LUCKENBACH, TEXAS. Luckenbach, a scenic community on both sides of Ranch Road 1376, 13½ miles from Fredericksburg in southeastern Gillespie County, was settled as a farming community in the late 1840s and early 1850s by several German-speaking families, among them those of brothers Jacob Luckenbach, a veteran of the Texas Revolution, and August Luckenbach. The pleasant setting is a mixture of caliche hills and bottomlands on Grape Creek, a tributary of the Pedernales River. A store, saloon, and post office were established there by Mrs. Albert Luckenbach, née Minnie Engel. A dance hall, a cotton gin, and a blacksmith shop were in existence by the late 1800s. A number of family cemeteries and one Catholic cemetery were also established. A primary school and a Methodist church supported the growing population, which in addition to Methodists included in roughly equal numbers Lutherans and Catholics.