By Myra Lee Adams Goff

During World War II when my dad, Marcus Adams, was City Clerk, he was also appointed Landa Park Manager. This was quite a responsibility for one man, but it was war time and municipal funds were scarce and it wasn’t unusual to double up.

During the summer when thousands of soldiers were brought to Landa Park in buses from the San Antonio bases, his job as park manager would last until after midnight.I would go with him early in the morning and mostly hang out at the spring-fed pool. The pool was in the original course of the Comal Springs.

By this time in the early 1940s, Harry Landa’s Camp Placid on the banks of the spring-fed pool was torn down. It was replaced with an Austin stone bath house, men’s room on one side and women’s on the other, with the payment desk in the open center area. This is where the black wool bathing suits for men and women could be rented. Competing with pin-ups like Betty Grable in her bathing suit and high heels, these black wool get-ups were no match.

Out in the pool there was a spinning top that could be frightening. I was at the pool enough to know that people could drown and I knew that people did foolish things like diving into areas that said “no diving”. The wooden rafts (still there) saw many games of “King of the Raft”.
Were lifeguards always heroes at other pools? They sure were at the park. Lifeguards Tommy Ortiz and Raymond Pehl kept swimmers from drowning and did trick diving off the high diving board to boot. They were awesome!

Twice a week the pool was drained and then cleaned by dragging a big cedar tree attached to the back end of a tractor to loosen the green slime that had accumulated on the bottom and sides. The lifeguards and I were allowed to wade around looking for coins and other valuables. We couldn’t keep valuables. Rings and things would be put in the safe at the City Hall and if unclaimed in a year, “finders keepers”. On my silver heart bracelet, so popular in the 1940s, I have one insignificant looking heart that says “Forget me not.” I never forgot that I found that heart at the bottom of the Landa Park pool.

Right next to the dressing rooms where the Landa Haus is now located, was a drink stand and café, also made out of Austin stone.It’s still there. Connected to this structure was an open-air dance floor with a jukebox. I think I know those war songs so well because I heard them over and over. Sad war songs like “Wait for Me, Mary”, “Coming’ in on a Wing and a Prayer”, “The White Cliffs of Dover”. Then there were goofy songs like “Mares Eat Oats”, “Rum and Coca Cola”, “Beat Me, Daddy, 8 to the Bar”, and then the most popular of the Big Band sound,” Sentimental Journey”, and “Stardust”.

Dad ordered the supplies for the drink stand. So many goodies were sent to the soldiers that popular candy and drinks were scarce. For every one box of Hershey candy, the Park had to purchase five boxes of ribbon candy. The Hershey bars were doled out carefully and the ribbon candy was even hard to give away. There was one kind of off-brand orange soda that was plentiful. One day a man came running up to the drink stand wanting the orange drink in a hurry. It was provided and three more times he ran up demanding the soda. Then he returned to pay and the attendant said, “You must really like that orange soda” and his reply was,”No, my car engine was on fire”.

This has been a “Sentimental Journey” for me. How about you?

A view of the old bath house from the pool in the 1940s.

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

On the floor of the Sophienburg Museum is a strange looking hunk of steel that seems out of place because it has no apparent use. But this object wasn’t always useless. As a matter of fact, it had a very prominent place in New Braunfels history, because it’s the breech of a cannon.

Seeing photos of the medieval- looking Prince Carl, it makes sense that he would insist on two cannons for protection of the new colony. He had them made in Victoria, Texas. Now just imagine this:

Prince Carl chose 1^st Lt. L.L. von Coll to be in charge of guns and the cannons. Sophienburg Hill was to be the defending fortress and the guns were to be kept there in the magazine (warehouse) to be distributed when needed. Hence, we have Magazine Ave.

The two cannons were to be set up at an appropriate point near the magazine. The Prince felt that in case of an attack, the streets could be swept over with cannon shots and the enemy would be cleaned out.

In later years, Mayor C.A. Jahn wrote this account about the cannons for the “Neu Braunfelser Zeitung Jahrbuch”: “They lay for many years several feet apart on the slope of the Sophienburg Hill”.

Jahn goes on to say that before the Civil War, both cannons were used at every celebration of the 4^th of July. The cannons were fired alternately to give the 2 ½ - 3 inch thick cast- iron walls time to cool. Once, one cannon was reloaded too early and the firing came off during the loading and catapulted the gunman down the hill.

When news reached the town that the Civil War was over, the cannons were loaded and fired. Jahn said that as a young boy, he and his friends watched this firing from a distance and observed the gunners hurridly placing themselves behind a large elm tree. Suddenly there was an explosion. The one cannon had blown up, scattering parts everywhere.

Jahn’s story about the other cannon is that in 1870, it was taken to the 5^th Ward (Comaltown) to be part of the 25^th Anniversary Festival to be held there. During the three day celebration, the lone cannon was fired many times. Jahn related that after that, the cannon was seldom used. Some years later four young boys decided to scare the town by shooting off the cannon, but it blew up.

There are dozens of different versions of the demise of that last cannon, but Carlo Fischer in a 1980 Reflections tape claims that he has the “real” story. He claims that on Christmas Eve, 1894, his father, Emil Fischer, plus Harry Galle, Adolph Henne, and Emil Gerlich decided to shoot the cannon to create a little life in the town. At that time the cannon was on the banks of the Comal. First they went to the bowling alley on Seguin Ave. and played cards. Then they sneaked out after the manager Gottlieb Oberkampf dozed off, went to the river and hid under the iron bridge (early San Antonio St. Bridge) until the pump was cut off at Clemens Dam, as it was every night. Henne brought the powder, Fischer brought the loading rod, Gerlich was the cannoneer, and Galle crossed the Comal to get dry cow pods. They inadvertently blew up the cannon and then scurried back to the bowling alley. About 500 of Harry Landa’s cattle across the river stampeded Comaltown.Landa offered a $500 reward and the boys were identified. Oberkampf (who was also the Justice of the Peace) claimed that it couldn’t have been the identified boys because they had been playing cards at the bowling alley all evening.

The boys agreed that the story wouldn’t be told until the last of them died. That was Emil Fischer. So now you know.

The fate of the last cannon. Artist Patricia S. Arnold