‘We’re called what?’ Back story of the Welfare Post Office

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The Beseler family immigrated from Germany to Texas in 1848. Among the first handful of early residents in future Kendall County, they were captured on the 1850 census in Sisterdale: Carl Joseph, 36, and Augusta, 32, Beseler and their two sons, 12-year-old Carl Phillip and 10-year-old Ernest.

After having a 160-acre land grant surveyed around three miles west of Sisterdale in 1854, they moved there.

The Beselers’ oldest son, Carl Philipp, was instrumental in building future Welfare into a railroad shipping point in the 1880s. Over the years Carl Philipp also served as Justice of the Peace, Kendall County Commissioner and tax assessor, but he’s best known as the region’s first postmaster, establishing the Bonton Post Office on Nov. 15, 1875, on his father’s 1854 survey.

In the spring of 1880, Postmaster Carl Phillip “Charles” Beseler was presented a dilemma. He had been notified by the U.S. Post Office that the name of his Bonton Post Office, which he had established four years earlier, would need to be changed.

And, the name that the Post Office Department’s topographer’s office proposed as a replacement in their Feb. 3, 1880 notice, looked foreign to him; their suggestion was “Joseway.”

Why did the post office think that Joseway would be a good fit? To the post office’s credit, the official in the post office’s topographer office probably thought this suggestion was the perfect solution.

It’s possible the proposed name was based on a landmark in Beseler’s surrounding landscape and Joshua Creek flowed through Beseler’s land. Thus, his inspiration was either the Big Joshua, nearly a mile distant, or the Little Joshua, around a quarter mile away.

Whether reinterpreting or misinterpreting, the post office representative could have also taken its cue from a prior regional post office map where Joshua Creek’s name was altered, with a somewhat phonetic misspelling, “Joshway,” thus suggesting the name “Joseway.”

After all, the Texas Hill Country is lined with Spanish waterways: Cibolo Creek, Comal Creek, Blanco Creek, Pedernales Creek and the Guadalupe River.

Beseler replied on March 15, 1880, penning his rebuttal on his map: “Joseway is the new name proposed by the Post Office Dept. for Bonton in case of a change, but the name was objected to by the people. The future name for BonTon will be Welfare.”

As a result, the Welfare Post Office was established on March 25, 1880. After its postal name transitioned from Bonton to Joseway to Welfare in 53 days, “Welfare” held up in spite of its early convoluted pedigree.

A Texas Historical Commission marker honoring the Beseler Family was dedicated in 1996 along Waring-Welfare Road in Welfare.