By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

The first ever 4th of July celebration was held in Philadelphia on July 4, 1777; it included an exhibition which began and ended with 13 rockets — one for each state of the new United States of America.

New Braunfels’ first July 4th celebration was in 1846, after Texas had officially become the 28th state of the Union. A large American flag was raised and flown at the Sophienburg. The two cannons were fired to announce the beginning of festivities.

The first mention of a local celebration with fireworks was in 1859 at the Schillerfest. This was a festival honoring the German poet, Friedrich Schiller’s 100th birthday. The festival included poetry readings, a performance of a Schiller play, songs by the singing society and also a dance — with a fireworks finale. The first recorded use of fireworks in New Braunfels on July 4th was in 1866, after the end of the Civil War.

Fireworks became increasingly incorporated into all kinds of local observances throughout the late 19th century. Many of the large gathering halls (Halle) in New Braunfels and Comal County advertised firework displays for all kinds of festivities. Some of them were Germania Halle, Breustedt’s Halle, Matzdorff’s Halle and Saengerhalle. Lots of the shows also featured cannonades.

So where did they get the fireworks? The local pharmacist was the man in town whose profession was rooted in the alchemy and compounding of chemical ingredients. Most of the elements needed for fireworks doubled as medicinal components as well. The pharmacist, or druggist as he was then known, had shelves full of the necessary ingredients and the knowledge to put them together in the right amounts.

Fireworks require saltpeter, sulphur and charcoal, which are the basic ingredients found in gunpowder. The addition of potassium chlorate to the mixture allowed chemical colors to be enhanced and brightened. Red was the first color made by adding strontium nitrate. Green came next with the addition of barium nitrate.

New Braunfels’ 25th Anniversary in 1870 had a midnight fireworks show at the old Saengerhalle; the fireworks committee was led by Mr. Loep, Mr. Rohde and Mr. Brandt. In 1877, Friedrich Heidemeyer was in charge of firing the cannons and the fireworks on the 4th of July celebration; July 4th always included firework displays. Harvest festivals and Maifest (May Day Festivals) were commemorated at local schools with fireworks and dances. In May 1886, Mr. H. Fischer of Churchill, “a well-known authority in pyrotechnics”, was in charge of the city’s Maifest fireworks. Schuetzenfests (shooting club competitions) included fireworks at the end of shooting competitions. New Year’s Eve and Easter celebrations were observed with night parades using lit torches, lanterns, cannon fire and fireworks. Early New Braunfels did everything in a big way.

For America250, the Sophienburg Museum & Archives will have several exhibits reflecting New Braunfels’ pride in being American. The Pharmacy exhibit will display Mr. Rudolph Richter’s pharmaceutical “Recipe Book.” Along with hundreds of medicinal recipes, he had directions for making gunpowder, blasting powder and flash powder, There are many recipes for each color of fireworks which allowed him to use whichever chemicals he had on hand.

Stories and newspaper accounts link many early local pharmacists to gunpowder and fireworks manufactured for local festivals and celebrations: A. Forcke, H.V. Schumann, Rudolph Richter, and H. Fischer. Making fireworks was an exciting, albeit dangerous, job. August Forcke was badly burned in an explosion on July 2, 1876, while making fireworks for the U.S. Centennial celebration. He was mixing chemicals for “Bengal lights.” Bengal lights were hand-held sparklers that emitted colored flames and sparks; these were named for the Bengal region of India which was a major source of saltpeter.

Like today, businesses sometimes sponsored the making of fireworks and the firework shows. S.V. Pfeuffer, Ernst Gruene Jr., J.D. Guinn, Paul Engelhardt, Richard Gerlich, M.C. Church, Emil Galle and Dr. Garwood are often mentioned as sponsors and committee members for many city displays.

This year, as you enjoy the fireworks shot off in Landa Park, remember that they have been a major part of our country and our city’s celebration of our place in the United States of America. Remember with pride all the freedoms that come with being an American.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives; Neu Braunfelser Zeitung; New Braunfels Herald; KERA News: The Explosive Science Behind Fireworks.

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

The post Fireworks and pharmacists appeared first on Sophies Shop.

By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

Main Plaza. We drive around it every day. It captures the imagination and baffles the tourists (and sometimes the new locals). It’s a magical place in the heart of our community that dons “new clothes” for each occasion, no matter the season, drawing us into the scene. Ever wonder how that came to be? It was created that way by our ancestors.

