By Myra Lee Adams Goff

What’s happening to the old house at 230 W. Mill St? I found out. Jeff and Denise Mund have bought the old Georg Pfeuffer house and they are restoring it. Records show that this is the sixth time that there have been major additions and renovations.

Ownership of the lot on which the house stands was conveyed to Johann Georg Pfeuffer in 1852 and it is assumed that the house was built shortly thereafter. It is one of the early houses in New Braunfels built with fachwerk walls, a custom brought from German architecture. One can see fachwerk construction in present day Germany. Casement windows with unique latches can be seen upstairs. Hand-hewn cedar beams throughout the house and wide cedar beams were used in the ceiling. The full basement contained the kitchen and has a brick floor. In the downstairs area are two original black walnut doors, a wood that was plentiful along the banks of the Guadalupe.

Johann Georg Pfeuffer was born in 1799 in Bavaria. He married Barbett (Barbara) Broschel in 1829 and six children were born to the couple.

Pfeuffer was a tanner and owned several tanneries in Germany. He was quite a prosperous businessman. The children were all educated and servants tended to their needs.

The family does not know why in 1845 Pfeuffer sold all his tanneries, uprooted his family, and signed up with the German Emigration Company to come to Texas. They were among the second group of emigrants and arrived in Galveston in November of 1845. From there the family took a schooner to Indianola.

A near tragedy occurred when they were put on an overloaded schooner. It sank in the bay outside of Indianola. The lives of the family were saved but most of their possessions were lost. Now they were virtually penniless and were stranded on the coast along with the hundreds of other emigrants. They didn’t arrive in New Braunfels until 1848. The 1850 Comal County census lists Georg as 51, Barbett as 44, Valentine as 18, Christopf as 16, Daniel as 12, Barbette as 9, and Anna Marie as 6. The oldest son, also named George, was 20 years old and wasn’t listed in this census. He was known to have moved to Corpus Christi at the time.

Sometime between 1852 and 1860, the elder Georg Pfeuffer began a tannery in the basement of his home on Mill St.( Source: “Texas and Texans”,1914 translation). Inquiring about the process of tanning, I asked Al Ludwig, the g-g grandson of Georg Pfeuffer and owner of Ludwig Leather Co. on Seguin Street. He said that the process was done by soaking the hide in tannin extracted from oak trees to produce leather that was soft and durable. The word Tanne is an old German word for oak or pine trees (hence the word Tannenbaum). How did this family survive with the tannery in the basement?

Family records state that Georg Pfeuffer was very opinionated about the politics of the day. He signed the petition in Comal County calling for secession. Four sons fought in the Civil War.

About that time the young Georg Pfeuffer returned to New Braunfels from Corpus. This Pfeuffer son became the most prominent in the family, as he was a Texas Senator and responsible for the capitol in Austin being constructed of Texas Granite. Later he became president of Texas A&M College. To read more about him, log on to Sophienburg.com Nov. 26, 2008.

Johann Georg Pfeuffer (Sr.) died in 1886. Thereafter the house was conveyed to the Baetge family. In 1942 Arthur Baetge as executor of the Baetge estate sold the house to Annie Lehman who, in turn, conveyed it to her son Leroy Lehman in 1954.

Leroy Lehman and his wife Agnes raised one son and four daughters in this home. Some changes were made to the home to accommodate their growing family. The August Koch map of 1881 shows the house without the side porch that the Lehmanns added. Ernest Lehman, son of the Leroy Lehmans, recently brought the original pillars to the Munds.

The City of New Braunfels designated the house as a historic landmark. All of us in New Braunfels benefit from restoration projects like the Munds have taken on.

Johann Georg Pfeuffer

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

When I was a child, people used to just ride around to sight-see. If you want to see what people saw in that practice, just drive up Farm-to-Market Road 311 about 19 miles to a place called Esser’s Crossing. You’ll enjoy the sightseeing.

Esser’s Crossing was one of the first Guadalupe River crossings, and was known as a safe place to cross from New Braunfels and San Antonio toward Johnson City and Fredericksburg and into the northwest part of the state.

Esser’s Crossing was one of four such crossings used by farming and ranching communities, and was 19 miles northwest of New Braunfels. The flat rock bottom was necessary for horses and wagons to cross the ever-changing Guadalupe river bottom. Furious floods took their toll on the Guadalupe River even after the dams were built.

Esser’s Crossing was originally known as Henderson Crossing after Hensley Henderson. He sold the land to James Henderson, who left the area in 1860. Charles Esser homesteaded near the crossing, and in 1858, provided a public way station for weary travelers along a lonely stretch of road from New Braunfels to Blanco and then on to Fredericksburg.

Esser was a judge, justice of the peace, teacher, and brought postal service to the area in the 1890s. Esser’s place was on the trail, first known as Fredericksburg Road, then Fredericksburg-New Braunfels Road, then the New Braunfels-Blanco Road and finally FM 311.

Charles and Henrietta Esser’s homestead still stands.

Travelers often had to wait a long time to cross the flooded Guadalupe. They would camp at Esser’s Crossing, sometimes as long as two weeks. The alternative was that teamsters had to drive to Fischer Store, Devil’s Backbone or Purgatory Road to cross over the New Braunfels’ Faust St. Bridge, the only other high water Guadalupe crossing, built in 1887.

