By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

We are fortunate to live in a community proud of its heritage, culture and architecture. Our historic districts and downtown are proof of that pride. It seems so very idyllic, people creating a community by the river, building homes and businesses. The town prospers and new brick buildings to replacing the first crude wooden structures so that they will last. Or do they?

Those that we still see close to Main Plaza seem to be surviving, but a number of lavish 19th- and early 20th-century homes were torn down to make way for business structures. Think Landa mansion or the Timmermann house. I think of them as “ghost homes,” because the memory of their haunting beauty is all that is left.

One such ghost home stood on the corner of W. San Antiono Street and Academy Avenue where it was first occupied by the Holz family. Nicholas Holz, at age 20, immigrated from Germany in 1852. He was a blacksmith and wheelwright by trade who did well over the years. His son, Adolph, joined him in N. Holz & Son Implement Co. and in 1908, they built a large two-story building at 474 W. San Antonio St. to sell farm implements, buggies, and wagons. In 1909, Nicholas retired from business and it was sold to Bartels, Sands & Co.

That same year, Adolph Holz engaged architect Carl von Seutter of San Antonio to design a magnificent home at 417 W. San Antonio St. Von Seutter was well known for designing the now-historic home for Otto Koehler, founder of the San Antonio Brewing Association which became Pearl Brewing Company.

The magnificent home was built by Christian Herry for $15,000 with a crew of about 15, including his sons. Louis Herry was the project superintendent. Son Otto was the masonry foreman and son Alfred was a plasterer. The house was a two-story brick with elements of both Greek Revival and Beaux Arts styles of architecture. The building’s symmetry was offset by gabled front and side-porch porticos. Large, ornate Corinthian columns supported double galleries with heavy balustrades, gracefully wrapping around the front and side of the house.

The opulence of the interior was testament to the owner’s wealth. The grand staircase and house trims were all dark wood. The entry hall floor was parquet laid out in 12-nch sheets. The living room walls had special designs created in plaster to look like large picture frames without the pictures. A mural in a tree pattern was painted on the dining room walls. At the back of the house was a solarium with black and white tiles with a view of a magnolia tree.

The tin roof was crafted to resemble Spanish tile. Beneath the house, a large basement held a washroom and a storage space for wood carried upstairs in a dumbwaiter. Behind the house was a carriage house/livery that eventually became a garage.

After the elder Holzs died in 1910 and 1915, Adolph turned his sales savvy to real estate development. He and his wife raised their four children while enjoying a healthy social life. He was neighbors with George Eiband and Wm. Clemens. Things seemed to go south, however, when multiple lawsuits over real estate compensation were filed against Adolph and wife, Hulda, in the early ‘20s. Multiple properties were sold on the courthouse steps to satisfy their debts, including the implement building at 474 and a storefront at 301 W. San Antonio (now Clay Casa) in 1921. The house was sold to Otto Timmermann Sr. for $19,500 (about $2.5 million today) in 1924 before she and Adolph moved to San Antonio. Hulda died in 1925 after a long illness. Adolph ended up working as a farm laborer in Atascosa County for a time before living out his life with daughter and son-in-law, Ella and Harry Kastener in Milltown.

The next resident of the house was Otto Timmermann Sr. He was the son of Heinrich “Henry” Timmermann, who immigrated in 1850. Mr. Timmermann and wife, Alma Stautzenberger, of Guadalupe County, were farmers. He was said to be the land baron of Geronimo Creek. Upon his retirement, they moved into the old Holz mansion.

Otto Sr. lived in the home about 14 years until his death in 1938. Mrs. Timmermann continued to live in the house on the first floor. After World War II, when returning soldiers took up most of the town’s apartments for rent, Mrs. Timmermann rented out the top floor as a separate apartment. The second floor had a small kitchen, a living room, bedrooms and one bathroom in the hall. One of the bedrooms had six windows. Boarders had to use the back stairs and door, never the main entrance.

Mrs. Timmermann died in 1960. In 1962, the estate sold her house to Rudy Seidel. He used it as a temporary warehouse for hi-fidelity consoles, radios, cameras and electronic flash equipment for Seidel Camera next door. The house was then sold to Howard Hoerster.

