Heres the story of Albert E. Friedrich and his wildlife preserve. Albert Edward Friedrich was born in Velasco in 1892 to German immigrants Johannes C. and Wilhelmina Friedrich. The elder Friedrich, originally trained as a cabinetmaker, owned a furniture store and later a funeral home in Freeport before his death in 1938. Albert Friedrich worked for Freeport Sulphur, becoming one of their youngest construction superintendents, before starting his own construction company. His business was mostly in road and levee construction and repair and he also invested heavily in real estate. In the late 1950s he lived in a modest house on N. Ave. A in Velasco but owned the property on the outskirts of Lake Jackson. He and his wife had no children and his wife passed away in 1956. His original plan for the excavation on the LJ property was inspired by the Sunken Gardens in Brackenridge Park in San Antonio. In early 1959 he was featured in a series of articles in the Brazosport Facts where he reminisced about early Brazoria County. It is certainly true that he requested that Lake Jackson de-annex his 1400 acre tract and there were also negotiations between Clute and Lake Jackson to transfer it to Clute. I got the sense that there was little interest on the part of LJ City Council to do this. Friedrich also quarreled with City Council over debris cleanup after Hurricane Debra. Beginning in the 1950s he began accumulating animals, originally foxes and deer, with the thought of creating sort of a wildlife preserve. He also had several items such as maps and keepsakes that he wanted to donate to area museums. Im not sure when or if he built a house on the Lake Jackson land, but I believe he did. Newspaper accounts grow sparse into the 1960s and 1970s but of course there are many stories about him. He did seem to grow more reclusive with age; reading between the lines implies that, like many Freeport-area old-timers, he was dubious about the changes wrought by Dow and possibly resentful of the growth of Lake Jackson. The escape of two male and two female lions which led to the killing of a male lion on the Cervenka property was on March 28, 1978. Friedrich had donated a Bengal tiger to the San Antonio Zoo a few months before that, and he employed a manager named Wayne Avery for his animal collection. While I cant find newspaper citations about it, local legend has it that eventually many of the large animals were donated to the San Antonio Zoo. He died in 1983 at the age of 91. This information comes from the Freeport Facts, Brazosport Facts, and Brazorian News. The lion story is printed in _The Lake Jackson Chronicles_, published in 1993 by the Lake Jackson Historical Committee.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 02:17:30 +0000
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