The Time of His Life

From hum­ble be­gin­nings, Emil Sauer be­gan a life of ad­ven­ture and public service.

Sauer was born in 1881 in a small four-room log cabin in Stonewall. He ob­tained a teaching de­gree in 1897. He taught a few years, then en­rolled at the University of Texas. There he earned a literature de­gree and played a tackle position on the football team.

Left: Sauer cabin

Right: Harris & Ewing, photographer. SAUER, EMIL. , None. [Between 1905 and 1945] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/hec2009003756/. (Accessed February 12, 2018.)

From Texas Schoolteacher to Diplomat

Sauer worked as a principal and super­in­ten­dent before heading to Harvard to study economics and politics.

In 1910, he briefly found work with the Census Bureau before joining the U.S. State Department.

Emil Sauer served as a consul in the Ottoman Empire, Sweden, Germany, Venezuela, Denmark, Canada, and Brazil. He retired as a consul general from the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany, on July 1, 1941. Less than six months later, Germany declared war on the United States.

Look for Emil Sauer’s pocket watch on display at the Sauer-Beckmann Farm, at Lyndon B. Johnson State Park & Historic Site.