It was said that the house had fallen into disrepair, but as a little girl, I looked at that house every time we passed by on the way to my Oma’s house. The grand entryway out front was huge in my eyes. I really wanted to be able to go inside one day, but that was not to be. In January of 1964, the beautiful, old, stately mansion was torn down. I cried. At seven years old, even though I did not know anyone that lived there or how important the architect was, I knew it was a treasure lost and I cried.

Howard Hoerster owned Hoerster Tire & Supply, which was previously located at 270 W. San Antonio St. (now Gourmage). They tore down everything but the large magnolia tree that stood outside the solarium window. They filled in the basement, smoothed it over and built a brand new 6500 square foot brick tire store and service center. The building served thousands of automobiles over time as Hoerster, Goodyear Service Center and DeStefano Tire before being refitted as an office building a couple of years ago.

I have visited Europe and have seen for myself the way different communities hold on to their culture. They still live and work in places that are sometimes 1,000 years old. The structures are proudly maintained for the next generation. Even in areas where war has scarred the land, buildings show dedication to restoration. They are not torn down or drastically altered for the new and trendy. I hope that New Braunfels can embrace and support our historical organizations and commissions in trying to prevent our architectural treasures from becoming “ghosts” as New Braunfels continues to grow at breakneck speed.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum and Archives.

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

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Dr. Ferdinand Roemer in his book “Roemer’s Texas,” when he arrived in the village of New Braunfels in 1846, wrote that a speculative American had laid out a new city in between the fork of the Comal and the Guadalupe within view of the city of New Braunfels and it was called Comaltown. This American citizen was Daniel Murchison, a land agent for Maria Antonia Veramendi and her husband Rafael Garza. Maria Veramendi Garza was the daughter of Juan Veramendi, governor of Texas under the Mexican regime who had received this land grant.

When Prince Carl laid out the city of New Braunfels on the west bank of the Comal, the Garzas laid out their inheritance on the east side of the Comal. Although Comaltown was separated from New Braunfels by water, it was soon annexed to the city of NB.

There has been very little history written about this thriving community so David Hartmann and I have begun a research project about Comaltown. We are collecting information on people, businesses, schools, churches, recreational activities and much more. David and I have a lot in common, including sharing a common ancestor here in Comaltown, Johann Georg Moeller (1844). We both grew up in this area and attended Lamar School. But when David went to Lamar, I was teaching there. David was in my music class at Lamar and so was Angie Morales, the daughter of Charlie and Francisca Morales who owned Morales Funeral Home on Common St. The funeral home was the first business that we researched in our new project.

The Morales Funeral Home, which was located at 171 Common St., was a thriving business until it was closed. Angie Morales (Kieny) was its last director and mortician. Her parents were Charlie and Francisca Sanchez Morales. Charlie was born in 1897 in Gruene and Francisca in Laredo in 1903. Together the couple had seven children. Angie, who was born in 1945, was the youngest. The other children are Carlota, Alfonso, Virginia, Francis, Martha, and Henry.

In 1921, Charlie Morales bought the property on which the Morales Funeral Home would be located. On the property was a small Sunday House and next to that was a two-story structure which, over the years, had served as a saloon downstairs and a small hotel with rooms for rent upstairs. There was a full basement for making wine and beer. Attached to this two-story building was another one-story addition probably used as a residence for the innkeeper. The buildings were constructed in the true German fachwerk style of clay bricks and cross timber. The clay used was plentiful in the Comaltown area, as many buildings were made of this easy-to-get material.

There is no information on the early owners, however, on the 1881 bird’s-eye view map of New Braunfels, the buildings can clearly be seen. They probably date back to the mid-1800s. They were at one time considered the oldest surviving buildings in Comaltown.

When Charlie Morales purchased the property, he removed the second story of the two- story building, probably due to the fragility of the clay. Other buildings in the area were converted to one-story due to the same situation. The basement became a cellar for can goods and vegetables. The Morales family lived in the remodeled structure and the other side became a funeral home in 1922. All of the Morales children were born at home.

Before buying the funeral home property, Charlie had worked for local contractors along with Rich Moeller. David Hartmann speculates that they worked for the Moeller Brothers Contracting firm consisting of Adolph and Alvin C. Moeller. All lived in the Comaltown area and Rich Moeller was a relative of the brothers.