When the first German immigrants came to New Braunfels in 1845, surveyor Nicholas Zink laid out the town in the European tradition, with a large open public space in the center, used for meetings and celebrations. In German, the space is known as a Platz. In Italian, Piazza. In American, Plaza. You might think, well, that’s the same thing as a town square. Except, that it is different. If you look at most of the town squares across Texas, like in Seguin or San Marcos, you will find the courthouse quite literally sitting smack in the middle of the square. Our courthouse was purposely built on the edge of the Plaza, to maintain the feel of their German homeland, with the people’s space in the middle. In New Braunfels, it is Main Plaza.

For the first, say fifty years, the plaza was a completely open space, where horses and wagons could travel in whatever direction they desired. More recently, I hear people call Main Plaza a “roundabout” or “traffic circle,” as if it is merely a function of traffic patterns. But it is not. In fact, the first to occupy the big open space was the fountain. The Plaza Fountain was added in 1895 with money left over from the 50th Anniversary Celebration of New Braunfels. Protective curbing came later to keep the horses from drinking out of the fountain.

The Bandstand (it is not now, nor has it ever been a gazebo) was built in 1905 to stage musical and singing programs. It used to have public restrooms and storage space underneath for chairs. The monuments of Civil War and World War I Soldiers were dedicated to honor the fallen sons of New Braunfels. The landscaping, sidewalks and trees have changed over the years, as has the location of the monuments, but the sentiment of community pride tied to Main Plaza has always been the same. At one time, the Schmitz Hotel changed hands. The new owner remodeled and changed the name to The Plaza Hotel. The hotel has since been restored to its original name and façade. New Braunfels Coffee shop was once Plaza Drugstore.

That is the story of Main Plaza, but that is not the end. “Main” in front of something indicates that there must be more. More plazas? Yep! There were more! This generation does not have the lock on green space. Two plazas that still exist were born out of function. Butchers took animals from hoof to table, and it could be a messy, smelly business. They were relegated to the outer edges of town to keep the flies away. Market Square, off Comal Avenue and bordered by Tolle on both sides, was for the butchers. The tannery was just beyond that toward the Comal River, well, because those businesses just go together. Market Square has recently undergone a wonderful makeover. Keep your eyes open for upcoming summer music events there.

Another plaza near downtown, is Haymarket Plaza (now Park). The name is fairly straight-forward. It was the site of the hay market. It is located on Comal Avenue, also bordered by Hampe and Simon (pronounced See-mon) Street. The area was once part of Lindheimer’s farm. It also was the site of an African-American school. In 1964, the Naval Reserve built a radio training center on a small corner of the property.

The last two plazas are not quite as easy to see anymore. They also require a little more backstory. After Prince Carl laid out New Braunfels on the west bank of the Comal, the Veramendi Garza family laid out their property on the east bank. They named the city Comaltown. Immigrants arriving in 1848 bought property in Comaltown. Twenty-two years later, the remainder of the Veramendi properties were divided and sold as Braunfels. Braunfels was bounded on the north by North Street and to the south by South Street and the east by East Street. So simple. Both had centrally located public spaces called plazas on the earliest maps. Comaltown was bordered by Garza Street and the river. The Comaltown plaza was bordered by Austin, Guadalupe (now Houston), Union and Garza. In 1850, M.A. Dooley gave Lot 4 on the corner of Austin and Guadalupe for the building of a school. The German American Union School was chartered in 1852. It became known as Comal Union School. It was later used as an African American school until about 1935. The property across the street from the school later became known as Union Plaza. The NBISD donated Union Plaza in 1954 to build the New Braunfels Hospital, now Christus New Braunfels.

The other plaza in Braunfels was called East Braunfels Plaza. It was bordered by Veramendi, Commerce, Main, and Houston. At one time, Fire hose cart Company No. 4 and fire warning bell was located in the middle of the that plaza. In 1924, there was great discussion and an election to decide where to build the new Ward School of NBISD. The board leaned strongly toward Union Plaza, but the citizens wanted East Braunfels Plaza to be the site of the new school named for the second president of the Republic of Texas, Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar. It is still there.

