By Simon V. Simek —

Considering the rainy days we had last week after such a long dry spell, we thought it relevant to help tell the history of New Braunfels’ eternally erratic weather, and our long-standing feud with rushing water. Diving into the archives, we found some tremendous accounts of how our predecessors fared in their own times against the elements.

The drought of the 1950s is one of the worst, if not the worst, recorded in New Braunfels history. New Braunfels was still largely agricultural, and without modern water solutions, local farmers and ranchers struggled to yield crops and raise livestock. Caroline Stange sat down in 1982 as part of our ongoing Reflections program, a local ongoing oral history effort from the Sophienburg since 1976, to tell her story and detail her experience of the ‘50s drought and the flood of 1972.

Mrs. Stange moved here a little later in life, when she finally agreed to follow her soldier son who was stationed nearby in 1955. At first, she found New Braunfels to be exceptionally clean and friendly, but also incredibly dry and hot, even in January. She had come from California, where the flowers bloomed and the weather was fair, and Texas seemed like an arid land devoid of her beloved flowers. Day after day it was dry, and her ranching neighbors had taken jobs in town to make ends meet. She regretted her move and prayed that it would rain for just five minutes. Even Landa Park and Comal Springs dried up. Finally, in 1957, the rains came, in the form of a flood, but nonetheless Mrs. Stange was thrilled to see flowers and green.

1957 was not the only flood that Mrs. Stange experienced in her adopted home. She remembered vividly the 1972 flood that happened just a decade prior to the recording. It began with a 2:00 AM call from her neighbor, who fought the loud drops on her tin roof for attention. The neighbor had heard the police come by and order residents to evacuate their homes, a warning Mrs. Stange didn’t hear. They wondered where to go, maybe to her son’s home in McQueeney, but they believed it too far. This was for the best, as that day his home would get 18 inches of water inside of it. They tuned in to the radio to hear Herb Skoog notify them that shelter was available at the civic center. The electricity had gone out in the neighborhood, but they were able to navigate their way to the lights at the civic center. While there, they saw the damage that the flood had already caused, like the mother who had her baby swept from her arms and the elderly woman wrapped in blankets who had just stood on her kitchen sink in neck-high waters to be rescued through the kitchen window. They stayed the night and returned home the next day to find Camp Warnecke’s tea towels littered about in the trees. News would stream in the next few days of others who were lost, some of them friends and neighbors. Mrs. Stange’s home was undamaged, but the flood had already wrecked its havoc on her life.

Caroline Stange and her story help visualize the seeming cycle of floods and droughts that our piece of Texas endures constantly. The Torrey mills experienced a form of this cycle as well in the previous century, although the determination to defy nature is a little more surprising.

For whatever reason, fire, air, and finally water all plotted against the earth and stone of John Torrey’s riverside plot at the juncture of Comal Creek and Comal River. Today, this is the tube chute, but it was the Torrey family who built the first dam for power. John Torrey and his brothers hailed from up North but came to Texas as entrepreneurs who sold merchandise to incoming Texas settlers. Following their success, John Torrey acquired the doomed plot of nearly two acres in 1848. He built a gristmill (grain) and sawmill, and later added a factory that made goods for the home like doors and blinds. On November 14, 1861, the first disaster struck and the entire complex burned down.

He quickly replaced these losses with a four-story stone building. Soon after, machines for cotton spinning and looms were added to the top floor. This became the first cotton factory in Texas, and it began production in 1865. In 1869, a warning came, and a flood damaged the building and some machinery, but production could continue. Just two months later, a tornado ripped through town, and the Torrey mill’s top floor was destroyed along with all the machinery.

