By Myra Lee Adams Goff

Are you one who thinks that John Meusebach led the group that founded Fredericksburg up Fredericksburg Road, out Highway 46 and then straight on to Fredericksburg? I know that’s what I thought, but it’s not true.

I ran across evidence that this more recent pathway from New Braunfels to Fredericksburg wasn’t the way the group traveled. I enlisted directional help in interpreting Dr. Ferdinand Roemer’s description of the early 1840s route from retired TxDOT archaeologist Al McGraw. Roemer states that there was only one possible road to Fredericksburg from New Braunfels due to the accessibility of water for the animals and because of geographic conditions for wagons.

The road ran in a southwesterly direction from NB toward Fredericksburg just past the Cibolo along the Old San Antonio Road. The route includes a portion of old Nacogdoches Road that is designated as a National Historic Trail of the Camino Real. At this point it takes a straight northwesterly course intersecting and then following an old Indian trail running northward from San Antonio called the Pinto Trail (Pinta). The route continues to the valley of the Salado and then to a higher elevation and several miles above this point to Meusebach’s Comanche Springs. One would then descend into the Guadalupe valley to the banks of the Guadalupe River near modern Sisterdale where wagons could cross. Finally, travel to a high, broad plateau and continue north to Fredericksburg.

The route has few rough places or steep inclines, and is free of swamp and muddy river crossings. Apparently the Adelsverein helped maintain this route, as Roemer notes that he met a crew of 20 Adelsverein men working on the road near the Salado.

After resigning from the Adelsverein, Meusebach settled at Comanche Springs (now in the vicinity of Camp Bullis), established a livestock operation and an inn. The date is thought to be before 1852. Later when the route to Fredericksburg changed to the north, Meusebach sold his land at Comanche Springs and moved to Loyal Valley on Cherry Springs near Fredericksburg.

Today if you would travel the same general route, you would take Hwy. 482 from NB, continue on the Nacogdoches Road towards San Antonio, go past Rolling Oaks Mall, turn west onto 1604 and then take IH10 towards Fredericksburg.

Texas early roads often followed Indian trails. Some people think that these trails were created by long 12 foot tent poles dragged behind horses as they moved their tents from one spot to another. When the Spanish explorers moved into Texas, they reported seeing large herds of wild animals roaming the trails. The Spanish brought horses of Arabian stock and mustangs were their descendants. With time, the Comanche in particular had mastered the mustang for traveling the trails. Later, the Caminos were roadways blazed by expeditions connecting towns and missions.

When Comal County was created in 1846, the Commissioners Court had the power to lay out new roads and discontinue old ones. The court appointed local overseers to supervise maintenance of the roads. It required all able-bodied males between 21 and 45 to perform road duties several days a year. Also all people convicted of misdemeanors and those who owed unpaid fines were compelled to work out the amount in roadwork.

Laurie Jasinski in her book “Hill Country Backroads”about the origin of Comal County roads, stated that the commissioners declared Seguin and San Antonio Sts. to be the first highway roads in the county. By the latter 1800s some established routes were Smithsons Valley-Boerne Rd., Cranes Mill Rd., Bear Creek Rd .,Boerne-San Antonio Rd., Purgatory Rd., and Mountain Valley Rd.

By the turn of the century, in the United States, two million miles of roads stretched across the country, but most were pitted rocky trails or soggy mud-holes. Jasinski found that in 1895, there were four autos registered in the US, and by 1899, three thousand.

In 1907, Harry Landa was one of the earliest auto owners. Change was taking place. As more autos were being purchased, local merchants converted the farmer wagon yards to parking lots. Hitching posts were removed.

Around 1910, crews improved city streets by a process of graveling called macadamizing, which was a process of packing down the roads with layers of progressively smaller rocks until the top layer consisted of crushed stones called screening, no larger than two inches in diameter. The roads caused so much dust that a sprinkling cart had to sprinkle down the roads every day.