Our Main Plaza has been the site of public meetings, grand Anniversary events, 4th of July celebrations and parades, Diez y Seis parades, anti-Prohibition events, cotton markets, Cinco de Mayo and Wurstfest celebrations. Some plazas now have hospitals and schools, but our ancestors purposely planned the plazas as spaces for public use. Thank them for their forward thinking and relish the spaces in our downtown.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives; Herald-Zeitung archives.

The post Plaza-palooza appeared first on Sophies Shop.

Don’t know your early NB history? No excuses, people. There are many outstanding works of art and memorials you probably see every day just driving through our beautiful downtown. Pack up the kids or load up your Omie and Opie and take a mini field trip or two. Enjoy the summer weather and connect with your community’s past.

Start with a trip to the NB Civic Center on S. Seguin St. for a really good overview of New Braunfels’ beginnings. Out in front is a bronze of our city founder, Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels. Did you get that? Solms-BRAUNFELS. There. You know how we got our name. We are the only city in Texas founded by a Prince!

Walk up on the front porch and you will find an entire wall of metal plaques that lay out the basics of our town’s history. There are 20 etched metal “photos” of early NB sites and leaders and four rectangular metal etchings of the German immigrants’ journey from Indianola. It’s a lot to take in, but there is more.

Go around the left side of the building. You will pass a blue-tiled fountain that honors citizens who have been designated as “Legends”. These individuals have given countless hours to make our city better. Maybe one day your name will be etched into our history.

Continue to the back entrance and find a long polished grey granite marker in the flower bed. Check out the towns the immigrants passed through as they followed the Guadalupe River up from the coast. That trip took almost six weeks to walk. I just drove that route with a group of fellow citizens; it took us a day in an air-conditioned van. I can truthfully say that I would not have made it to NB. No apology.

Another concentration of art, architecture and memorials is found on our beloved Main Plaza. On the north side, find the rough pink granite rock with a plaque from the City’s 150th Anniversary; it has an outline of the changes made to the Plaza. Having been planned from day one to be the City Center, the Plaza is almost overflowing with information of our past.

And flowing in front of you is the Plaza Fountain, bought and installed in 1896, with funds from the City’s 50th Anniversary celebration. The fountain has not only survived time, it has survived being hit (and badly damaged) several times by drunk or speeding drivers. Did you know that the fountain has not always been black?

The Bandstand has been New Braunfels’ centerpiece since 1905. Just imagine that for over a century, singing and shooting society festivals, presidential and gubernatorial visits, community meetings, concerts and city anniversaries have been celebrated in its shadow. It has witnessed hundreds of 4th of July, Dies y Seis, Loyalty Day, Comal County Fair and Kinder Maskenball parades. Innumerable wagons, carts, bicycles, automobiles and trucks have circled around the octagonal red-roofed little building. Just stand in it and you are a part of that history!

Near the Bandstand is the “Friendship Tree” (Freundschaft Baum) dedicated to YOU, the citizens of New Braunfels. If you circle the Plaza, you will find four polished pink granite markers for the 150th Anniversary. Take some large sheets of paper and some crayons and make rubbings of the crests. Can you figure out what the symbols mean?

At the east end of Main Plaza are two memorials to Comal Countians who fought for our rights and freedoms in the Civil War and WWI. Note that the Civil War monument honors all men who died, both North and South. I like what that says about our town.

If you still haven’t had your fill of history, you can read the marker on our century-old, restored Comal County Courthouse. Take time to go inside and explore the exhibits and spaces of this unique and stately structure; believe me when I say there will be some fun surprises.

Cross Seguin St and grab a cup of coffee at Crosswalk in the former lobby of the Schmitz Hotel where you will walk on floors that knew the footsteps of Texas Rangers, Civil War officers and men, cotton merchants and so many more. I suggest you park yourself in a chair on the front porch. Take a little time to watch present day history happen right before your eyes and be thankful for the all the people who have made New Braunfels so wonderful.

FYI: Saturday, May 19th is FREE Museum Day from 1-4pm. Take advantage of this once a year freebie.

The post Look and Learn! Part 1 appeared first on Sophies Shop.

New Braunfelsers were giddy with joy when snowflake clusters fell on December 7th. Waking up that next morning was a “blessed event” of sorts for us locals. Some newcomers amongst us wondered at our ecstasy over snow, and in trying to explain, I realized that just like people in ancient cultures, we use weather events to mark the passage of time in New Braunfels.