Rebuilding was underway for three years, and in 1872, just weeks before operations could resume, the mill was struck for the last time. The summer torrent came, as it so often does, and Mrs. Trappe recalled the incident in 1945: She was only sixteen, and it had rained over 12 inches the night before, washing away the newly built iron bridge over the Comal. She watched as John Torrey and four others tried to move some of the machinery and materials from the first floor to the second. But the dam had gone, and the water pushed the building off its foundation. As it was readying for its collapse, the five men made it to the roof and looked for any escape. The only option was to grab on the telegraph wires which crossed the river. All five successfully took hold, and were able to swing towards land, jump, and ultimately save themselves. It is said that Mr. Torrey bore his losses without a murmur of despondency, but soon after he left New Braunfels for good and started again in Hood County.

New Braunfels and her residents have long been afflicted by volatile weather and overflowing riverways. That is not going to change. It is up to us, current residents of Comal County, to find the solutions, whatever those may be, to ensure our homes are here to stay for future generations.

Sources: New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, John F. Torrey and Brothers by Susan Morrison, Around the Sophienburg by Myra Lee Adams Goff, Reflections 287 (Caroline Stange).

“Around the Sophienburg” is published every other weekend in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung.

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2026 Myra Lee Adams Goff Scholarship Award Essay – by Jaelynn Davidson

The Texas Hill Country was a stunning and dangerous arena of cultural conflict in the mid-19th century. To the Texas nobility of the Adelsverein, it was a fantasy of a “New Germany”; to the German peasants who arrived on the shores of the Texas coast, it was a last hope of a new life; but to the Penateka Comanche, it was the Comanchería, their ancestral domain. Although Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels is said to have founded New Braunfels, it was his successor, John O. Meusebach, whose brilliance of diplomacy ensured that Comal County would not only survive, but flourish. The Meusebach-Comanche Treaty of 1847 was the single most important event in the early history of the county, an extraordinary occasion of mutual respect and unbroken peace in the American frontier.

Upon John O. Meusebach’s arrival in New Braunfels in 1845 to assume the position of Commissioner General, he found a colony on the brink of disaster. The colony’s finances were in shambles, and the people were dying from disease and starvation. More urgently, the land grants that the settlers received were located far within Comanche territory, well north of the Comal Springs. Although the zeitgeist of the time was one of military conquest and displacement of Native Americans, the intellectual pragmatism of a scholar and bureaucrat like Meusebach dictated that if New Braunfels was to survive, it could not be an island of Europeans at war with their neighbors.

Meusebach went on an expedition with only twenty men as an entourage to the very heart of the San Saba hills. This was viewed as a suicide mission by most. However, Meusebach knew something that his contemporaries did not: the importance of “The Word.” He was determined to meet the Comanche chiefs, namely Buffalo Hump, Santa Anna, and Old Owl, without the Texas Rangers and the U.S. Army. This was a level of respect for the Comanche that was unheard of at the time.

The treaty that came out of this was revolutionary. It was not a treaty of surrender, but of co-existence. The Germans agreed to share their land and their resources, and in return, the Comanche agreed to allow the settlers to farm and travel through the area. Perhaps most importantly, the treaty allowed the Comanche access into the town of New Braunfels to trade. This brought a unique cultural exchange to Comal County, where Comanche men were often seen in the town plaza trading skins for German goods. This would have been unthinkable in other parts of Texas.

The importance of this occurrence cannot be overstated with regards to Comal County. While other frontier settlements were marred by decades of “Indian Wars,” New Braunfels was spared the bloodshed that defined the Texas borderlands. This gave them the space needed to concentrate on the development of the infrastructure that defines the county today: the mills along the Comal River, the Sophienburg, and the educational system. The treaty gave the area the literal and figurative “breathing room” that was needed for the German culture to take hold and thrive without being strangled by the specter of violence.

Today, the legacy of Meusebach’s diplomacy is incorporated into the very fabric of the identity of Comal County. It is a reminder that the history of the county is not simply one of European settlement, but of American adaptation. As Myra Lee Adams Goff so often said in her historical writings, the history of Comal County is the history of “grit.” It took grit to cross the Atlantic, but it took a different kind of courage – the courage of diplomacy – to walk unarmed into the hills to shake hands with a supposed enemy.

