Keller-Grunder House

German native Antone Keller came to Texas in 1846 as a colonist with the German Emigration Company and arrived with his family at Indianola, where he later opened a crockery, glassware, and grocery store. In 1851 he built this house there for his second wife, Charlotte Kuester Keller. Three years after Keller's death in 1857, Charlotte married her stepson, Antone Keller, Jr. After a destructive hurricane struck Indianola in 1875, they moved the house to this site. Antone Keller, Jr., a Confederate veteran, continued to operate his father's Indianola store until after the second major hurricane in 1886, when he moved the business to Cuero. Augusta Keller Grunder, the daughter of Antone Keller, Jr., acquired the home in 1900. Her husband, Victor J. Grunder, was a prominent Cuero businessman and civic leader, and alterations were made to the residence during their ownership. John Junior Bell, the grandson of Victor and Augusta Grunder, was born in the house in 1910 and, after first being elected to public office in 1936, served in the Texas Legislature from 1937 to 1947, the Texas Senate from 1948 to 1954, and the United States Congress from 1955 to 1957.

Cuero, Texas · United States