In 1904, Comal County commissioners decided to build a second high-water bridge over the Guadalupe. One of four crossings were considered and Esser’s was chosen, but not without controversy. Grover E. King Co. of Dallas built the bridge for $12,498. The construction of the bridge was Whipple truss design, very common at the time. The spans were supported by oval-shaped masonry piers and rusticated stonework.

While the bridge was being built, the Guadalupe flooded at 16 feet, the under pinning on the construction washed away and the whole unfinished span fell into the water, causing a major delay.

The first high-water bridge, the Faust Street Bridge, was 640 feet in length built in 1887. This bridge and the Esser’s Crossing Bridge looked almost identical. Crossing the Guadalupe to the Textile Mill, the Faust St. Bridge was sometimes known as the “Mill Bridge.” At a cost of $25,600, the contract was let to the King Iron Bridge Mfg. Co. of Cleveland, Ohio. Over the years, rules of the bridge reflect the times: “No livestock on the bridge” (Your imagination can probably tell you why), “Walk your horses or be fined $5.00”, and a later sign in 1912 stated that automobiles were not to exceed 5 mph.

The Texas Department of Agriculture named this bridge in 1917 as a major crossing of all traffic between Austin and San Antonio. It was used until another concrete bridge was built in 1934. In 1999, the Faust Street Bridge was designated as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.

Throughout its history, Esser’s Crossing was a busy place.

Reported by long-timers in the area that after World War II, troops from Ft. Sam Houston marched to New Braunfels and then on to Esser’s Crossing, where they camped overnight and then marched back to Ft. Sam the next day. Hermann Seele in his writings speaks of crossing at Esser’s Crossing early on.

The bridge was condemned in 1954 but remained visible until 1976. Comal County commissioners ordered the bridge to be torn down because of floods, fire damage and vandalism. Close by, the present bridge was built in 1978.

Historian Brenda Anderson-Lindemann and other long-time property owners have spearheaded a drive to have the area of Esser’s Crossing recognized with a Texas Historical Marker.

It’s a nice drive.

Charles Esser, photo owned by Willard Dierks

Esser's Crossing Bridge, photo owned by Helen Weidner

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

There were only three times in the long history of the Comal County Fair that the fair was postponed. Two times had to do with weather and one time had to do with war.

The very first fair was scheduled to be held in November 1893. The recently organized Comal County Fair Association, under the leadership of Harry Landa, chose Landa’s Pasture for its location (LCRA later on). The Association owned no property so it rented this pasture from Landa for four years. Because of a drought, the dust was so bad that the fair had to be postponed until the following November of 1894.

The next time the fair was postponed was 1942-1946. Like so many events, the Comal County Fair was put on hold during World War II. The last year of a full-scale fair was 1941. The war was a sad time and celebrating just wasn’t in the plans. Trying to keep the fair alive, the directors carried on small stockshows and rodeos with no prizes, in other words, nothing that involved money.

New Braunfels’ Centennial in 1945 was postponed until the following year. The Centennial Fair of 1946 was the first complete fair in five years. It was good to celebrate with a fair and a parade.

Read about this Centennial Fair at Sophienburg.com Sept. 22, 2009. The NBHS band led the parade in their brand new blue and white wool uniforms. With military precision, the band played the John Philip Sousa marches. The pet parade was a huge success and this led to an even bigger pet parade the following year with 120 pets entered, even a zebra, a baby donkey, squirrels, foxes, an African tiger in a rolling cage. There were 36 horses from the Mission Valley Guest Ranch. The next year, because of several anthrax cases in the county, the Fair Association eliminated all livestock exhibits and shows. The parade banned all hoofed animals and of course that meant horses.

The years 1949 and 1950 were really boom years for the fair. Unusual animals started appearing in the pet parade. Joyce Eberhardt entered a doodle bug and won the smallest pet category. What ever happened to doodle bugs? I haven’t seen one in a long time, but I recall how entertaining they were on the Lamar School playground.

Horse races were popular and Reagan Calhoun, rodeo chairman, reported that he was looking for broncos that were “really mean.” Also on the rodeo grounds Walter Sippel demonstrated harness racing. This was a sport that had been featured in the early years. Sippel was considered one of the outstanding harness race men in the southwest.

Let’s jump up to 1954. This was the beginning of the worst drought in the history of the city. The average rainfall for New Braunfels is a little over 30 inches. In ’54, the yearly rainfall was slightly over 10 inches. The drought lasted two more years with 23 inches in ’55 and 18.44 inches in ’56.

This three-year period was when the springs dried up, there was no water in Landa Lake and both the Guadalupe and the Comal were reduced to a mere trickle. The fair rocked along in the dust. Does anyone remember the city water trucks that sprinkled the roads to try to eliminate the dust?

Now jump forward to 1957 when the rainfall for the year was 51.88. By Wednesday when the carnival rolled into the fairgrounds, eight inches of rain fell so, they just parked on the paved center street of the grounds. The fairgrounds turned from a lake to a swamp — just dried-up grass and mud, and lots of it. The fair was postponed for two weeks.

The Comal County Fair generates much interest and enthusiasm year after year. It becomes part of childhood, growing up, and part of old age. The show must go on.

Landa Park Springs - Drought dried up the Landa Park Springs in 1954, ’55 and ’56, but the Comal County fair rocked along in the dust.