Charlie Morales had several brothers who owned funeral homes in San Antonio, Austin, and Houston and so the mortician occupation was not new to him. Over the years over 30 family members were involved in the funeral business.

Angie grew up helping her dad and learning from him. She graduated from New Braunfels High School in 1965 and received her mortician’s license from the Commonwealth College of Science in Houston, doing an apprenticeship at Earthman’s Funeral Homes in Houston. Then in 1969 Angie returned to her hometown, New Braunfels, to help her father who retired, but remained active in the business. She became the first female funeral director and mortician in New Braunfels. She remembers some interesting times and she remembers hard times. Many families, due to lack of money, paid Charlie by bringing eggs, chickens, and even a goat. Some could not pay but received the funeral service anyway. Charlie Morales died in 1975.

To Angie, being a full time mortician and raising a family was no easy job. She remembers driving the hearse that the family named “Nellie Belle” hauling around young children that she helped raise.

Angie Morales maintained the funeral director position until 2006 when she closed the funeral home and turned the property over to her son. The buildings were subsequently torn down to make room for condominiums.

Most of the funeral records have been retained by Angie. Her former classmate at NBHS, Estella Delgado Farias, asked to make copies of the funeral home records. Estella was the person who did the research on the West End Hall and Baseball Parks. Angie agreed and Estella said that most of the 7,000 people in the records were buried in the Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Panteon Hidalgo Cemeteries. She also related that most of the funerals were conducted by the Morales Funeral Home. Estella and her husband, Robert Farias, are now working on the information which they are entering into a database. They are also searching for missing information and eventually will make all of this information available to the public at the Sophienburg Museum and Archives.

David and I are off to a running start. Well, maybe not exactly running, but we’re getting there. If you have information and pictures of Comaltown, we would love to use them.

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Recently in the “Smithsonian” magazine, consumer sensor expert, Kevin Ashton, talked about successful innovator skills. His observation was that they possessed tenacity. “The difference between successful innovators and everyone else is that innovators keep failing until they don’t.” He also said “For most of history, creation was seen as a consequence of common people doing ordinary work.” I believe New Braunfels is full of such individuals and that Richard Gerlich was one of them.

Richard Gerlich

Richard Gerlich was born in Prussia in 1852. He grew up in Germany and married Augusta Puppe in 1875. In 1878 they came to the United States. They did not come with the first wave of immigrants with the Adelsverein, but came separately, landing in New Orleans eager to make their way to Texas. He appears on the 1880 Comal County Census list as a 28 year-old, along with his 28 year-old wife, his 26 year-old sister, Alma and his children, Emil (4) and Gertrude(2).

Richard’s occupation is listed as a carpenter and wheelwright, which is a repairer of wheels. He became a naturalized citizen in 1882. By 1883 he had purchased a two-acre lot #168 from owner Heinrich Hoeke who had originally been granted the lot from the German Emigration Company. Gerlich immediately built his house at 505 W. San Antonio St. This wooden frame house remains intact with later additions to the rear. It is this house that is now a Bed and Breakfast owned by the Conservation Society. The standing seam tin roof and windows are original. Next to this house Gerlich built his shop where he would establish a business, now the site of Wagenfuehr’s Buckhorn Barber Shop Museum.

Meanwhile the family increased adding Linda, Walter and Augusta. The oldest child, Emil died. Richard’s sister Alma, who accompanied the family to New Braunfels, set up a millinery shop on San Antonio St. (possibly where the Miller & Miller parking lot now stands). Here she taught young girls hand sewing and machine sewing skills.

Aside from his business of being a “Jack of all trades, master of ALL”, Richard busied himself with other activities. He gave swimming lessons in the Comal Creek to boys and girls. The importance of swimming skills in NB cannot be underrated. Coming from Germany, swimming was not a skill learned naturally by boys and girls as it is here. Old records of NB show that many people, especially children, drowned in the early days. New Braunfels was surrounded by water. Gerlich would separate swimming lessons for boys and girls. Family tradition says that Gerlich’s method of instruction was to tie a rope around the child’s waist, throw them in the water and pull the rope toward shore. This technique in my early days was called “sink or swim.” Whatever it’s called, it worked.

