Two sisters, Debbie Elliott and Lynn Norvell, have built homes on the property that has been in their family over 100 years. The property is on the corner of Garden and Comal Sts. on the Comal River, next to the Garden Street Bridge. They are very much interested in people knowing the history of this property, from distillery, to woolen mill, and finally to a laundry.

Distillery

In the early 1860s Dr. Theodore Koester purchased the property and began a brandy distillery. It didn’t last long and in 1867, a group of New Braunfels businessmen organized a stock company to purchase the distillery and begin a woolen mill. The distillery building was a large wooden two story building 40 by 90 feet. The price of the property was $9,000 and machinery purchased cost another $25,000. The former brewery became New Braunfels Woolen Manufacturing Company.

New Braunfels Woolen Manufacturing Company

Organizers of the company were Franz Moreau, Thomas Perryman, Otto Groos, and brothers Adolph and Julius Giesecke. The Giesecke brothers operated the mill. Julius Giesecke’s son was Dr. F.E. Giesecke who would later become a professor at A&M College and operate a summer school for his students. Some of you may remember that Camp Giesecke was on the property that now is “the Other Place”.

The woolen mill, with its prominent 80- foot smokestack, was in operation from 1867 to 1883 and received recognition throughout the state. For that matter, a diploma in 1870, names the mill the outstanding woolen mill in the Southern states. Their products included jeans, tweeds, and blankets. It took 600 to 700 pounds of wool per day for production and employed up to 40 people.

The Texas New Yorker magazine reported that the mill, run by a steam engine, furnished 1,233 yards of gray woolen cloth to Texas A&M College for uniforms. After seven years of operation, the shareholders transferred the property, and incidentally its indebtedness to Groos and the Giesecke brothers for $18,265. During the operation of the mill, a cedar covered tract of land was purchased near Huaco Springs. This 1,210 acre tract was covered with cedar, so vital for burning in the boilers of the factory, but the cost of cedar cutting was high. Products from the mill had gained a reputation for quality, but financial trouble occurred when woolen mills in the Eastern U.S. began copying the NB product. A blanket appeared on the market with the trademark and label of the local mill. This eastern product was inferior and it is thought that people confused the products. Soon the NB mill was in financial trouble.

In 1883 the mill closed and the machinery was broken up and sold as junk. The building just sat there until 1902 when Franz Popp and his wife Anna bought the property, building and all. They used the second floor to live in and put in a steam-operated laundry on the bottom floor.

Evolution of laundry

I’ve lived long enough to witness the evolution of washing clothes. Not that I actually saw anyone beat their clothes on rocks in the Comal, but I heard about it and know it was done. As a young child, I watched a neighbor build a fire under a very big pot, putting the laundry in the pot along with a big bar of homemade lye soap. All the while she stirred it. Oh, what fun! Then she emptied out the whole thing and started over with clean water for rinsing it. She didn’t even have to go to the Comal to get water, she just turned on the faucet. Then she dragged the clothes over to the clothesline and hung them up to dry. No wonder Monday was called “wash day” because it took all day! In the early days if you washed on Mondays you would know not to drink water out of the Comal on Tuesday.

Then came the electric washing machine. Out in the garage there were two connected tubs (You’ve probably seen them in antique stores). Between these two tubs was a rubber wringer. Clothes were put in one tub and would be washed just by turning on an electric switch. Then the washed clothes were fed into the wringer and into the clean water tub to which blueing was added. They were swished around and again put through the wringer. From here the clothes dropped into the basket and then lugged out to the clothesline. Monday was still wash day, a little easier but still an all-day process. Well, maybe only a half day.

Now every day is wash day. If you don’t believe it, just ask one who does it. The washing machine washes the clothes, spin-dries them, rinses them, then spins them almost dry and the dryer dries them. All you have to do is take them out of the dryer and put them away. Guess what! I complain about this last step. I can just imagine that the women of old didn’t “whistle while they worked” on Mondays.

New Braunfels Steam Laundry

Getting back to the Popps and their laundry purchased in the early 1900’s. Franz Popp emigrated from Prussia in 1886 and married Anna Mielke in Texas. Two of their children were Bruno and Emma. Emma married Carl Doeppenschmidt who was proprietor of the Phoenix Cafe.

Emma’s life was full of sadness, but she was a strong woman. First her husband Carl died in 1926, then her mother Anna in 1934. A fire at the laundry was the ultimate cause of her mother’s death. Her father died in 1938. She operated the laundry alone during the Depression, was also a cook at the Phoenix and lived upstairs over the laundry with her two small children, Lawrence and Thelma. Eventually Emma married Adolph Krause.

Emma’s daughter Thelma, with her husband James Ethridge, lived in a house next to the laundry until Thelma died in 2002. She was the mother of Debbie and Lynn Ethridge, the two sisters who have built homes on the property.

In 1954 the old building was torn down, so they have decided to apply for a historical site marker designating the laundry history .The large bell salvaged from the top of the building will be included with the marker. Part of the smoke stack is still visible. It should be quite attractive as it marks the site of an old New Braunfels landmark.

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Do you know where the Klappenbach House is located? From Landa St., turn onto Fredericksburg Rd. and go straight until you get to a hill, Klappenbach Hill. The house on the left is the Klappenbach property. The story of the Klappenbach family is indeed interesting.

The story begins in Sorenbohm, Germany, where in the 1820’s, Johann Heinrich Voelcker was called to be an evangelical Lutheran preacher. He was married to Caroline Wilhelmine Wirth and they had four children, Friedrich, Julius, Franciska, and Eugen Voelcker. In1834 their oldest son, Friedrich, died and then two years later Rev. Voelcker died, possibly of smallpox from parishioners he was tending. The young mother was left alone with three children. She moved to Anklam, a seaport town in far North Germany near the Baltic Sea. Here she eventually married Georg Jochim Jacob Friedrich A. Klappenbach.

Klappenbach, born in 1810 in Lenzen, had studied “Legal Science” at the University of Griefswald. While there he joined a radical reform protest movement, was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison. A year passed and his sentence was commuted. Friends who were in this movement said that Georg was nicknamed “Rebell” and the group was a democratic reform group that met at a pub to drink beer and make speeches. This movement eventually led to the later revolution of 1848 in Germany.

