Bluff

Bluff is on the south side of the Colorado River directly across from La Grange in central Fayette County. Its primary features are a high bluff and the Monument Hill-Kreische Brewery State Historic Site, located just west of U.S. Highway 77 on an extension of Farm Road 155. The area was granted by the Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas to David Berry on November 20, 1832. During the late 1840s the land was purchased by Carl George Willrich, one of a number of well-off German immigrants known as Forty-eighters, who came to Texas to escape civil war in Germany. H. L. Kreische acquired the title to the top of the bluff in about 1849 and began construction of his brewery, which for many years served as the focal point of the community. He also provided a burial place on his land for those Texans, including David Berry, who had died in the Dawson massacre or after drawing black beans as Mier expedition members. Bluff had a post office from 1869 to 1903, after which mail was delivered from La Grange. The Bluff voting precinct was established in 1876. Around 1900 the settlement had two stores, a blacksmith shop, a cotton gin, and a post office. Improved transportation across the Colorado River to La Grange led to the economic decline of the town. By 1960 cotton was gone as a crop, and the gin had ceased to function. Cotton fields were replaced by cow pastures and, on the bluff itself, by a large residential development overlooking La Grange. In 1987 at the site were two businesses and a large country club.