Smithson Valley Cemetery in the Texas Hill Country is the resting place of German immigrants who settled the Smithson Valley community, which once included a store, post office, blacksmith shop, one-room schoolhouse, dancehall, bowling alley, and saloon. Many descendants of Johann Startz, one of the first 240 founders of New Braunfels and a citizen of the Republic of Texas, are buried there. The cemetery began in 1876 as a family ranch burial ground for baby Karl Ohlrich, Jr., the young son of Louise Pantermuehl Ohlrich, sister of Heinrich Pantermuehl. In 1898, Heinrich Pantermuehl, husband of Johann Startz's granddaughter Pauline, formally deeded the land for cemetery use. Its landscape reflects German family cemeteries across central Texas, with graves facing east to west in uniform rows with curbing, gravestones of granite, marble, and limestone, several unmarked graves thought to be those of children, and many inscriptions in German. The grave of young soldier Herbert Startz is decorated with a blanket of shells believed to be the signature of German cement finisher Henry Theodore Mordhorst. Since 1970, the Smithson Valley Cemetery Association has maintained the cemetery as a reminder of German immigration and settlement in the Hill Country.