After his arrest, Georg moved to Anklam. He took several municipal jobs. Apparently the political situation was in chaos because the mayor’s position was perpetually vacant. Klappenbach ran for mayor and won, but that didn’t end the discord.

Now here’s a familiar name: John O. Meusebach (as he was later called in Texas) was called on to help sort out the reforms in Anklam and a bond grew between the two men. This friendship ultimately led to Klappenbach’s coming to Texas.

In Anklam Klappenbach married the widow Voelcker, and together they produced a child, Rosa, born in 1840 who died in 1842. Another child, Bruno, was born in 1845.

The Klappenbachs were familiar with the fact that Meusebach emigrated to Texas and Julius Voelcker, Caroline’s oldest living son, emigrated first. Meanwhile the Adelsverein contacted Georg offering him free passage and land in New Braunfels if he would come as an assistant to John Meusebach. He accepted the offer in 1846 and the family pulled up stakes and moved to Texas.

Although Klappenbach received the traditional half acre lot in town (on the corner of Seguin Ave. and Garden St.) he also claimed 50 more acres. This property was bounded by Landa St., which was then called County Road, up Fredericksburg Rd., adjacent to the Balcones Escarpment, and down Parkview Blvd.

On this property in 1846 the Klappenbachs buried Caroline’s child, Franciska Voelcker, 22 years of age. Dr. Ferdinand Roemer describes the funeral in this manner: “According to a North American custom in the rural districts, all people in the funeral procession were mounted (on horses) which appeared unusual ….” The burial was on the property of the stepfather, beside the springs of the Comal, in view of the river and shaded by forest trees.

Stepson Eugen Voelcker constructed the dog-trot style homestead for the Klappenbachs near the springs. He had been trained in carpentry and home building in Anklam. Three feet thick walls of native fieldstone rubble with mortar made of caliche and straw were then covered with stucco. The roof is supported by two unjointed cypress beams the length of the house. The floors are cedar.

Klappenbach farmed and ranched on this property. He used the “GK” brand. He didn’t give up his interest in politics, being elected mayor in 1851 and then on the school board of the NB Academy. He was elected chief justice of Comal County in 1861.

Carl and Augusta Buehler bought the property from Klappenbach in 1881. It was Buehler that terraced the property next to the hill below the house. Buehler was known for his horticulture and the soil was so rich, and the area so perfect for growing fruits and vegetables, that even today many plants spring forth on their own – herbs such as horehound and mustang grapevines.

The most unusual trees are the anaqua trees. They are an old variety that grow close to water (aqua is water). There are many in Landa Park. About this time of year these trees are covered with tiny fragrant flowers that soon turn into berries. Indians concocted a dried food call pemmican. The berries of the anaqua were mixed with dried venison and made into paste for easy carriage.

Buehler’s grandson, Edward Penshorn, took ownership of the farm and then Melvin and Juanita Johnson bought it in the 1930’s. Finally the present owners, Tim and Elisabet Barker, bought the remaining 3 1/2 acres in 1984. Barker is a Master Gardener who grows magnificent flowers on the five terraces. Two small historic buildings have been moved on to the property blending in with the historic dog-trot house still in existence.

Much of the information for this article column has been collected from the Sophienburg Archives. There is a collection of about 450 family books, one of which is “Fink, Voelcker, and Klappenbach Families” by Albert Henry Fink. These family books are a real plus for researchers!

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When I was in the ninth grade, I had a group of friends who were Mariner Girl Scouts. New Braunfels rivers were the perfect spot for this scouting program.

We had a friend who lived on the Guadalupe River and had a rowboat. We would take turns rowing the boat. Our rowing skills were improved when we realized that there were snakes hanging from the trees on the opposite bank. You can row fast if you are underneath these branches.

Invariably, our male friends who were Sea Scout Boy Scouts would show up, jump in the river, swim to the boat and turn it over, dumping us into the Guadalupe. This activity was repeated over and over. Once, floating in tubes, we were chased by an alligator gar. We were told that they were harmless, but we remembered stories of the olden days when there were real alligators in the rivers, particularly the Comal River.

Nearby was the spot where the Comal merges with the Guadalupe and continues on its journey to the Gulf of Mexico. We were well acquainted with the confluence of the two rivers. Before Canyon Dam was built, the Guadalupe was milky green and almost warm; the Comal was crystal clear and cold. You could definitely tell when you left the Guadalupe and entered the Comal.

Those memories came back when I started doing research on the ferry boat that once transported emigrants across the river at this very spot.

The first settlers in 1845 did not have a ferry when they crossed the Guadalupe at Nacogdoches Road, but soon the first ferry appeared. The German Emigration Co. granted three acres to Adolf von Wedemeyer to build and operate a ferry near the junction of the Guadalupe and Comal.

In 1847, this land and business was sold to Justus Kellner, who died soon thereafter. His widow married Carl Bardenwerper, and they took over the ferry until 1866, when they sold the property to Florenz Kreuz.

Dr. Ferdinand Roemer describes arriving at the site of the ferry in 1846 in the evening. A horn hanging from a tree signaled the ferry operator on the other side of the river to come pick him up. After waiting for quite a long time, someone finally called that the river was too flooded to cross and to wait until the next morning. Roemer camped outside in a rainy norther, and the next morning two young men arrived and guided the ferry across.

The junction of the two rivers has other interesting history.

In the 1700s, the Spaniards who owned Texas made treks through what was to become the state of Texas, using the El Camino Real trail. Martin de Alarcon, governor of the province of Texas in 1718, crossed the Rio Grande and headed towards what would become San Antonio. There he established the Villa de Bexar (SA) and founded the Mission San Antonio de Valero (Alamo).

The diary of Martin de Alarcon was translated by Dr. Fritz Leo Hoffmann, who was in my mother’s graduating class of New Braunfels High School in 1924. In 1935, Hoffmann was professor of languages at the University of Colorado. He said Alarcon fixed the royal standard (flag) of the King of Spain at the junction of the Guadalupe and Comal rivers and took possession of them. He and his men camped in this area.