At the shop, Gerlich sold produce from the adjoining two-acre farm such as corn, all sorts of vegetables and cotton seed. He was also a wagon builder, but working with wood was his specialty. Historian Oscar Haas described a one-cylinder steam engine which powered his (Gerlich’s) jigsaw: “He had a jigsaw and did a lot of gingerbread (cutout wood for decoration) on your porch and gables… and he had to fire that engine with wood.

“He had a little mustache and smoked cigars…When he was firing the stove to produce steam, he’d forget about drawing on the cigar.” Haas said he switched to a gasoline engine and then later to electricity after 1892 when the Landa Power Company made electricity more available.

Gerlich had the ingenuity to make up patterns for the gingerbread trim and to meet the taste of the more modern world. When he pulled down his “Richard Gerlich Wheelwright” sign he replaced it with “Richard Gerlich Gunsmith”. He repaired clocks, sewing machine, bicycles, toys and just about anything that was broken. He died in 1930 and his wife died in 1933 and both are buried in the Comal Cemetery.

Walter Gerlich

Richard’s son Walter grew up in the house on San Antonio St. and worked with his father in the shop. He eventually opened his own bicycle repair and gun shop there. He was definitely mechanically inclined like his father. An opportunity arose that he could not resist; a representative of the Ford Motor Company offered him a dealership and he accepted. The offer had been made to Eiband & Fischer, but they declined because they did not want to get into the new automobile business. Gerlich did.

The Ford Company would send him the parts (probably by train) and he would assemble them into a Ford automobile. Needing more room to work in, Gerlich bought the property on which he would establish Gerlich Auto Company on the corner of Academy and San Antonio Sts. from Albert Penshorn who had a blacksmith shop there. Penshorn sold the shop to W.H. Gerlich for $24,000 in 1920. He built his building with a large basement and an elevator. Large boxes arrived with car parts and were delivered to the elevator and taken to the basement. After assembly, the finished product was put on the elevator and taken up to the show room for sale. Henne Hardware had a similar setup with elevator, only they put together wagons on the second floor and brought the finished product down. I believe it was not accidental that both these businesses were close to the railroad tracks. Large items arrived by train because there were no large delivery trucks.

Walter Gerlich had married Laura Bielstein and they had two children, Norman and Marguerite. The untimely death of Laura in 1914 left Walter with two young children.

The Gerlich home at that time was on Academy St. Six years later in 1920, Walter was married to Valeska Babel. Their daughter Madelyn was born in 1923. A new home on the corner of Seguin and Garden Sts. was built for them by my grandfather, A.C. Moeller. The ten room home was complete with basement and wine cellar. It is now the law office of Marion J. Borchers.

Walter died in October, 1933, and four months later daughter Wallie Henrietta was born, never having known her father. Valeska Gerlich became the sole owner of a thriving business. The final chapter of Gerlich Auto Company was sale of the property to Ben Krueger in 1944 and the building now belongs to Joe Keen who restored it and replaced the name Gerlich at the top.

I believe that the quality of tenacity in Richard Gerlich as he fixed the little toys, bicycles, and clocks, was passed on to his son. Walter Gerlich used this same tenacity to put together automobiles.

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I walked into Henne Hardware and the bell rang above the door alerting the clerk that someone had entered. I was immediately greeted by two cats named Clifford and Eugene, so named by owner of the store, Paul Martinka. These cats, or at least their names, will bring back memories to those of you who remember the Henne family. Clifford and Eugene were the last of that family to own the business and that was years ago. Perhaps Paul named the cats after the Hennes to remind him of the roots of that store. Cliffy and Gene certainly brought memories to me and it will to a lot of you that were hanging around in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.

The roots of Henne Hardware, as were so many of the stores that have local roots, began in Germany. Johann Henne, his wife, Henrietta Deppen, and their five children boarded the ship Hercules with 152 other passengers from Germany and arrived in Galveston in August of 1845. From there they were taken by schooner to Indianola where they engaged wagons to move inland to New Braunfels. They were fortunate to have survived the first Texas winter that took so many lives on the coast, on the inland trek, and in New Braunfels.

