By Myra Lee Adams Goff

The year 1946 was a premium year for celebrations here in New Braunfels. From its beginning in 1845, the town had celebrated almost everything with parades, dances, festivals, (Spass muss sein, or fun must be) but 1946 was special.

World War II had ended in September of 1945 and NB’s centennial celebration should have been that year, but WW II was such a sad time that the centennial association decided to defer the 100th anniversary of the founding of NB until “the boys came home.” Sadly out of the 1,491 Comal County men and women who served in the services, 38 did not come home.

The celebration was a three day extravaganza in May of 1946. Earlier in March, Mayor A.D. Nuhn proclaimed the centennial of the founding of the town from the Plaza. He asked all to stand when the siren went off and remember those emigrants who began this community. Only months before, this same siren had alerted citizens to air raids.

The Kindermaskenball parade, the annual children’s costume parade, kicked off the Centennial parade. Emmie Seele Faust, daughter of Hermann Seele (NB’s first school teacher), believed that the first Kindermaskenball parade took place in 1856. Seele supposedly brought the tradition from Germany. Seele led the children through the town and then out to a pasture near the Comal Springs, an area that would later become Landa Park.

During the Centennial parade, New Braunfels was honored with Texas Gov. Coke Stevenson’s speech on the Main Plaza. The parade was led by the 100- piece Texas Aggie Band. There was a Comanche Indian program led by Chief Parker of Oklahoma and finally a large waterworks display over Landa Park Lake. (“Kindermaskenball; Past and Present”; Rosemarie Leissner Gregory and Myra Lee Adams Goff)

Just four months later, the enormous historic parade was repeated again for the big Centennial Comal County Fair celebration. This would be the first big fair in five years.  There had been no fair since the war began in 1941. In 1944 there was a scaled-down stockshow and rodeo at the fairgrounds. County Agent and Fair Director Leslie Ehlers encouraged ranchers to bring livestock for display. There was also a rodeo by Reagan Calhoun who said the bulls “would be subdued by hand”. A few commercial entries could be seen and there was a small parade of cowboys, cowgirls, and rodeo performers. (“It’s Fair Time”; Myra Lee Adams Goff)

It wasn’t until 1946 that a full-fledged fair took place. The kickoff was a giant parade much like the one in May honoring New Braunfels’ history. Horse racing returned after a long absence with so many entries that Sheriff Walter Fellers had to look for barns off the fairgrounds.

Since automobiles were impossible to buy during the war, a very special post-war exhibit featured new autos now available Dealers were eager to show them off. The 1946 Kaiser-Fraiser got lots of attention.

Three long-time Sophienburg supporters and volunteers were especially happy about the decision to postpone the centennial year until the boys came home. Ruth (Jahn) Heitkamp said that her husband Walter “Square” Heitkamp went into the service immediately after graduating from A&M. She came back to NB when he was sent overseas.  Volunteer Lorene (Baese) Fiedler had a similar story in that she came home to wait for husband Kenneth’s return from overseas. Volunteer Harriet (Rust) Hargrove was a small child at the time and was in NB with her mother’s family awaiting the return of her father Melvin “Meps” Rust from overseas. All three families were united by Centennial time.

The Comal County Fair starts tomorrow and runs through Sunday with the big parade Friday. This year I’m going to remember the centennial year of 1946 with its huge parades and reasons to celebrate. As the saying goes, Spass muss sein.

An ox-drawn covered wagon rounds the Main Plaza during the 1946 Centennial

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

It seems to me that New Braunfels is one of those towns that have it all; beautiful rivers, good people, and a very interesting historic background. And NB was one of those fortunate towns that was not bypassed by the railroad and had a train whose track curved downtown. These fortunate circumstances ensured that the city survived, for all over Texas small towns literally died as a result of being “off the track”.

Soon after the Civil War the cost of cattle drives and the fencing of rangeland called for a less expensive means of transportation. Railroads were the answer.In New Braunfels, the first steam locomotive was the International and Great Northern Railroad. After the railroad completed construction of a temporary wooden bridge over the Guadalupe River in 1880, the crew pulled into town. This wooden bridge was replaced by a concrete bridge that tragically collapsed in 1890 due to faulty construction, killing the engineer.

The coming of the railroad brought about big changes in the everyday lives of people. New Braunfels was no exception. Moving goods and moving people could be accomplished in a timelier manner. Up until 1880, if a person wanted to go to San Antonio from NB, they could walk, go on horseback, or ride in a wagon. What now takes about half an hour took three days. There were no hotels, motels, or restaurants along the way. Unlike today, most people from NB lived their entire lives without going to San Antonio, Austin, or even Seguin.

David Albright, president of the New Braunfels Historic Railroad and Modelers Society, says that the need of a station house was expressed in the “Neu Braunfelser Zeitung” in 1905. The original depot was built in 1885. The newspaper article states that when hundreds of people came on the train for the flower parade in 1906, they sank ankle deep in mud and slush and with a rain shower, only a few found shelter in the small depot. A new unique depot was built of concrete blocks from the local factory of Mordhurst & Blumberg. (See our Web site at Sophienburg.com for more information on Mordhurst Nov. 26, 2008)

Albright says that by the 1900s the I&GN had a reputation of being unsafe and by 1920 the company went into receivership and was bought by another railroad, the Missouri Pacific. Still another railroad, the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas (Katy), came to NB in 1900. Presently, both the Missouri Pacific and the Katy Railroads are part of the Union Pacific systems with original routes of both railroads still  in operation.

These railroad stories are similar to stories all over Texas, but no one else had spurs into Landa Park but NB. The story is that in 1897 Helen Gould, daughter of entrepreneur J.Gould, was visiting Landa Park when it was owned by Harry Landa. She suggested to him that it might be interesting to run a spur track from the main line into Landa Park for excursions. Landa liked the idea and so the I&GN put a spur into the park cutting off close to Elizabeth St. and stopping at the location of the miniature train. In 1900, the Katy put a spur in Landa Park as well, stopping close to the restrooms next to Fredericksburg Road. These trains brought thousands of tourists to Landa Park. The tracks were pulled up in 1927 when the park went into receivership. The City purchased Landa Park in 1936.

In 1986 the old train depot on San Antonio and Hill Streets became the site of a fine not-for-profit Railroad museum. The museum, open to the public, is loaded with great photos and an ongoing HO-scale model railroad layout. The museum is a good example of efforts to keep historic New Braunfels alive so “get on the track” and go visit them.

On November 5, 1890, a span of the I&GN railroad bridge over the Guadalupe River collapsed, killing the engineer and fireman.