Oscar Haas discovered a story dating back to the early 1860s stating that a large elephantine beast was discovered in the area of the junction buried way beneath the surface. An emigrant was prospecting for a well and came across a shoulder bone of a beast. He estimated it to be about 30 feet long and 20 feet high. Stories of remains of at least three Mastodons were found on the banks of the Comal River.

In 1968, Mrs. James Haile, owner of the junction property at that time, received a Texas Historical Marker as a historical site, certainly an important designation.

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By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

Shopping for a wedding gift used to be something that I looked forward to. My most recent “gift shopping” experience involved scanning a QR code where I was then directed to a website to choose the appropriate item and clicking to send. Wow! So very anticlimactic. Where is the fun in that?

My first memory of going shopping for a wedding gift was at Dedeke’s in downtown New Braunfels. It was a beautiful store full of beautiful things. Tables were dressed in the finest table linens and perfectly set with china, silver and crystal to tempt any bride. The walls were lined with china place settings of nearly every pattern and color. Another part of that memory is the stern warning from my mother not to touch anything. I watched as my mother carefully selected a crystal pitcher and handed it to the clerk. It was so gratifying to walk out with our specially chosen, professionally wrapped gift to deliver in person.

Dedeke’s Housewares was a small store on Seguin Avenue that specialized in gifts and bridal registries in the 1950s-70s, but their story began much earlier. Richard F. Dedeke was born in New Braunfels in 1878. His grandfather, a farmer, had emigrated from Hannover in 1846. Richard’s father was a farmer and saddle maker. Richard was ambitious and in 1903, he sought his own fortunes in a thriving rural community of 200 people on York Creek. He purchased three lots in Hunter, Texas, between Grand and Railroad (now JC Riley) Streets to establish a residence and general merchandise store. A downturn in the cotton economy caused many of the Hunter businesses to close, including Dedeke’s General Store.

In 1928, R.F. Dedeke opened a new store in New Braunfels. The store was part of the ‘M’ System grocery chain. It opened at 215 S. Seguin Ave. (in the same brick building as The Oyster Bar). ‘M’ System was marketed as a new, self-serve way of shopping with multiple brand choices (as opposed to having a clerk bring a single brand from the shelf behind the counter). It sounds like the beginning of our current supermarket system.

R.F. Dedeke retired from his grocery business in 1951, and then the fun began. Richard’s son, Leslie Dedeke, and his siblings, Dorothy and Edward Dedeke opened Dedeke’s Housewares in the same location. In 1966, nearly a century after it was built, property at 173 S. Seguin Ave. was completely restored and the Dedeke family reopened the gift shop there. That is the beautiful store from my childhood. Even the patterned floor tiles were beautiful, but it was not beautiful before remodeling.

The Heinrich Krause building, located at 173 S. Seguin, already had a long history. The original part was built in the 1860s by Friedrich Krause and his son, Frederick Krause, who brought their carpentry skills with them from Germany. The first 45-foot section of the 24-foot-wide building (nearest to the street) is the oldest, built with squared cedar timbers. The next 45-foot section is of German Fachwerk, built with squared lumber. It had a small basement with rock walls and exposed square cedar timbers.

During the previous one hundred years, the one-story Krause building saw a lot of tenants. It was used by Weber & Deutsch, as an early general store; as an opera house; as a drill hall for a Texas Militia unit; as a blouse factory; as a barber shop and a newspaper office for Town & Country News. The Dedeke’s attention to detail and dedication to correct historical preservation of Krause building helped garner a Texas Historical Marker for the building, as well as honors from the New Braunfels Conservation Society.

In 1976, Dick and Bonnie Denson purchased the Dedeke’s business and it became Denson-Dedeke’s. In 1977, they also bought the entire property extending all the way to Comal Avenue, including the historic Krause building, the adjacent two-story Hoffmann building (on the left side of Denson-Dedeke), the parking lot in back, and the Mergele House on Comal.

In 1979, Sami’s Jewelry opened a kiosk at the front of Denson’s, near the windows. The large storage space in the back of the store was opened to create the perfect home for Marian Benson’s The Collection.

In 1981, the interior of the adjacent Mergele Building, was completely gutted by fire that spread from Ludwig Leather Company (two doors down from Denson’s). Fortunately, the tin roof and separation between the buildings prevented fire from damaging Denson’s. To prevent the building from being torn down, the Denson’s bought the Mergele Building and rebuilt the interior, preserving our Seguin Avenue merchant district. They opened up the walls between the two buildings and expanded their footprint again.

Upstairs in the Mergele Building, above retail space, were the Denson-Dedeke offices, and the very first home of Celebrations Bridal by Connie Worley. By incorporating three historic buildings with a courtyard and promoting complimentary retail tenants, Dick and Bonnie Denson successfully created a boutique shopping experience in a historic setting which eventually became Landmark Square.

The Mergele Building was sold to new owners in 1996. The rest of the property, including the Krause building, the Hoffmann building and the Mergele House on Comal Avenue, was sold in 1997 when the Densons retired. The Krause and Hoffmann properties have sold again in 2008 and 2018.

During that time, there have been multiple tenants of the Krause building, including photographers, marketing firms, a lingerie store and most recently a French café bistro.

When we look at historic buildings, we are spoiled and tend to look for the bigger, fancier, more ornate ones, i.e. the Court House (1884) or the row of buildings on San Antonio Street (circa 1890–1924). By doing that, we may be missing out on the hidden jewels (Krause building ca.1860) that make up the foundation of who New Braunfels is. Not slick. Not fancy. Historic.

Enjoy and appreciate the view and the experience, before you can only click on a QR code to see it. Preserve our history!

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

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By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

Researching your family? Maybe you want to know about who lived in/owned your home? The Sophienburg Museum and Archives has resources to help you!

Research, of any subject, is basically detective work — analyzing the available records, searching through assembled stories and examining photographs and maps. The Sophienburg has been collecting these kinds of resources for more than 92 years and our staff can assist you in your quest.

