Railroads change NB architectural scene
By Myra Lee Adams Goff Dr. Carl Windwehen’s wedding gift to his bride, Lena Coreth, was a beautiful home on 257 E. Bridge St. now owned by Joel and Merry Saegert, and that home is being nominated for the prestigious designation as a Recorded Texas Historical Landmark. In Comal County, there are presently 50 structures […]
Wo in Himmel ist Anhalt?
By Myra Lee Adams Goff The third weekend in May I realized how hard it was to preserve historic customs. We can remodel, renovate and preserve buildings, bridges and artifacts. Even history is preserved when we write it down. But the arbitrary laws of custom are transient. In other words,” at random” customs are changeable. […]
Fischer Park will have historic background
By Myra Lee Adams Goff The City of New Braunfels Parks and Recreation Dept. is living up to the city’s mission statement of adding value to the community by planning for the future and encouraging community involvement. Two public parks are in the planning stage, Fischer Park and Mission Hill Park. If all goes well, […]
True Crime Series: A Christmas murder
By Simon V. Simek — Six score years ago to this very week of January, a story appeared in the English-language New Braunfels Herald, while the German-language paper, Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung, had run the story the previous week. They both detailed an interesting and puzzling report about how a meeting hall dedication party on Christmas night […]
Searching for clues
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 […]
Hermann Sons #21 celebrating 135 years
By Tara V. Kohlenberg — This year, the New Braunfels Hermann Sons Lodge #21 is celebrating 135 years. What sounded like a simple “Happy Birthday” article soon became a rabbit hole that I could not ignore. Hold on! First of all, who is Hermann and why do his sons have a lodge? I learned that […]
The miraculous electric belt
By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — It’s a crumbling brown leather belt with an insert of linked silver-plated rectangular batteries. It might not look like much, but this curious artifact, an electric belt, represents a weird and wonderful era in the history of electricity. Electrotherapy — using electricity to stimulate nerves and muscles — goes way […]
Oscar Haas, the Battleship Texas and the “Spirit of the Spanish-American War”
By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — How great is this photo of New Braunfels boys! The image was copied for Oscar Haas by Mr. Seidel in 1960, but it dates way back to March 17, 1900. The young men, dressed up for the Kindermaskenzug (Children’s Masquerade Parade), are standing in front of the New Braunfels Academy. […]
The saga of the Six Shooter Ranch
By Keva Hoffman Boardman — The Six Shooter Ranch. The name evokes something rather wonderful in an old-Western-movie kind of way. However, dear reader, the history around the Six Shooter Ranch is anything but romantic. There are tales from different time periods which give us clues to its story and with some sniffing around, I […]
Snapshots of History: Blumberg House
By Tara V. Kohlenberg and Mark Rahe — I love the buildings in New Braunfels. I especially like the ones in downtown New Braunfels and Comaltown. Built over a period of 150 years, each building tells a story in every little detail of each window, porch, and roofline. They are a snapshot of the historical […]