In sum, while the physical features of the New Braunfels heritage site – The Gruene Water Tower, the Faust Bridge, and the Comal Springs – are integral to our heritage, it is the Meusebach-Comanche Treaty that is the unseen foundation upon which all of these rest. John O. Meusebach’s decision to reject the status quo of violence in the 19th– century frontier in favor of a more peaceful approach has made Comal County a shining example of industry and culture. It is a testament to the fact that peace is not merely the absence of war but a function of respectful and courageous negotiation.

“Around the Sophienburg” is published every other weekend in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung.

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Take a journey through New Braunfels’ 150 years of history (from 1845-1995) since Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels founded the city. The New Braunfels Sesquicentennial Minutes was originally radio series by Herb Skoog at KGNB radio, documenting 365 days of New Braunfels history, and later written into a book by Roger Nuhn.

This book delivers a mix of landmark events and treasured events that bring New Braunfels’ past to life, from the birth of Johanette Schaefer, the first baby to be born on Texas soil by German immigrant parents, on January 6th, 1845. To Armistice Day (November 11, 1918), when many eyes from surrounding counties were on Comal County, questioning how loyal the heavily German-American community was. And August 21, 1964, when the abandoned town of Hancock was submerged by the waters of Canyon Lake. 

Whether you’re a lifelong resident, a newcomer, or a lover of Texas history, each page invites nostalgia and discovery. Own a piece of New Braunfels history with Roger Nuhn’s The New Braunfels Sesquicentennial Minutes, available at Sophie’s Shop in the Sophienburg Museum & Archives.

“A fun read on a wide variety of topics and an excellent book for any research on the history of New Braunfels.” Scott Cowin

Scott Cowin

“365 days of fascinating New Braunfels history.”

Catherine Suniga

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I really haven’t lived through a major war, but my mom and dad did. I have heard their stories and they are very different because Mom lived on a ranch/farm north of Fredericksburg and Dad lived in New Braunfels. Myra Lee Adams Goff grew up with my dad and she described those times through the eyes of the child she was then. In light of the current world situation, I thought it would be good to reprise Myra Lee’s article and see how New Braunfels coped back then with the uncertainty and fear that such times engender. — Keva Hoffmann Boardman

Around the Sophienburg, December 27, 2006

By Myra Lee Adams Goff —

It’s the end of December and this pesky little song has entered my head again and won’t leave. “Let’s remember Pearl Harbor as we did the Alamo.” I’m back in Julia Odiorne’s fourth-grade class at Lamar School. Earlier, on December 7, 1941, a surprise attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor had suddenly plummeted our country into World War II. We sang this song with gusto because as Texans we would never forget the Alamo and now we would be called on to “Remember Pearl Harbor” forever.

Miss Odiorne tacked a map of the world on the wall that she had gotten from the Weekly Reader, a newspaper for children. Every time Germany won a battle, she would place a little swastika on the map and for Japan it was a little white flag with a red “rising sun” in the middle. Naturally when the U.S. won, there were stars and stripes. For all that first year, there were almost nothing but swastikas and red suns, and that was scary.

We kept on singing and doing our part as children. The Junior Texas Rangers, as the children were called, collected scrap metal and even gum wrappers. New Braunfels was cleaned out of scrap metal. Newsman Roger Nuhn wrote that school children collected over a half-million pounds of scrap, including the cannons on Main Plaza. My Girl Scout troop collected string and I never knew why. We folded bandages, and I did know why. The Red Cross was very active in that endeavor.

A Civil Defense League was formed under the leadership of Mayor Walter Sippel. Citizens were assigned to air raid shelters in basements of schools, churches and public buildings. Now get this: Lamar’s basement is about 10 x 10 and there were about 350 people living in the area. We would be mighty cozy. Mock air raids, announced by the fire siren, were conducted on a regular basis. We were, after all, close to the many military bases in San Antonio.