So how do we begin the process? At the Sophienburg, we usually start with a surname or a location. If you are researching a property, we look for clues in the phonebooks and city directories. Our telephone book collection goes back to 1906. That’s pretty early in the telephone age. New Braunfels had 7,008 citizens in the 1900 U.S. Census; only 101 phone numbers appear in the 1906 telephone book and many of these are business numbers.

To use a phonebook, you look things up by name or subject. A city directory adds to our chances of finding facts because it also lists by street. For instance, you can look up your home by its address. The directory, depending on the year, can tell you who lives there, what they do, what race they are, if they are renting or own, and other information. The city directory is a little like the census and phone book combined only it is published more than once every 10 years.

City directories were first printed for large cities in Europe in the 16th century. Philadelphia was the first US city to have a directory (1785), followed by New York. The early directories were published by independent publishers who relied on advertisements to fund them. Consequently, most of the listings are from tradesmen and businesses instead of people.

The Sophienburg’s earliest New Braunfels City Directory is 1931 followed by 1940 and 1952-53. Directories from the 1960s-1990s are also available. With the directories, we can trace who lived at a specific address and when residency changed. Each resident change gives us new names to follow for more information. We also find out who their neighbors were, and can sometimes trace the demographic changes in the neighborhood. More property information from the Comal County Clerk’s office is available online.

Following names is how we find out the stories that are associated with your family or your property. As an example, we are currently researching some ranch property for a family who have a log-built structure on their place. By using the resources available to both them and the Sophienburg, we can take their property all the way back to Republic of Texas days (1836-1846). We can find this information by using the Texas General Land Office records, also online. Their property is located on land granted to men who fought in the Texas Revolution. I have a New Braunfels First Founder in my family and on the TxGLO website I found scans of the original German immigrant land granted to my family — if only we still had it!

The Sophienburg has over 500 genealogies of New Braunfels and Comal County names. These are bound volumes of family genealogy that were generated by museum personnel and family members before Ancestry, Family Search and other databases. These volumes contain wonderful anecdotal information which is really what makes your ancestors come alive.

Along with the family histories, the Sophienburg Archives has an almost complete collection of the German-language newspaper Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung (1852-1957), the New Braunfels Herald (1895-1957) and the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung (1957 to present day). These are all on microfilm and can be referenced at the Sophienburg by appointment.

The German Zeitung was painstakingly indexed by volunteers prior to 2000. It can be searched by name or by subject. Of course, the articles will be in German. But that’s okay, because some of us can still read German and, if necessary, you can Google translate it. Newspaper articles will include birth, marriage and death information, as well as everyday occurrences in local, state, national and world news. We are unique in having an overlap in two languages — news is reported with different perspectives. The New Braunfels Herald and the Herald- Zeitung can also be accessed online at the New Braunfels Public Library’s digital newspaper archive.

The Sophienburg Photograph Collection has over half a million images of New Braunfels and the surrounding area. These images (prints, negatives and slides) span the history of New Braunfels and Comal County from the early 1860s to present day. The Photograph Collection illustrates people, homes, city streets, businesses, and farms. It immortalizes city and cultural events and celebrations like parades, festivals and weddings. The collection includes most of the negatives of the Seidel/Braunfels Studio which photographed city and citizens from the 1920s thru the 1970s. The collection is widely used by people searching for old family members, authors needing illustrations, homeowners wanting views of their property and businesses looking for images of New Braunfels in the old days. Copies can be purchased for use and display.

The Sophienburg’s Archive Collection includes early hand-drawn maps and later printed maps of the city, certain neighborhoods, and the county. We have several Sanborn Fire Insurance maps which wonderfully show the evolution of buildings and homes as they rise, are renovated and then replaced. These are my favorite because they include details of building construction, materials and even where the outhouses and wells were located. Other maps in the collection show topographical information which, when it rains again, will show why your street tends to flood after an inch or two.

The Sophienburg welcomes you to come and research in our spacious reading room. There will always be a friendly staff member available to help you find what you are looking for. Well, you might not find ALL you want to know. Research, like detective work, seldom finds all the answers to all our questions. However, it is really fun to try!

To do research, please contact The Sophienburg at 830-629-1572 during office hours (Tuesday–Saturday, 9 a.m,–4 p.m.) to make an appointment. Daily fee for the Archives is $25 and includes our helpful personnel and admission to the Exhibit Floor. If you need more time, your fee can easily be rolled into an individual membership that allows you unlimited entry to the archives for just $50 per year.

See you in the stacks!

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

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By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

This past March I was in Macedonia, Greece with my eldest daughter. No matter where we walked the ground was literally littered with history — bits of marble, colored tesserae from mosaics, tiny pieces of bronze and always, always pieces of pottery.

History was everywhere.

I remember going to elementary school at Seele in the 1960s. We had a playground, but often, we would end up playing in the vast green grassy area between the school buildings and the Fredericksburg Fields. It really did seem “vast” to us. Whether we were playing kickball or some other game, it was not unusual to find Native American points (we called everything an arrowhead) just lying on top of the ground.

History was everywhere.

Recently, retired policeman/Texas Ranger Ray Martinez brought in two metal objects. He had found them while parking cars for the Lion’s Club at Wurstfest. The objects were lying on the top of the ground, not together and not even at the same time. Their shape caught his attention. He donated them to the Sophienburg.

One object is a thin, squared-spike, 8.25 inch-long, that looks like a really big nail not a railroad spike. Hand-wrought and perfectly straight, I’d venture to guess it has never been used but simply dropped and forgotten.

Hand-forged by whom? Possibly by one of the African-American slaves William H. Meriwether brought with him from Virginia in 1847; it is likely at least one of them was a trained blacksmith. Meriwether’s slaves dug the millrace in Landa Park and built the first water-powered mill on the Comal River. The spike was found in the area of what had been the foreman’s house and the slave quarters.

Meriwether sold the property to Joseph Landa in 1859. Perhaps a blacksmith employed by Landa made the spike. Maybe it was dropped by workers constructing the Landa Industries buildings or the sheds along the railroad tracks installed to transport product to and from the Landa complex.

History is everywhere.

