Comfort Historic District (Boundary Increase)

This listing enlarges the Comfort Historic District in Kendall County, Texas, a town founded by German immigrants in 1854. The original 1979 district covered ten core blocks. The amendment adds areas on all four sides and extends the period of significance to 1954, so that buildings from the 1930s through the early 1950s can count. The added area has 174 properties, including houses, a feed mill, a hatchery, a beer garden, a Turnverein, churches, two Mexican-American-owned groceries and the historic school campus. Early buildings used local cypress and limestone in log, fachwerk and board-and-batten construction. Later houses include Queen Anne, Folk Victorian L-plans, Craftsman bungalows and postwar Ranch and Minimal Traditional types. The district is considered locally significant for community development and architecture. It shows how an unincorporated town stayed stable, grew as an agricultural trade center and kept a low-density, largely intact historic character despite Highway 27 and the former rail line cutting through its grid.