The PTA at Lamar installed blackout curtains in our auditorium so that if there was a bomb dropped on New Braunfels, the children would be hidden. I never really understood that either, because we never were at school at night, but at least once a week, we were able to see our geography movies without the interference of the sun.

Rationing had become a way of life. Sugar, gasoline and tires were all rationed. A family was issued ration stamps according to the size of the family. Cookies were not as plentiful, Hershey bars were not to be found, and no frivolous driving could be done. If a tire went bad, just park the car in the garage for the duration of the war. My friends and I walked everywhere.

Every family was encouraged to plant a Victory Garden and the water rates were lowered for that project.

Right down on Main Plaza there was a Center for Service Men in the old Landa Building (present day Commissioners Court parking lot). Open to all servicemen and women, they would arrive on buses from San Antonio on weekends. The downstairs had a radio, nickelodeon, piano, pool tables, card tables and lots of food provided by local clubs. Upstairs there were 100 beds. Dances were planned at the center as well as at Landa Park. Thousands of servicemen and women would come to New Braunfels on weekends. In the end, 73,000 servicemen and women registered at the center.

Making money for the war effort was a big thing. The selling of war bonds was a huge activity and each county was expected to sell an allotted amount.

We sat in front of the radio as we now do the television. The news was always bad and as young teenagers, we listened to the terrible problems of Stella Dallas and One Man’s Family, two popular radio soap operas. “If you think you’ve got it bad, think about their problems.” Father Barber solved his family’s problems with a calming, “Yes, yes.” That was it.

When the war was over in 1945, the newsreels of the concentration camps that were in the movie theatres were shockingly real, and we knew then the importance of sacrifice. Almost 1,500 men and women served their country from New Braunfels, and sadly 38 gave up their lives.

“Around the Sophienburg” is published every other weekend in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung.

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By Myra Lee Adams Goff —

“Have you heard? Old Squire Moeschen is dead!” So begins Hermann Seele’s narrative of a murder here in New Braunfels in 1855. Seele spun this true, gruesome tale in his book, Die Cypress, which is available at Sophie’s Shop.

Here’s the background: Christof Moeschen, born in 1806 in Thuringia, came to Texas along with his wife, Johanna, and a 9-year-old daughter, Friederike. The year was 1844. Seele says their small log cabin built in 1845 was on Comal Creek, and consisted of one room and a porch surrounded by a fence of cedar posts.

For all one knew, the family of three lived a quiet life, but all that changed in 1854 when the Moeschen’s only child, Friederike, married the shoemaker Carl Riebeling. The mother approved of the son-in-law, but the father did not. Hermann Seele performed the wedding and the young couple lived with her parents.

Unaccustomed to outdoor work, Riebeling became sick. Moeschen believed the son-in-law was just lazy.

When a baby was born to the young couple and died, Moeschen was so distraught about the death that any harmony that had come about because of the baby disappeared. Moeschen became abusive toward his family. The daughter no longer loved her father. She resented his abusiveness toward her mother and husband. As a result, Mrs. Moeschen and the Riebeling couple contrived a plot to get rid of the old man.

On the day of the murder in early September, 1855, the father returned home exhausted, called his son-in-law a loafer and then fell asleep in a drunken stupor. In the dark of evening, the daughter provided a light, and her husband and mother killed the old man with an ax. All that could be heard was the autumn wind wafting the withered leaves from the trees and a few raindrops.

The mother laid the father, who she said was “kaput,” on a mattress and sewed him into a bedspread so no one could see him. The ax was dropped to the bottom of a pond formed by the creek.

Day dawns. Outside, Mrs. Moeschen called to her neighbor G. Holzmann, a laborer going to work. She tells him her husband has died and gives him a string to give to Gerhard, who is to make the funeral arrangements. The string is the length of the body.

