Praha is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

located in Fayette County,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. The community was sometimes called "Maticka Praha," which means in Czech "Mother

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

." The city is called "Czech capital of Texas".

History

It was originally called Mulberry by the first Anglo settlers, James C. Duff, William Criswell and Leroy Criswell. (It was also known as Hottentot, a name which apparently referred to a band of local outlaws.) In 1854 a recent

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

immigrant named Matiáš (Matej) Novák purchased of land and built a house in which early

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

es were celebrated. His arrival attracted other Czech immigrants, including Jan Baca, Josef Vyvjala, Ondřej Gallia, Josef Hájek, František Václ, and George Morýsek. In 1858 the town was renamed “Praha”, the native name for the Czech capital

. The small town slowly grew over the next decades. In 1865 Joseph Bithowski, a Bernardine father, built a small frame church, and at midnight on Christmas Day the first Mass was offered. In 1868 a public school was established, and by the 1880s Praha had three stores, a restaurant, and a new frame church, which served as the mother

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

for surrounding towns. A

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

started service in 1884, and in 1896 a Czech Catholic school was established. Praha began a gradual decline after 1873, when the Southern Pacific Railroad laid tracks a mile north of town and Flatonia, a new town founded nearer the tracks, began to draw business away from Praha. At its peak in the 1880s, Praha boasted 700 residents, but during the twentieth century the population of Praha never rose above 100, and in 1906 the post office closed. By 1968 the population had dropped to 25. In 1973 both the parochial and public schools closed. However, worshipers from the area continue to attend Mass at the parish church, St. Mary's Church of the Assumption, currently the town's most notable feature. This spectacular Gothic Revival structure was completed in 1892 and is the center of the annual

Feast of the Assumption The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by Go ...

homecoming festival, which has been celebrated in Praha each August 15 since 1855. Locally known as "Praha Picnic", the celebration draws as many as 5,000 visitors to its traditional Czech polka music and

kolache A kolach (also spelled kolache, kolace or kolacky , from the Czech and Slovak plural koláče, sg. koláč, diminutive koláčky, meaning "cake/pie") is a type of sweet pastry that holds a portion of fruit surrounded by puffy dough. It is m ...

s. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

Praha had the unfortunate distinction of being the U.S. town with the largest ratio of war deaths to residents. The largest number of deaths occurred in 1944, when 9 soldiers from Praha were killed. Three small identical

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

s were built in

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...

of the dead.

References

External links

PRAHA, TEXAS
" '' Handbook of Texas'' *Eckert, E. (1993
Language change: The testimony of Czech tombstone inscriptions in Praha, Texas
In E. Eckert (ed.), Varieties in Czech. Atlanta: Rodopi, 189-215. {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Texas Unincorporated communities in Fayette County, Texas Czech-American culture in Texas