His collection grew to become what was known as the Heintze Museum. August Heintze died in LaGrange on July 7, 1923.
Record books, photographs, a scrapbook, and an advertisement record life in Galveston, Houston, and LaGrange, Texas, between 1857 and 1920. Two record books, a membership book and a ledger, contain the membership lists and records of the Galveston Hook and Ladder Company No. 2 (1874-1882) and the Galveston Hook and Ladder Company (1857-1876). Five photographs document Galveston from 1876 to 1915, three of the photographs concern the results of storms in 1913 and 1915. A scrapbook compiled by August Heintze contains newspaper clippings, postcards, and photographs of the Heintze Traveling Man's Museum in LaGrange, Texas, and of people and events in Houston, Texas. A single advertisement for shotgun shells has no date. A single pamphlet concerns the economic health of Galveston after the storm of 1915. Ephemera contains two souvenir photograph collections of the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, Texas, 1908 and of Houston, Texas, 1910. One typescript of an 1838 letter from J. B. Miller to James W. Johnson deals with the settling of N[estor] Clay's estate.
Organized into five series; arrangement is chronological.
None.
Open for research by appointment.
Copyright has not been assigned to the San Jacinto Museum of History. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Library Director. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the San Jacinto Museum of History as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.
Gift of A. J. Heintze, 1942.
Processed by Sarah Canby Jackson, 2001.
[Identification of Item], August Heintze Collection, MC025, San Jacinto Museum of History, Houston, Texas.