Gerhard went to the Moeschen home to make some arrangements and asked to look at the body. The family refused because they said he had already been sewed into a shroud. Upon returning to town, Gerhard said to Justice of the Peace Hermann Seele that he was suspicious, and Seele called for a coroner’s inquest because of the sudden death.

Funeral arrangements continued and friends began to arrive at the house for the funeral. Present were Pastor Eisenlohr of the German Protestant Church where the family were members, the choral society, many townspeople and the carriage with the empty coffin.

Inside, the inquest was performed. The corpse was unwrapped from a dark brown checkered bedspread (shroud), and then carried outside and put on a large table.  Drs. Remer and Koester prepared for an autopsy. (Yes, right there.) Since it was getting dark, lanterns had to be brought from town. After the autopsy, it was determined “the old man has been murdered. Arrest the people.” The three family members were put under arrest.

Through the dark woods, a ghastly procession carrying the casket, proceeded to the sheriff’s home in town. In the spring of 1856, the trial found all three guilty punishable by imprisonment with hard labor for nine years each.

Additional information to Seele’s narrative was written by Everett Fey in his research about the First Founders of New Braunfels. Volunteer Tom Call researched the trial and found that Johanne Moeschen died in prison, Friedrike was paroled in 1860 and Carl Riebeling paroled in 1862.

Picture this: The funeral is at the home, the body is brought outside under a tree, an autopsy is performed right there, and all the while, family, friends, jury, doctors, singing society are all witness to the whole macabre scene. Forensic science has come a long way.

This first appeared in 2012, but we decided to run it again under our True Crime Series.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum and Archives.

“Around the Sophienburg” is published every other weekend in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung.

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Methodism is a Protestant religion whose roots can be traced way back to a preacher named John Wesley in England. John Wesley and his brother Charles, while at Oxford University in 1739, began a movement devoted to helping the underprivileged. Fellow students called them “Methodists” for the methods they used to carry out their evangelistic religion. Evangelism is the process of preaching to spread the word of Christianity.

Wesley did not have in mind to start a new religion. Both brothers were ordained ministers of the Church of England but because of their evangelistic methods, they were barred from speaking in most public places. They then resorted to preaching in homes or anywhere they could find an audience.

Another leader of Methodism was George Whitefield, also a minister of the Church of England. Eventually there was a parting of ways between the Wesley brothers and Whitefield over the subject of predestination. Whitefield was an advocate of predestination and the Wesley brothers were not.

In time, several branches of Methodism developed with these in particular: Methodist Protestant Church, Methodist Episcopal Church and Methodist Episcopal Church South. In its long history, by 1930 these three branches united and then merged with another group called the Evangelistic United Brethren. This union eventually led to the formation of the United Methodist Church.

Locally, a man named David Karbach, and a circuit riding Methodist preacher, John Wesley DeVilbiss, are given credit for starting Methodism in New Braunfels. David Karbach had heard the glowing reports about Texas given to newspapers by Prince Carl after he visited Texas in 1844. Due to bad conditions in Germany, Karbach believed his family would have a better life in Texas. So in December of 1845, Karbach with his second wife and their children, set sail on the ship Johann Dethardt and landed in Indianola. With all their worldly goods they had boarded the ship just before Christmas and arrived in Texas in March, 1846.

In New Braunfels, each settler was given one lot in town and a ten acre plot to grow vegetables and feed. It is believed that this 10 acre plot was in the vicinity of the later Locke Nursery near the Comal Springs. A need for expansion led Karbach to buy ranch land on the Hancock Road (present FM 306), about five miles from town. They kept the house in New Braunfels so that the children could go to school and they would join him on weekends. Three of the Karbach children, Fritz, John, and Emilie (later Klingemann) bought land in the area that became known as the Karbach Settlement. With time, this settlement encompassed over 2,400 acres.