The other artifact is not made of iron. It is lead. Lead is a soft metal made from galena ore mixed with antimony or metallic arsenic. It melts at 375 F. The 10.75 inch-long and 3/8-inch-wide bar is stamped in block letters, “St. Louis Shot Tower Co.” It is not often an artifact gives you such a great clue and Ray Martinez had already done some internet research. I did more, and this ugly dark gray bar is way cooler than it looks.

First, what is a shot tower? In 1782, Englishman William Watts discovered that if he dropped molten lead far enough through the air the surface tension of the lead would form it into a perfect sphere. That’s how raindrops are formed. Watts built a six-story tower and placed a water tank at the bottom. At the top he laid a copper sieve. When he poured molten lead through the sieve, its downward six-story flight was long enough to form the lead drops into spheres and to cool the lead enough for it to begin solidifying by the time it hit the water.

Why make little round lead balls? The balls being manufactured were “shot”. Making shot for rifles by hand was labor intensive, so if you need a lot, like for an army or to sell in stores, Watts new shot tower method was a huge technological breakthrough. Shot towers sprang up all over England and after Jefferson’s 1801 Embargo Act which halted imports, shot towers became popular in America as well.

The St. Louis Shot Tower Co. was opened in the 1830s and continued producing shot until the end of the 19th century. It also produced lead bars like the one Ray found. St. Louis Shot Co. reported that during a five-month period, they could produce 1,994,374 pounds of round shot and 426,400 pounds of lead bars.

What were the bars for? Although bags of shot were available in stores, many rural folk and hunters continued to hand-mold their own shot. The Sophienburg has many single and double shot molds used by early citizens. During the Civil War, both shot and bars were obtained and used by soldiers on both sides. If you think about it, with a bar, you could make yourself 20-24 shot balls while sitting around in camp before a battle. Wouldn’t it be easier to just carry a couple bars instead of a bunch of little balls? And what if the supply wagon didn’t make it? You could still have ammunition.

Why was the lead bar found in the parking lot field? Your guess is as good as mine. I know that during the 1850s the New Braunfels Schuetzenverein (Shooting Club) shot targets in fields near the water out at “The Point” (which is sort of where Comal Cemetery, the VFW and Cypress Bend Park are). In the 1860s, men in the Comal County Home Guard shot targets in fields near the Comal around Prince Solms Park. Spent shot was also found in the playground area of Carl Schurz Elementary School. The museum has a handful of shot from the schoolyard in a jar. The Lion’s parking lot would have been a perfect place for target practice as well.

Of course, none of my guesses may be right. Both metal artifacts could have been there because of floods.

I’m thinking that if we look, we might all stumble across really wonderful history in our own backyard. I find Native-American points and scrapers in mine. What might be in your backyard? Who lived in your house, and what is their story?

History really is everywhere.

Remember, please, that searching or (God forbid) digging on someone else’s property or city or state property is illegal without prior permission and authority. Don’t be an idiot. Be responsible and ethical.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum and Archives collections; https://stlouispatina.com; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_tower; https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi422.htm; https://www.minnesotatrap.com/history-in-the-makin/shot-towers-page; https://www.inventricity.com/local-heroes-william-watts.

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By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

Oscar Haas was well known as the historian and record-keeper of New Braunfels and Comal County. He documented a hundred years of our community’s progress through twenty years of newspaper articles and a published book. Now in its fourth printing, The History of New Braunfels and Comal County, Texas 1844-1946, a book by Oscar Haas, set the standard for historical documentation about German immigration. It has been the “go-to” for generations of researchers, but there is nothing like hearing his voice as he tells his own story.

“I was born on October 12, 1885, on land which is now at the bottom of Canyon Lake…. We moved to Twin Sisters. My parents decided to move to New Braunfels so that their children could have more education than they would have gotten (in Twin Sisters).” He attended the New Braunfels Academy but dropped out in sixth grade. “I could get a job selling groceries and delivering groceries at $12 a month. That was a lot of money. They taught me to ride a bicycle and go out once a week and ride around town and take up orders from the housewives, then come back and fill those orders and put ’em in baskets and then hitch up a horse and deliver the groceries around town.”

He clerked in another general merchandise store for several years. “We had to have conversations in English and Spanish, and of course, German. They wanted the clerk to speak their language or they wouldn’t buy from you.” Haas opened his own store in the 1920s. “We handled ready-to-wear, men’s and boy’s and children’s ready-to-wears and shoes and hats, millinery, and dress materials, by the yard and all kinds of trinkets. It was in the Richter Building. I had a partner, Walter Wiedner, so we called it Oscar Haas and Company. When the Depression hit, then we lost. It was loss, loss, loss, and finally you lost everything, ja.”

That loss prompted him to run for Comal County Treasurer in the 1934 election. He served as Treasurer for 28 years, unopposed. That is when the history bug bit him. “Yes, I just got stung in 1934, and fortunately, men like Herman Seele, the first schoolteacher” were still around. “He was a tall, pleasant faced, full-bearded man and always interested in greeting the people as he came walking down the street, particularly children. He always stooped down to shake hands with the children.”

“One day, I was in Otto Rohde’s — who was then County Clerk of Comal County’s Office — I saw on the shelf where the first book of the minutes of the Comal County Commissioners Court. I asked Otto, could I look at it? As I opened it up, I saw the recording of the very first session of the Comal County Commissioners Court in 1846. I found it so interesting that I took it down to the editors of the New Braunfels Zeitung, the German-language newspaper, and to the New Braunfels Herald, the English-language newspaper.” They both told him that if he wrote weekly installments from the minutes, they would print it. It took about three years. “After that was finished, I went through the minutes of the first church in New Braunfels, which also took about three years. And then after that, went through the City Council minutes.” All of them were in German and required translation to English to be published in the New Braunfels Herald. In 1961, he and his wife wrote a history series in 144 weekly installments, “Comal County in the Civil War”, translated from Ferdinand Lindheimer’s German-language newspaper articles of the 1860s.

Haas retired from his job of county treasurer in 1962 to devote time to compiling his vast collection of historic materials into the definitive History of New Braunfels and Comal County, 1845-1946 first published in 1968. The knowledge and information gained from all the years of going through official city, county and church minutes was a tremendous foundation for his book. He did further research into translated writings of Carl, Prince of Solms-Braunfels, Dr. Ferdinand Roemer, and others to fill in the earliest parts of New Braunfels’ history.

