Dubina and two old newspapers tell Fayette County's immigrant story

The German story started before Texas was a state. Joseph Biegel received a league of land in 1832 and built Biegel Settlement, the county's first German community. More German families came in the 1840s. Czech settlers followed in the 1850s. In 1856, they founded Dubina, the first Bohemian settlement in Texas.

In 1890, 7,856 of the county's 31,481 residents had been born outside the United States. The largest groups came from Germany and Austria-Hungary. They formed shooting clubs, poetry groups, churches, private schools, and aid societies. La Grange had two newspapers in other languages: the Czech Svoboda and the German La Grange Zeitung.

Painted churches still stand at Dubina, Praha, Ammannsville, and High Hill. In La Grange, the Texas Czech Heritage and Cultural Center has gathered a chapel, lodge hall, newspaper museum, barn, and sawmill in one village.