While he was still in Germany, David Karbach had affiliated with the Lutheran Church, as many other Protestants did at that time. After arriving in Texas, the family began attending meetings held by the circuit riding Methodist minister, John Wesley DeVilbiss. Due to the lack of ministers in early Texas, circuit riding ministers were those who became ministers on horseback, traveling from one town to another. The New Braunfels Methodists were in a circuit that included Castroville, Cibolo Settlement, Solms, the area above Landa Park hill called Geberge and finally, Schumannsville. DeVilbiss divided his time between these four settlements.

Initially the first Methodist Church held their services in New Braunfels at the home of J. Hirschleben located in the Comaltown area.

By 1858 the group had built a small wooden church on the corner of now Union and Common Streets. Abram Gentry and Conrad Seabaugh, owners and developers of Braunfels Subdivision in Comaltown conveyed two lots to the trustees of the German Methodist Society of New Braunfels.

David Karbach and his family, particularly his son Fritz, became very active in this little church. Sunday School was held frequently in homes in the Karbach Settlement and at the church. Fritz in particular was instrumental in starting the Sunday School. Family tradition has a delightful story about Fritz and his marriage to Emilie Erck. It seems that when Fritz returned from the Civil War, he and Emilie were married in the Comaltown Church. The army band of occupation heard there was to be a wedding and they came and played the Wedding March. Fritz was the superintendent of the Sunday School for 25 years.

By 1890, the Comaltown Church was no longer used and the Karbach Settlement became the center of church activities. A new pastor, Rev. Merkel and his wife, then opened a Sunday School in the unused church and it was very successful, so the church building was once again used. This building served the Methodists for over fifty years until 1913.

Then in 1928, the old first church building was dismantled. Currently a SAC-N-PAC is located on the site with only an oak tree remaining, reminding people of the past.

In 1913 the Karbach Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South was built at its present site on San Antonio St. The Karbach name was included, indicating that family’s involvement in this church. In 1940 another name change took place to Karbach Memorial First Methodist Church. The last renovation took place in 1952 and the church took its present name: First United Methodist Church.

Sixty pastors have served the Methodist church, 45 of which were circuit-riding ministers. The present minister is Rev. Jason Adams. As one of the oldest mainline churches in New Braunfels, it has been a congregation of Christian service to others, no doubt fulfilling the vision of John Wesley. Records show needs being met in the community, all the while tending to the needs of their own members. The church responded to times of tragedy in the community and was very active during the Great Depression and the two World Wars.

Aware of their historical role in New Braunfels history, the church has preserved its records from the start. Although they were written in German, they are being translated.

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Another downtown building, the Phoenix Saloon owners Ross and Debbie Fortune, are applying for a Texas Historical Marker. The Phoenix Saloon history really does live up to the story of the Phoenix, a legendary bird that builds its own funeral pyre, throws itself into the fire, lays an egg in the ashes and hatches a new Phoenix bird. This legend has been used often as a metaphor for rebirth or resurrection. The metaphor fits the local Phoenix Saloon.

The property at the corner of east Castell and west San Antonio Sts., according to the late Roberta Mueller, was owned by Valentine Sippel, her great grandfather. Valentine married Anna Ossman and they had three children: Kaytrina, who was crippled, Henry, who was killed in the Civil War, and finally son John, who lived to be 50 years old by his own choice, when he committed suicide.

John Sippel married into the successful Gruene family by marrying Johanna Gruene. After six children, the marriage ended in a bitter divorce, according to family members. Sippel had built the Phoenix Saloon in 1871 and moved into the second floor. Christian Hohmann and Henry Meier operated a bar and billiard room on the first floor of the two-story building. H.R. Schumacker operated a brewery in the basement from 1872 to 1875, selling a keg of beer for $2.25 and a glass for 5 cents, the going rate at the time.

About 40 different persons are associated with the proprietorship, bartending of the saloon, and sometimes restaurant, too many names to put in this column. The building was also called by several names until 1895 when it was finally called the Phoenix Saloon and Restaurant.