Other published works include Chronological History of the Singers of German Songs in Texas (1948); The First Protestant Church, Its History and Its People:1845-1855 (1955); and a translation of the Civil War diary of Capt. Julius Giesecke of New Braunfels. He contributed multiple articles to the Handbook of Texas History and received numerous honors for his devotion to history. Not bad for a sixth-grade dropout.

While going about my research for this story, I looked for something different than what others had written about him. I looked for his voice. Among the treasures that are held by the Sophienburg Museum and Archives is a stash of oral histories, the “Reflections” program, professionally recorded since 1976. Oscar Haas was number three. He was 90 at the time of the recording. I pulled the recording from the studio and played it for Don Cooper, the volunteer that has faithfully been cataloging the Oscar Haas Collection for at least two years. It was entrancing. Don’s face lit up as he actually heard the voice of the man that created boxes and boxes of notes written on scraps of paper and backs of old ballots. I could hear the impish demeanor and twinkle in the eye of a man I only saw in photos. His voice took me back to childhood, when my grandparents and many of the store clerks spoke with a little German accent and a “ja” on the end.

“Reflections” is still recorded and airs 9 a.m. Sundays on KGNB. Copies are available for purchase. Is your parent or grandparent recorded as they talk about New Braunfels? Wouldn’t it be great if you could hear their voice again? We also want to record your stories about growing up and living in New Braunfels. Call us at the Sophienburg, 830-629-1572.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives; Handbook of Texas Online.

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By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

Legend, lore and local memories hover over this old house. The structure is one of the oldest permanent dwellings in Comal County. Old it is, and certainly old to be so far out of New Braunfels. The current address for the place is 7600 FM 2722. Back in the day it was about 13 miles north out Bear Creek Road on the way to the Sattler. The Sattler community then included Mountain Valley, Walhalla, Hidden Valley and Marienthal.

Exactly when it was built is a mystery. Gottfried Preusser came to Texas in Sept 1845, with wife Louise Busch and five children. His eldest, Johann Georg was old enough to get his own land grant from the German Emigration Company. Did Gottfried build the house? History tells us his next child, Johann Phillip, got married in 1855. One account has Phillip (we will call him that because I get confused since all the sons have Johann as their first name) living in a log cabin and building the house in 1858. Another version states that Phillip and wife Katherine moved in with Gottfried and Louise and “add three rooms to the existing structure.” I found land grants at the Texas General Land Office for Johann Georg and Johann Phillip Preusser for land in the 1860s, some that constituted the Preusser family ranch. There is nothing about Father Gottfried. We don’t even know when Gottfried and Louise died or where they are buried. It is an historical pickle.

What we do know is that the house is a wonderful early example of German building style in Texas. It began as a small 1½ story rectangle, comprised of two rooms made of large squared-off logs put together with rustic dove-tail joints. A porch, first only over the front door, ran along the whole front side and a rock lean-to style kitchen with rock chimney ran along the back side. Originally roofed with cypress shingles, it eventually got a tin roof attached with handmade square nails. It had the typical high pitched-roofline which broke and came over the two additions at a flatter angle. You see this silhouette on quite a few homes around NB and Comaltown. A wooden stairway was attached to the outside of the house to allow access to the ½ story above for storage and sleeping. Know why the staircase was outside the home?

The log walls were chinked and a coating of lime plaster was added to the front wall. The Preussers burned caliche in a lime pit/kiln located nearby and mixed the lime with sand and goat’s milk to make the “whitewash” or plaster coating that was smoothed over the logs.

Later owners included: Pete Nowotny, August Vollmering, and Emma Vollmering Rieber. Emma Rieber, known by many Comal Countians as Tante or Aunt Emma, became closely identified with the Preusser home. By the late 1950s, she was running a sort of café/hunting camp-like-business on the premises. Open on Saturdays and Sundays in the winter, she reserved the right to not open. In fact, she posted a sign on the front door that claimed she had the right to go hunting at any time during deer season. It was reported, “When hearty Emma, who is 58, bags a deer…she hoists it up onto her broad shoulders and carries it from any corner of the 114 acres back to the house.”

In 1961, Tante Emma reopened the rock chimney that had been bricked-up for many years. She kept in place the kitchen utensils that had been hung on pegs and square nails by Phillip and Katherine Preusser. She whitewashed and hand-painted verses and original sayings on the interior walls. One sign discouraged folks from asking for free food or drink by telling them “to seek credit on the second floor of the hotel in the vacant lot.” She was an exceptional cook, a valued friend, and a celebrity of sorts to Ausländer who wrote about her in Houston and San Antonio publications.

A gifted storyteller, she regaled her guests with Preusser family memories — — stories of Indian attacks (“see the arrow points still stuck in the walls?”). Family members have also told stories of Grandma Katherine shooing the children up to the attic via a ladder and trap door in the ceiling of the kitchen when Indians came to steal cattle and horses. They also tell tales of how she made friends with the Indians, trading them fresh-baked bread for ground cornmeal, bear meat, venison and other game.

Katherine’s no-nonsense approach to trouble stands out in family folklore. Phillip had built a cotton gin powered by horses prior to the Civil War. While operating the gin, his left arm below the elbow was crushed. The injury didn’t allow him to join the Confederacy. There were several men in local families who did not side with the South and they went into hiding in nearby caves. Friendship trumped ideology, and Katherine took them food and water. She would also bring them luxuries like soap and hand-spun/woven clothing.

Emma Rieber in many ways embodied Katherine’s true pioneer spirit. She was a unique, witty, strong-minded, self-sufficient, “take -no-_ _ _ _-from-nobody” kind of girl. Born in Comal County, into the large family of an itinerant blacksmith, she chopped cotton in East Texas at age 10. At age 14, she was a skilled blacksmith. She had only a 3rd grade education, but had been taught about the land and nature by her father who had turned the Preusser land into a game preserve.

