Nimitz's hometown

Named for Frederick the Great of Prussia, Fredericksburg was settled by German immigrants lured to early Texas with the promise of cheap land and recruited by German nobles for their Texas project. Settled in 1846, Fredericksburg has one long, wide main street, the layout borrowed from villages found along the Rhine. Today we ventured into town and began our visit at the library.

The Library. There are lots of public buildings that share this type of architecture and limestone building materials.

This "tree" in front of the library, see above, has been carved into an eagle supporting two other eagles. 

The Vereins Kirche, "Society's Church", was built in 1935. The church for all denominations is an exact replica of the 1847 original that shows off an ancient German building style. 

The big attraction in town is the National Museum of the Pacific War, the largest museum in the country dedicated to all those who served in the Pacific War and providing displays of some of the most notable aspects and events of WWII in the Pacific.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_the_Pacific_War

Why Fredericksburg for a Pacific War museum?  Turns out Fredericksburg is the birthplace of Chester William Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet/Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Ocean Area.

A more-than-lifesized statue of Chester W. Nimitz in the courtyard outside the Nimitz Hotel.

The National Museum of the Pacific War is a complex of several buildings - the George H.W. Bush Gallery is 33,000 sq. ft of exhibit space and houses the majority of the museum's collection; the Admiral Nimitz Museum, dedicated to the long and successful Naval career of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz; the Pacific Combat Zone and several smaller attractions. Today we visited the Admiral Nimitz Museum and got half-way through the Bush Gallery - as far as the Battle of Guadalcanal. Fortunately the admission tickets are for 48 hours so we will return tomorrow to complete our visit.

The Nimitz Museum was extremely interesting. Chester W. Nimitz's grandfather arrived in Fredericksburg the same year as the first settlers, 1846. He struggled to support his family until he acquired the Nimitz Hotel in 1855, which became popular with travelers. Chester W. Nimitz was born on February 24, 1885, six months after his father died. His mother moved into the Nimitz Hotel where he had a happy childhood. Having no desire to go into the hotel business, Nimitz entered the Naval Academy when he was 16 years old just at the time Theodore Roosevelt was was expanding and modernizing the U.S. Navy after the Spanish-American War. He rose rapidly through the ranks with experience in the Pacific. In the spring of 1941 he refused command of the Pacific fleet in Hawaii and was spared the defeat of Pearl Harbor. Right after Pearl Harbor Nimitz was given command of the Pacific fleet which he later shared with Douglas MacArthur.

The Nimitz Hotel with the prow-of-a-ship entrance.

In his family life, Nimitz had four children, two with interesting careers. The eldest, Kate, was educated as a librarian and she headed the music library of the D. C. Public Library. Mary, the youngest, graduated from Stanford University and then entered the novitiate, becoming Sister Mary Aquinas. She completed a Ph.D. in biology at Stanford and spent the remainder of her career at Dominican College, teaching biology and serving in administrative positions. ( I graduated from Rosary College which is now Dominican University. Judy, do you know if this is where she taught? I know that there are several "Dominican" schools, one in California.)

I'm not going to review the exhibits in the Bush Gallery, but we did take one interesting picture.

A B-25, one of the planes that accomplished the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in 1942.

We also took a picture of the Plaza of the Presidents which is dedicated to our nation's leaders who served during WWII - from Franklin Roosevelt to George H.W. Bush. Most of them served in the Navy except for Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, who served in the Army.

After our time at the Pacific Museum we visited the Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park which has a 1-mile walking trail through riparian woodland, post oak savanna and shortgrass meadows.

Nice trail with representative Texan flora.

Near the end of the trail there was a woman casting a net off the dam. She looked like she was dressed to represent Tom Sawyer.