Trouble

An unfortunate incident occurred in 1885 when proprietor Walter Krause fought with a customer named James Alexander. Testimonies of two men in the saloon that day (Harry Mergele and Emil Schertz), stated that Alexander asked Krause how much he owed and Krause told him a quarter. Alexander said that he would pay him after pay day. Krause took exception to this and called him ugly names. Alexander left the building to go to Naegelin’s Bakery (apparently he worked there) and returned with one dollar, put it on the bar and retaliated with more ugly names. Krause jumped him from behind the bar and they exchanged blows. Alexander then left the bar as Krause was bleeding near the eye. Twelve days later Krause died as a result of the wounds.

Beer garden and chili

One of the attractions of the Phoenix was its beer garden facing San Antonio St. Women were welcome out there, but not inside. Women never went inside a saloon. The beer garden was between the saloon and the old Comal County Courthouse facing San Antonio St. The garden was also accessible from Castell St. at the back of the building next to the Ludwig Hotel which was located in what is now the parking lot of Chase Bank. Sippel had built a small pool with a fountain in the garden containing gold fish, a large catfish, and even a baby alligator. It was a popular gathering place downtown. Bells hanging from the trees summoned waiters from inside.

Another big attraction was William Gebhardt’s cafe at the back of the saloon. Gebhardt developed a sort of stew using ground up ancho peppers that he called Tampico Dust. This extremely popular concoction caused Gebhardt in 1892 to move to San Antonio where his brother-in-law, Albert Kronkosky, Sr. helped him organize the Gebhardt Chili Powder Co. Gebhardt’s wife was Rosa Kronkosky, sister of Albert. Incidentally Albert Kronkosky, Jr. was a very successful businessman who eventually owned the San Antonio Drug Co. as well as being a major stockholder in Merck & Co. Thus the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation was founded.

Prohibition

In 1895 a fire caused damage to the saloon as well as Fritz Maier’s “German Advocate” newspaper on the second floor, but the Phoenix rose again. After the reopening of the saloon there were many proprietors and “when everything was going right, up popped the devil – PROHIBITION”. The advent of prohibition dealt a blow to the saloon world. In NB as early as 1887 the second floor of the Phoenix had become the headquarters of the Anti-Prohibition movement for Comal County. Prohibition was a national issue so each state was to vote either for or against. New Braunfels held rallies around the Plaza and when the vote came up, Comal County voted 100% against prohibition. ”Gambrinus”, the legendary inventor of beer, had many followers in Comal County. At that time there were four breweries in New Braunfels: Rennert Brewery, Dampmann Brewery, Guenther Brewery and New Braunfels Brewing Co. This last one managed to stay open by producing a “near beer” called Busto.

During WWI, prohibition had linked itself with patriotism. First saloons were closed to soldiers and then in a burst of wartime feeling in 1918 the state of Texas voted in favor of prohibition. Rumors of an illicit brewery have circulated in NB but there is no proof. In the basement of the Phoenix there is a hole in the wall that some have speculated was an underground tunnel, but it turns out that it was probably a storage place for coal for the heating system.

Prohibition went into effect January of 1920, but the Phoenix Saloon closed down from 1918 to 1922. Then came two financial blows to the country, especially the government – the Great Depression and the fall of the stock market. One solution to these problems for the government was to repeal Prohibition so that taxes could be collected from the sale of liquor. Prohibition was repealed by 1933.

Building expansion

In 1922 the building was bought by Albert Ludwig, who expanded the building and added a third floor for the Masonic Lodge #1109. Jacob Schmidt bought the building in 1927 and operated a clothing store for 60 years. Several other businesses followed from 1996.

The latest rise of the Phoenix occurred when the Fortunes bought the property and brought it back to its original purpose, a saloon that has music and even serves chili. The Phoenix has risen again and remains a historic site!

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