If you have been here long enough you will have heard old-timers talk about the Comal Springs going dry in ’56; we talk about it during every dry spell, especially when it happened again in 2013. The memory of the ’72 Flood is firmly cemented in the minds of many. There was also the ’98 Flood that nearly cancelled Wurstfest and the ’02 Flood that did cancel the 4th of July. We have had many floods since record-keeping began; eight of them were over 30 feet!

Snowfall in NB, being infrequent, has the same aura around it. I found a listing of officially recorded snowfall for San Antonio and Austin from 1895 to 2011. Using the dates, I spent a couple days looking through the Neu Braunfelser Zeitung and the New Braunfels Herald to test the theory that if it snowed in these cities wouldn’t it have snowed here? I was not disappointed.

The Zeitung (German) reported snowfall even if it was in trace amounts along with weather temperatures. Like today, the town had people who sent in official amounts from different areas around the county. Rainfall amounts, in which snowfall figured, were very important in more rural early NB. Ice was reported as a separate occurrence. (There are many, many ice photos of the Plaza Fountain in the Archive’s collection.) Weather reports did not make front page news but ran in the Lokales (local news) section behind world, national and state headlines.

The Herald (English) only mentioned snowfall if it was substantial. Not sure about that difference, but larger snowfalls did make front page headlines. Even though the Herald began publication in 1895, I found no mention of snowfall until 1929, and snow photos don’t appear in print until after the merger of the two newspapers in 1957.

Enjoy the stats and photos. The chart is probably not error free, but it is as close as I could come for now.

• Feb. 14, 1895 — 4 to 5 inches
• Jan. 25, 1897 — 0.2 inches
• Dec. 18, 1906 — 2 inches
• March 8-9, 1915 — 1 to 2 inches
• Jan. 10, 1918 — 0.4 inches
• Feb. 4-5,1923 — 5 inches
• Dec. 28, 1925 — 1 inch
• Jan. 23-24, 1926 — 3 to 4 inches
• Dec. 21, 1927 — 0.5 inches
• Jan. 21, 1928 — 0.2 inches
• Dec. 18-19, 1929 — 4.6 inches
• Jan. 21-22, 1940 — 2.8 inches
• Jan. 14, 1944 — 2.5 inches
• Jan. 30, 1949 — 4 to 5 inches
• Feb. 1, 1951 — 0.2 inches
• Feb. 14, 1951 — 1.5 inches
• Feb. 11-12, 1958 — up to 2.5 inches
• Feb. 21, 1964 — 2.5 inches
• Feb. 22-23, 1966 — 3 to 7 inches
• Jan. 11-12, 1973 — 0.3 inches
• Feb. 8-9, 1973 — 0.5 inches
• Jan. 2, 1985 — 1.5 to 4 inches
• Jan. 12-13,1985 — 5 to 12 inches
• Feb. (?), 2010 — 0.1 inches
• Feb. 4, 2011 — 0.3 to 0.5 inches
• Dec. 7, 2017 — 3 to 4 inches

The post The cold facts of New Braunfels appeared first on Sophies Shop.

Come celebrate our Declaration of Independence once again with the Sophienburg’s July 4^th celebration and parade. The parade will begin at 9:15 so be at the Plaza early. I have invited a ghost from the past to be there. John Torrey will surely be at his old stomping grounds in spirit.

Who was John Torrey? I wrote an article about John Torrey Feb. 23, 2010. A little more detail of the John Torrey story takes us back to why and how he became such a prominent person in the settlement of New Braunfels.

There were seven Torrey brothers from Connecticut. Two stayed in Connecticut, two were killed in Texas and three, John, David, and Thomas, formed the Torrey Brothers Trading House in Houston in 1836. This trading company became a very important strategy of Sam Houston’s peace policy with the Indians. With a significant fur trade, there were several branch stores in Texas that brought the Indians and the settlers together.

The Torrey brothers in 1844 furnished Prince Carl with ammunition, swords, and arms for the soldiers that Prince Carl had organized to protect the newly arrived emigrants. John Torrey was with Prince Carl as he inspected the New Braunfels property right before the settlers crossed the Guadalupe. Later when John Meusebach became the second commissioner-general after Prince Carl left, David Torrey drew up a contract to help transport those emigrants who needed transportation from Indianola.

