Waggoners important to early New Braunfels transportation

(Encore presentation — Originally appeared February 8, 2011) By Myra Lee Adams Goff Waggoners or Teamsters were important to early New Braunfels. They not only led the wagon trains of the early German settlers but they hauled freight to and from the frontier, especially the Gulf coast. G. Fred Oheim,

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The year 1898 was a news-filled year for the Neu Braunfelser Zeitung

By Myra Lee Adams Goff In 1998, the late Dr. Robert Govier, native New Braunfelser and volunteer at the Sophienburg, translated the 1898 Neu Braunfelser Zeitung, one hundred years later. The weekly newspaper is on microfilm at the Archives and had to be translated from German script to English. Govier

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Doeppenschmidt Funeral Home from 1923 to the present in the same family

By Myra Lee Adams Goff It’s the same business, in the same place, run by the same family for almost 92 years. That’s Doeppenschmidt Funeral Home, now involving the fourth generation. And it doesn’t look like they are going to run out of clients any time soon. In the early

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Honey Creek area becomes Honey Creek State Natural Area

By Myra Lee Adams Goff Hermann Seele gave us a good description of the Texas Hill Country. I’m paraphrasing what he said and you can observe as you drive between Austin and San Antonio on Highway 35. In the distance, take notice of a low, dark green line of cedar-covered

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Controversial letters to Germany

By Myra Lee Adams Goff A letter written on May 2, 1845, two months after the first settlers arrived in New Braunfels, gives us details of those first two months in NB. The letter was written by Lt. Oscar von Claren to his sister in Germany. The end of von

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Landa first fair president

By Myra Lee Adams Goff It did not surprise me to find out that Harry Landa was the first president of the Comal County Fair Association. In those early days before the turn of the century, his name appears over and over for new projects, new industry, innovative ideas, and

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Journals are important to history

By Myra Lee Adams Goff A designated post office can reveal a great deal about an area and about who lived there. In Comal County the Spring Branch Post Office was at one time headed by Gottlieb Elbel and he had the forethought to keep a journal from 1867, when

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“The Captured” tells story of captured children

By Myra Lee Adams Goff The story of the capture of children in 1800s Texas is told through the research of Scott Zesch in his book “The Captured”. Many children were captured by the Plains Indians. In his book, he studies in depth the life and eventual release of nine

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Joe Sanders has impact on tourism

By Myra Lee Adams Goff On May 8, 1914, the New Braunfels Herald’s front page story announced that “a model federal highway was to be built from Austin to San Antonio”. This Federal Post Road was a forerunner to IH 35. The same year that the road was completed in

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The year of the courthouse and the Spanish-American War

By Myra Lee Adams Goff The year 1898 was the year of the Comal County Courthouse and the year of the Spanish-American War. In 1998 Dr. Robert Govier translated the “Neu Braunfelser Zeitung” from German into English for the Sophienburg . The Govier and Adams families were old family friends.

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