By Myra Lee Adams Goff

Do you know why our streets are named what they are? A tremendous amount of history can be learned by knowing how our streets got their names.

Using Main Plaza as the center of town, the names of Seguin Ave. and San Antonio St. are pretty obvious. The first settlers in 1845 followed the east side of the Guadalupe River by way of Seguin, then crossed at the King’s Highway (Nacogdoches St.) and made their way up into the settlement not far from where Seguin Ave. would be laid out.  Seguin Ave. was considered the main street.

The street pointing in the direction of San Antonio in Bexar County was important because Bexar was one of four counties created by the Republic of Texas after Texas won its independence from Mexico. Since our area was part of Bexar, local official legal business had to be done in San Antonio. Comal became a county on March 24, 1846. New Braunfels, the county seat, is a year older.

These two main streets, plus the rest of the 1285 acres purchased by Prince Carl from the Veramendi family, were surveyed and laid out by Nicholas Zink. Prince Carl gave Zink 25 acres along the Comal Creek (in the area of Zink St.).

Bridge St. seems to be ill-named as there isn’t a bridge on it. Ah, but at one time there was. At the end of E. Bridge where it would meet the Comal, there was a foot bridge. Hermann Seele tells us that there was a small island in the water where the Comal Creek and the Comal River merged. (above Clemens Dam). Two large pecan trees had been felled on to the island from the banks and this was the Brücken (bridge) that connected NB with Comaltown. In Oscar Haas’ translation of Fritz Goldbeck’s poem, Goldbeck says that often he and his brother crossed this bridge at the break of day to shoot wild turkey-cocks that came nightly to roost in the pecan forest on the opposite bank of the Comal (Comaltown).

The Goldbeck brothers cross the Pecan Bridge to hunt for wild turkeys in 1845-46. Drawing by Patricia Arnold

Another historic street is Mill St. leading down to the Comal. Prince Carl set aside 1 ¾ acres  called the “mill block”. He saw the potential for water power running all sorts of mills – woolen, saw, grist, and that is indeed what happened there.

Prince Carl named Castell St. after Count Carl of Castell-Castell, a member of the Adelsverein. Prince Carl had already changed the name of Indian Point, the Adelsverein’s property on the coast, to “Carlshaven” after Castell, Prince Carl of Leningen-Amorbach, and himself.

Other dignitaries bearing street names were Jean von Coll, the accountant for the Adelsverein. Coll St. next to First Protestant Church was once called Church Street. Historian Rudolph Biesele tells us that von Coll was a former lieutenant in the service of the Duke of Nassau. He once foiled a plan by the settlers to change the name of New Braunfels to “Comal” by announcing that anyone who voted for “Comal” would get no more supplies. Von Coll was later shot in the back by a disgruntled settler.
Biesele also tells us that Magazine St. was so named after the German word “Magazin” (warehouse) for the building behind the Sophienburg, housing the Adelsverein’s supplies.

Parallel to Magazine is Academy St. and that’s a pretty easy one too if you follow it across San Antonio St. to where the NBISD has its Administration building. That is where the New Braunfels Academy was located, the first tax-supported school in the state of Texas.

Botanist Ferdinand Lindheimer was given 10 town lots on Comal Ave. and Garden St.  About where the Lindheimer House is on Comal Ave. was where his Botanical Gardens were located. Comal Ave. ended there originally, and was extended later.

When you’re driving around, it might be fun to test yourself on your “street smarts”.

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

In the area of the Wursthalle called the Spass Haus, is a collection of 3,000 beer bottles adorning the walls. These bottles are only 20% of the collection and  Wurstfest visitors can see the modified collection during the two weekends of the celebration.

The collection belonged to Jerome Nowotny and was acquired by the Wurst Association in 1982. Unfortunately Nowotny did not get to see the display at the Spass Haus, as he died in 1992. Executive Director Suzanne Herbelin said it took quite a while for the Association to assemble the collection. If you notice that the bottles are dusty or you see a spider or two, that’s because Nowotny gave written instructions that “spiders and their webs be encouraged to control silverfish and roaches that could eat the labels from the bottles”.

Nowotny was born in New Braunfels in 1914. As a 14 year old, he bought a car and traveled around the country in the summers. After graduating from NBHS he went to New York to pursue a career in theatre. Newspaper accounts say that Nowotny claims that he bought his first legal bottle of beer in New York – a Trammers which is on display in the Spass Haus, along with the bottle purchased while on his first date with his future wife. This bottle is titled “Old Union Lager Beer”. Nowotny estimated that about 9,000 of the bottles were obsolete brands and irreplaceable. The oldest bottle in the collection is English ale from about 1720.

The acting career didn’t work out so Nowotny hitchhiked around the country, paying his way by carving peach seeds into monkeys. All this time he was collecting beer bottles.
The house in which Nowotny was born was a home bought by his father, Albert Nowotny. (Albert Nowotny was the owner of The House That Jack Built restaurant). Jerome eventually purchased the family home from his father and later opened a restaurant called the Bavarian Village. He displayed his beer bottle collection in a long building surrounding the outdoor biergarten in the back yard. Nowotny also had a business in which he painted wooden coats of arms bearing family logos. Lining the Wursthalle walls now are large coats of arms of  Wurstfest members. Although painted by Clinton Brandt, many of the patterns were created by Nowotny.

Director of Wurst Relations Herb Skoog recalls a trip to Germany in which Nowotny collected so many beer bottles that he had to buy extra suitcases. When he found out how much it would cost to ship, he meticulously took off the labels, brought them home and re-affixed them to bottles at home.

Jerome Nowotney in front of his beer bottle collection.

The Bavarian Village was sold to Roy and Theresa Haag in 1985, who continued the restaurant, biergarten, and dance hall. The most recent owner is Schlitterbahn, housing their Christmas Shop. They have done a beautiful job of restoration…

Let’s go back to the beginning of this house. Located on Austin St. in Comaltown, it was built by Johann Georg Moeller (my g-g- grandfather). Moeller was born in Michaelsrombach in the Germanic state of Hesse in 1818. As a 25 year old single man, he emigrated to Texas on the ship Weser. After arriving on the Texas coast in July of 1844, his whereabouts are unknown until he made his first land purchase in Comaltown in 1847.

Family records show that Moeller began construction of the house in 1859 and moved into the two-story house three weeks before he died in 1867.

Working alone, Moeller hand-cut the limestone blocks probably hauled from a quarry close to Rock St. The home has 18 ft. cedar beans and rafters plus cypress floor boards of random sizes.

Spass (fun), Bier (beer), and throw in a little Wurst (sausage), and you have the essence of Wurstfest. Come on out Oct. 31-Nov.9 and “Roll out the Barrel.”