The home no longer looks like folks my age remember, but it is still back in there behind a wall of trees and a fancy gate. It is totally remodeled but I’m pretty sure that some of those big hand-squared logs still anchor the home to the land and the rich and colorful history of Comal County.

Sources: “Comal County Historical Survey Committee, Pioneer Homes Tour” program for Sunday, Jul 14, 1968; Organized German Settlement and its effects on the Frontier of South-Central Texas, Hubert G. H. Wilhelm, 1968; Preusser Family file, Marjorie Cook collection, New Braunfels Herald and Herald-Zeitung collections.

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By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

Request from Fargo, North Dakota: Do you know anything about a New Braunfels photographer named J. Serdinko? “Uhhh…yeah,” I thought to myself, “but not enough to answer this request!”

The Sophienburg photograph collections contain several hundred thousand images; about 300 of those are impressed with Serdinko’s name. These take the form of carte de visite (small business card-size photos), cabinet cards (hardboard-backed photos larger than a postcard) and stereoviews (two-image cards for use with a stereoptican viewer).

Yes, Serdinko was a photographer in New Braunfels. But who WAS he?

John, or Ivan, Serdinko was born in Bohemia in 1849 and emigrated to Texas in the 1860s. He became a naturalized citizen in 1867. I found him, and his partner Alonzo Newell Calloway, setting up a photo studio in a tent in Columbus in 1875. By January 1879, Serdinko had set up shop in New Braunfels and in November of that year he married Ernestine Fernanda Reich, daughter of Julius Reich of Hortontown. The couple moved to Fredericksburg to set up a studio.

In July 1880, John and Ernestine were back in New Braunfels and opened a studio on Seguin Street across from the woolen manufacturing company. The quality of his work was highly praised in the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung.

Serdinko proved to be more than a good photographer; he was also an inventor. In February 1882, John received his first patent for “a portable darkroom for dry plate photography.” Serdinko was thinking of ways to improve and adapt his profession to the changing times.

In March of that same year, John and Ernestine put down roots and bought a house in New Braunfels. He purchased all new, up-to-date equipment and life for the couple looked bright. Tragedy struck in January 1883. The Serdinkos lost their 14-month-old son. That September, the studio moved closer to Main Plaza, two buildings down from the NB Zeitung office on Seguin Street.

John seemed to settle into life in NB and his studio did well. There had been photographers in New Braunfels as early as 1855, when a man set up a studio to produce daguerreotypes. You will find many photographers’ names on carte de visite and cabinet cards made in New Braunfels from the 1860s to the early 20th C: Carl Iwonsky (who was also a painter), William DeRyee, J.M. Slater, Doerr, Ranney, Winther, Jacobson, Jakobi & Parks, J.H. Chapman, Hoffmann, Schwarz and Klenke are a few.

Serdinko received a second patent, this time for a “rotary force pump,” in April 1885. He got a third patent in February 1886 for a “wind machine.” Like so many of the early citizens, he was a highly educated man with many interests, very much a man living up to the ideals of the Victorian Age and the industrialization it brought. With glowing reports that the quality of his work was “as good as anywhere in the States,” Serdinko purchased all new photographic equipment.

The Serdinkos were blessed with a second child, Rosa Lee, in 1887. John was mainly producing cabinet cards and selling them for $3.50 per dozen. He became a trustee in the newly formed fraternal organization, Knights of the Golden Rule (sort of a mutual aid society). Folks dropped by his studio to have both posed and candid photos taken. Serdinko photographed the first members of the Six and Sixty-six Card Club.

In November of 1887, trouble was brewing in the domestic life of the Serdinkos. Mrs. Serdinko had a sale which included household items, a windmill, pumps, and handwork, to be paid in cash. Ernestine then informed the public on March 1, 1888 that she was leaving NB in two weeks and was selling what was left of her furniture, picture frames and more. She also said she would finish all her photos at a very low price; she must have been doing some of the processing for her husband. She left and the studio on Seguin Street was rented to J.W. Writer who came from the studio of Serdinko’s friend, Alonzo N. Calloway, in San Antonio.

In April, John Serdinko returned from travelling to California and reopened a studio. When did he leave? Where did he go? I followed his trail west, and I found the reason for the North Dakota request. During 1887, Serdinko somehow met up with F. Jay Haynes of Fargo. Haynes was the official photographer of the Northern Pacific Railroad. He had his own railcar fitted out as living quarters and photography studio and is best known for his early views of Yellowstone National Park. There are several stereoviews, from the “Northwestern Pacific Views” series, depicting Native Americans and one view of Yellowstone that are published by Serdinko in Fargo. There are also cabinet cards with “Serdinko, New Braunfels” found in Fargo.

John may not have been the best husband, but he was shaping up to be an interesting man.

When the new IG&N railroad bridge across the Guadalupe River collapsed in 1891, John Serdinko was the photographer who chronicled the tragedy. In 1892, Serdinko designed and fabricated “an excellent telephone apparatus” which was installed to connect Henry Streuer’s Two Brothers Saloon on Main Plaza with the Streuer home in Comaltown. This was the first telephone in New Braunfels!

Serdinko sold his studio and took off for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago — – THE perfect place for an inventor and photographer. After his return to NB in October, John received his fourth patent for “an automatic telephone exchange system.” He then rented his home on Seguin Street and moved to San Antonio in 1894. Serdinko got a patent for his telephone in April 1895.

The photographic business was sold to L. J. Wilson in 1899. Serdinko is listed in the 1900 Census for Colorado County and in March of 1901, Ernestine filed for divorce in the District Court in San Antonio.

And this is where I lost the trail for John, or Ivan, Serdinko. I found the last tidbit of his life in Ernestina Serdinko nee Reich’s family tree, “He died 11/15/1919 in Austria.”

How this free-thinking, intelligent, wanderlustig photographer and inventor made it to Austria remains a mystery.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives: Reich family genealogy; New Braunfelser-Zeitung; New Braunfels Herald; Lens on theTexas Frontier, by Lawrence T. Jones III; Nesbitt Memorial Library, Colorado County History, Part 8, by Bill Stein; 1900 Census, Colorado County, Texas; https://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/TDNP/; https://dsloan.com; https://www.ha.com/; https://www.yellowstonestereoviews.com/

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By Keva Hoffmann Boardman –

I discovered something interesting the other day. In a 1954 New Braunfels Herald column called, “The Melting Pot,” the writer, Gordon Rose, discusses the names of nearby localities known by both German/Anglo and Mexican citizens. The names these two cultures chose give us insight to how people thought about things. Let me give you some examples.