Johann was a tinsmith and in 1846 he bought a lot on San Antonio St. for which he paid $120. He opened a tinsmith shop and had a thriving business. Electricity wasn’t in homes and streets until after the 1900s, two years after Harry Landa introduced electricity to NB. Until that time there was a big demand for tin oil lanterns inside and outside. Just imagine San Antonio St. without any electric lights or lights from the inside of buildings. Repairs on the Austin, San Antonio Stage Co. coach lamps were made at Hennes. Tin roofing was made a necessity in 1893 after a city ordinance was passed requiring tin roofing in the city.

In 1857 Johann died and when he did, his son, Louis Henne, took over the tinsmith business. He was only 17 years old at the time, but it became his responsibility to take over the business and support his mother and siblings. He was the only child of Johann and Henrietta that married. Louis then named the business Louis Henne Co., Tin and Sheet Iron Ware, Stoves, House Furnishing Goods and Mitchell Wagons.

With time, Louis Henne began other businesses such as a lumberyard on the corner of Castell and Coll Sts. and a plumbing business. In 1893, right next to where the tinsmith shop was located, Louis built a beautiful Victorian-style business building sitting right in the middle of the business district where it remains today. It was built by contractor Christian Herry. Herry came from Germany to New York after serving two years in the German army during the Franco-Prussian war. He had the reputation of being a master at building trusses of cathedrals, building them on the ground and raising them completed into place. He came to New Braunfels in 1881 and one of the first projects was the addition of frame wings to the limestone New Braunfels Academy.

The building still retains much of its original décor, inside and outside. The walls are brick, the flooring is oak and the ceiling is pressed tin. The inside of the store is ornate, as the Victorian architecture called for. Still on hand are some original display cases and nail bins. There are revolving cabinets for small articles. The shelves containing merchandise reach from floor to ceiling. Way up at the top, next to the ceiling, the original old shelves hold antique items and then under those shelves are newer items. The sliding ladders are still there in order to reach the top shelves. The ladders slide on steel runners. Near the cast-iron cookware section, you can look up and you can also see some wooden water pipes used in early New Braunfels. Now where else can you see that?

Before banks were well established, mercantile stores provided those services. The office area at the back of the building with its large built-in safe is a reminder of this practice. Cash registers were not used. Still visible are the remnants of the money trolleys.

There is also an elevator going upstairs and downstairs into the basement. Many of the immediate downtown buildings have basements. I had heard that the basement at Hennes was a favorite spot for card-playing men. Going down a steep set of stairs into the basement, I can see how a secluded area, half the size of the building, would be an intriguing place to get together to socialize. Glass tiles from the sidewalk let in a small bit of light. In the basement is a well about 25 feet deep that fills with water according to the amount of rain. Paul Matinka pointed out it reflects the water table and when there was lots of rain, the well would fill up and even spill over. The well was dug before the building was built.

Over the years, Louis Henne acquired more property on the block where the store is located. His family’s two story home was built at the back of the property on Mill St. He also maintained a camp yard for customers who came into town on weekends by wagon. They would camp there and return home the next day. It was one of several such campgrounds complete with wagons and campfires and of course, lit by tin oil lanterns. The large barn-like building behind the store was the lumber storage.

Louis Henne was the only one of his seven brothers and sisters that married. He married Emilie vom Stein and they had five children. He was active in the formation of the Volunteer Firemen’s association. One of Louis’ sons, Adolf, succeeded his father as head of the store when Louis died in 1912. Adolph remodeled the store, adding the show windows and adding interior shelving and display cases. He carried on his father’s interest in fire prevention. When he died in 1945, the business went to his three sons: Clifford, Eugene, and Norman. Clifford and Eugene took over the store and they were the last Hennes to own the store. Clifford became the sole owner in 1962.Ten years later the business was sold to Donald Stott and James Goodbread and then to the Bob Schima family. The present owner bought the business in 1996 and the property in 2000.

Paul Martinka has managed to have merchandise that you can’t find anywhere else and even some that is no longer available. Look for well-made unusual toys for Christmas. There is a very large collection of cast- iron cookware and pottery from Marshall, Texas. Martinka has devoted his time to maintaining historic Henne Hardware.

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