Diedrich Anton Wilhelm Rulfs -- Nacogdoches TX - Citizen Memorials on Waymarking.com

This citizen memorial is located on the side of the building facing the public square at the corner of the El Camino Real and South Pecan Street in downtown Nacogdoches.

The sign reads as follows:

"DIEDRICH ANTON WILHELM RULFS

Nacogdoches owes much of his visible past to the work of master architect Diedrich Anton Wilhelm Rulfs. By 1897 according to the local editor, Rulfs had transformed the business district of Nacogdoches from a collection of pioneer like wooden structures into a modern brick town. In his forty years of work, Rulfs also transform the city’s residential districts by designing a variety of ingenious and elegant homes. Of the buildings designed and built by D. Rulfs, as he always signed his name, over fifty survive today.

Born in 1848 in the northern German province of Oldenberg, Rulfs studied architecture and build houses and churches there before migrating to Nacogdoches in 1879. Rulfs brought with him memories of the rich Victorian styles popular in Europe at the time. Accompanying him were his wife, three children, his mother-in-law, and his brother-in-law. Wilhelm Henry Rulfs, a younger brother, came later and became the architects trusted contractor and carpenter.

D. Rulfs came to Nacogdoches at the request of his friend John Schmidt. Schmidt, a prominent Nacogdoches altar nor, made the architect’s reputation by commissioning several commercial buildings and a personal residence. Rulfs started with small brick buildings on the Public Square, later redesigning and enlarging some of the structures two or three times after fires or necessity dictated the refurbishment. This marker rests on the Cox building (1900), one of a series of larger brick buildings Rulfs designed around the turn-of-the-century to redefine the corners of the Public Square.

Rulfs also drew the plans for courthouses, schools, churches and hotels in the downtown area. While he built sanctuaries for almost all the congregations in town, only two of his churches still stand: Zion Hill First Baptist Church next to Oak Grove Cemetery (still on its original site) and the Episcopal Christ Church (moved from Washington Square to Starr Avenue in 1940). Some fine examples of Rulfs’ domestic architectures still stand the downtown area along Church, Mound, and Logansport Streets. The Roland Jones house, at the corner of church and hospital, is one of the finest Victorian houses in the state of Texas. The business expansion of the 1960s destroyed most of Rulf’s houses along North Street, but there are still fine examples along this street at the intersection of King, Powers, Starr, and Rusk. The Eugene Blount house across from Stephen F. Austin State University is one of the architects last and finest structures.

D. Rulfs died in 1926 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery.

Sponsored by the Heritage Club of Nacogdoches

Purchased in part by a grant the Texas Historical Commission’s Texas Heritage Trails Regional Program. Matching grant funds provided by Plaza Principal."

Website with more information on either the memorial or the person(s) it is dedicated to: [Web Link] Location: South Pecan Street at West Main Street

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