The community of Zorn, on Hwy 123, was established by Joseph Zorn when he built the first store in the area in the 1850s. In 1903, Fritz Galle drilled a well next to York Creek and found water containing high concentrates of sulfur and other minerals. The Mexican community began calling Zorn “Asufrosa” (Sulfur) and would visit the town’s sulfur well to bathe and drink in the healing water; they would also bring buckets to fill and take home.

Barbarossa, a small town on FM 758, was settled in the 1860s by German immigrants who named their community in honor of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. (It has always sounded like the name of a pirate to me.) Spanish-speaking old-timers called the settlement “El Salon Quemado” (The Burned Room/Hall) after the local dance hall burned down.

Solms, just down IH-35, was originally known as Four-Mile Creek when it was settled in the late 1840s. The settlement was renamed Solms in the 1880s to honor Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels. To local Mexicans, the area was known as “Los Olmos” (The Elms).

Four miles southwest of NB, Dittlinger is located on the Union Pacific (IG &N) Railroad. It was organized in 1907 by H. Dittlinger as a company town for his rock crushing plant and lime kiln and included houses, store and school. The Hispanic American families that made Dittlinger their home called it “La Calera” (The Lime Kiln).

The small community of Hortontown was across the Guadalupe River from NB. It was settled in 1847 when Leopold Iwonsky sold fifty-acre tracts from the Albert C. Horton survey. In 1850, Jacob de Cordova provided a lot for St. Martin’s Evangelical Lutheran Church to build a structure. The church tower was topped with a “wetterhahne” or a weathervane that included a rooster. The area’s Spanish speakers began referring to the neighborhood as “El Gallo” or” El Gallito” (The Rooster or Little Rooster) in reference to the weathercock.

The neighborhood near the S. Seguin Street overpass got the English nickname of “Frogtown” soon after the construction of the railroad track. The track’s elevation caused serious drainage issues and the flooded areas attracted myriads of croaking frogs until the impromptu ponds evaporated. Local Mexican citizens called the neighborhood “Canta Ranas” (Singing Frogs).

The neighborhood at the end of W. San Antonio Street past Live Oak is known as “The West End.” The neighborhood, predominantly settled by Hispanic families from the very early days of New Braunfels, was one of the last downtown areas to have access to city water and sewage. Its inhabitants aptly called it “Barrrio Seco” (Dry Neighborhood). Many continue to call it that today.

Back behind Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church runs Zink Street, so named because Nicholas Zink set up his survey equipment in 1845 and platted the town of New Braunfels from there. A group of small tin-roofed houses sat along part of the street, which its Hispanic occupants called “La Hojahata” (Tin). The appellation could have described most of New Braunfels which was known as “The Tin City” because its fire codes required tin roofs on all structures.

Hunter is a small community up Hunter Road on York’s Creek (think Riley’s Tavern). It was named for Andrew Jackson Hunter who, in 1867, settled and operated a thousand-acre cotton farm in the area. The town was established in 1880 when tracks were laid by the IG&N Railroad. By 1883, Gustav Schleyer had set up a post office and general store which were joined by a cotton gin, a grocery and a saloon by the next year. As the town grew, more saloons, a blacksmith, a barbershop, a wagon maker, a gristmill and a meat market were added. Hunter’s son-in-law, Edward M. House, and Harry Landa formed a partnership that bought up nearby land, set up the Hunter Cotton Gin Co. and used mule teams to haul cottonseed to Landa Cotton Oil Mill (think the Wurstfest buildings). A large influx of Mexican immigrants began settling in the community and a school and St. John’s Catholic Church reflected that impact. They called the community “La Mota” (The Speck or Weed).

As cotton growing declined with the arrival of the boll weevil, these Mexicans found themselves out of work. An enterprising group, led by town carpenter Pablo de la Rosa, began new businesses which capitalized on the auto traffic going through Hunter/La Mota on its way to San Antonio and Austin. In 1921, Pablo went to San Antonio and learned how to make plaster of Paris casts of animals. He opened the first plaster art shop in the town selling colorful bulldogs and flower bouquets as doorstops and bookends. His bulldogs didn’t have closed jaws but wore a snarl and stuck out red tongues. Pablo de la Rosa also created his own plaster casts of the Virgin de Guadalupe and busts of Hidalgo.

The town barber, Bernardino Sanchez, followed Pablo’s lead and also went to San Antonio to learn how to make plaster casts which included horses and cows, which he painted with spots. Eventually he owned four shops in downtown La Mota – buying nine lots along the road. Soon other families engaged in the creation of plaster dogs, cows, birds, chickens, flower bouquets and the like, all highly painted in bright colors. The plaster art reflected the seasons: longhorns with UT on their foreheads, deer during hunting season, rabbits and lambs during Easter. Cars passing through Hunter whizzed by rows and rows of wooden tables and benches loaded with the painted plaster animals which sold for eight cents to three dollars each. Business was great and Mr. Sanchez was able to pay cash for a brand new 1928 Model A Ford.

My dad remembers going through Hunter as a child. It was a magical drive with what seemed like countless enticing creatures lining the road. His family purchased a life-size bulldog that they used as a doorstop. As we talked, he wondered what had happened to that dog. I wonder too.

Anyone remember Hunter’s plaster animals or still have an example of this unique art?

Do any of you know interesting dual place names of other locales in Comal County? Let me know!

Sources: New Braunfels Herald and Neu Braunfels Zeitung collections; SA Express News Aug 5, 1928; “Reflections” oral history, #81 Albert Hoffman; and vertical files, Sophienburg Museum & Archives; Around the Sophienburg, Myra Lee Adams Goff, pp248-249; Phone interview with Paul O. Sanchez; https://www.co.comal.tx.us/CCHC.htm; http://www.texasescapes.com; https://www.tshaonline.org.

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