This connection with the Adelsverein is what brought the Torreys to New Braunfels in 1846. Here John conducted a trading business on the corner of San Antonio and Hill Sts. where he ground corn into cornmeal for the settlers for 10 cents a bushel. Then Torrey moved closer to where we are celebrating July 4^th. While you’re standing around the Plaza, take a look over at the UPS building on the corner of San Antonio St. and Seguin Ave. This location is the first recorded deed of John Torrey in May 1847 when he built a store on that corner. He leased this property from Penelope Hunter of San Antonio for $30 a year. The property encompassed the corner lot all the way to the present Black Whale. This property had first been granted to Nicholas Reidel by the German Emigration Co. One of the lease agreements with Mrs. Hunter was that it was not to be used as a saloon or boarding house without her permission. That agreement didn’t last long because in a few years that very building became the saloon of Ferdinand Simon.

Now from the Plaza, you’re just a hop, skip and jump to the San Antonio St. Bridge. Before you go on to the bridge, look to the right where the Dittlinger office building is located (ADM). This was approximately where the John Torrey homestead was located.

A little bridge background: There had to be a bridge from the settlement of New Braunfels and Comaltown. The earliest bridge, known as the Pecan Bridge and described by Hermann Seele, pinpoints the location of a pecan foot bridge on an island at the juncture of the Comal River and Comal Creek. Two pecan trees, one on each bank of the Comal, had been felled onto the island. Pedestrians crossed back and forth between NB and Comaltown holding on to handrails. This bridge was at the foot of Bridge St.

The first wagon bridge built across the Comal by the city was in 1856. This bridge made of timber was located diagonally from the foot of Mill St. to the north edge of San Antonio St. After ten years another bridge was built there in 1866 only to be partially destroyed by a flood in 1869. This bridge was repaired and then completely torn away by another flood in 1870. The city built an iron wagon bridge in the same location as these two bridges, but once again a flood in 1872 washed it away.

Merchant C.C. Floege built a low water crossing in 1872 that lasted until 1894 when it was replaced by the high water structure built from scrap metal from the Chicago World’s Fair. Then in 1923 the concrete bridge now in use was built.

Now that you’re on the concrete bridge, you can look down to where the John Torrey mill used to be. In 1848 Torrey entered into a lease agreement with Hermann Speiss trustee of the German Emigration Co. to build a mill. The lease was for 1 4/5 acres for $75 a year for a parcel of land in New Braunfels at the juncture of Comal Creek (River) and the Comal Springs, the place being at the “falls”. Oscar Haas tells us that the falls was the only one on the Comal River and it is there that Torrey built a dam to use the water power for his mill. Torrey entered into an agreement with Willis E. Park to build a saw and grist mill. He later added facilities for the manufacture of wheat flour and a shop for making doors, sashes and blinds. It was destroyed by fire in 1861. Immediately Torrey put up a three story stone building. In 1863 he was joined by the Runge brothers of Indianola and they were granted a charter by the State of Texas to import cotton cloth weaving machinery, duty free. Six years later in 1869 a tornado destroyed the top floor and all the machinery. He had a roof placed over the second story and then in 1872 a cloudburst caused a flood tearing the foundation and destroying the recently rebuilt dam.

Today part of the foundation can still be seen at the Clemens Dam at the foot of Mill Street. It has been said that fire, wind, and water plotted against John Torrey’s efforts on the Comal River. Torrey, defeated, moved to land which he had bought in North Texas. After all of this explanation, I could have told you that it was where the Tube Chute is, right?

John Torrey, like William Meriwether and Harry Landa, were true industrialists. They knew what water power could do. Torrey bought a great deal of land in Comaltown. He hired J.J. Groos to plot out the Braunfels Subdivision. He gave the land on which the Comal Cemetery is located to the City of New Braunfels. Torrey Street is named after him because of the amount of land that he owned. Also Torrey Park is named after him. The mill site was honored by the State of Texas during the Centennial of Texas Independence in 1936 with an historical marker at the location of the mill.

To walk or ride in the parade, an application is required and a patriotic theme is essential. Whatever you do, come join us!

The post Go downtown to celebrate the 4th of July appeared first on Sophies Shop.