1850s map of early route to Fredericksburg

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In the next column we will look at how touring cars contributed to the tourist industry and Joe Sanders helped that happen.

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

When the Faust St. Bridge received the prestigious Texas Historic Civil Engineering Landmark Award recently, all attention was on the bridge itself. But the Faust St. Bridge was more to New Braunfels than that; it was the way that hundreds of NB citizens got to the textile mill.

The bridge was the first high-water bridge in Comal County. On April 5, 1887, when the County took bids for the bridge, it was not in the city limits. The King Iron Bridge Mfg. Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, got the contract and the total cost including land for right-of-way and engineering costs was $33,269.The bridge built along the Camino Real provided an access across the Guadalupe on State Hwy. 2 from San Antonio to Austin. (Source: Comal County minutes and Oscar Haas)

In 1921 the trustees of Planters and Merchants Mill of San Antonio bought the land on the other side of the Guadalupe River located in the Esnaurizar Eleven League Grant from Louis and Bertha Meyer. A charter was granted two years later for the construction of a mill. The trustees built the local textile mill for the manufacture of fine cotton ginghams. Eventually the Planters and Merchants Mill became the New Braunfels Textile Mill, then the Mission Valley Mills s and then the West Point Pepperell.

The interest in textile mills flourished after WWI when materials became more plentiful. During the war, all textiles were devoted to the war effort. Major S.M. Ransopher set up the mill and brought with him R. B. Vickers and Howard McKenna with experience from textile mills in New England to help him run the mill. Both Vickers and McKenna became lifetime citizens of NB.

In 1929 Planters and Merchants declared bankruptcy and closed for about a month. In receivership, it was operated by Col. Ralph Durkee. The mill reorganized in August of 1931 under the name of New Braunfels Textile Mills. The William Iselin Co. of New York plus local citizens purchased stock in the plant. One of the new directors, Harry Wagenfuehr, sold stock locally. Reopening the mill was a real boost to New Braunfels.

In 1977 Herb Skoog from Radio Station KGNB-KNBT and the Sophienburg Reflections programs interviewed well-known business man in town, Haney Elliott Knox, about the history of the textile mill. Most of you know that Elliott Knox Blvd., which used to be Hwy. 81, was named after him. Active politically, Knox was elected mayor of NB in 1967. He and McKenna both served as chairmen of the McKenna Memorial Hospital.

H.E. Knox came to New Braunfels right after graduating from Texas Tech University in 1935 with a degree in textile chemistry. Knox said the primary reason for Tech’s offering this degree was the large cotton and wool crops in Texas at the time. Walter Dillard was running the mill and Howard McKenna was plant superintendent. Knox began as a laborer in the dye house at $12 a week.

In those early ’30s, patterns of the materials were determined by artists or customers. Styles changed rapidly and there was always a spring and fall line. There were about 300 employees. Over the life of the mill, thousands of families had textile mill connections.

After WWII the mill was expanded. They even started a retail operation about 1946. Bluebonnet Ginghams was the trade name and principal product. The operation moved into the Dacron business about 1955. Polyester, nylon and cotton blend changed the original product to a blend. Another change was Sanforizing ,the mechanical process of shrinking goods, thereby getting rid of the pre-wash of the past.

Big customers were Montgomery Ward, Sears, and J.C. Penney. In 1932 H. Dittlinger Roller Mills began sacking their flour in Bluebonnet Gingham. The sacks were in many colors that could be made into all sorts of articles of clothing. Because of the high quality of the cotton, these pieces of clothing made good “hand-me-downs”.

The bridge and the mill are a history lesson in themselves. From the center of the Faust St. Bridge, look up river and see the dam leading to the mill. Above the dam, submerged by the higher water was the settlers’ crossing at the foot of Nacogdoches St. The dam changed the Guadalupe forever.

The textile mill dam during its construction. A.C. Moeller got the contract for the dam and the electric generator F building.

Google Maps: Faust Street Bridge