From Union St., turn onto Common and drive straight to the Guadalupe River. At the bridge and on the east side of the river, as far as you can see, look left and right. You are looking at Hortontown. Down river to the right of Hortontown was Neighborsville. These two areas are referred to by these names only historically. Beginning in 1846, when sickness was rampant on the coast and in New Braunfels, and emigrants were still arriving, Hortontown was settled to avoid going into the sickness- infested town. Neighborsville followed a few years later. Both areas were originally in Guadalupe County but were added to Comal County and also to the City of New Braunfels.

From the bridge, you will notice a gradual incline up to Loop 337. Turn right on the loop, and right before the railroad overpass, turn left on Church Hill Drive. Across the road from Conservation Plaza, a church was built in 1852. It was the St. Martin’s Evangelical Lutheran Church and next to it, in 1870, a school was built. The Church Hill School served the children of both Hortontown and Neighborsville.

Hortontown was named after Albert C. Horton who came to Texas from Alabama in 1835. He became an active supporter of the Texas Revolution. From 1836-38 he served as senator in the 1st and 2nd congress of the Republic of Texas. He became the first Lt. Gov. of the new state of Texas. Leopold Iwonski became the agent for Horton’s land grant.

The settlement of Neighborsville was laid out by Jacob de Cordoba who designated a lot for the establishment of the church and parochial school. In 1870 the church congregation decided to build a separate building for their school. And that school became the Church Hill School.

The Church Hill School was built of 18” thick hand- cut limestone blocks brought by wagon from a hill country quarry. The doors and floor are also original. The appointments are from other rural Comal County one-room schools.

Martha Rehler, Exec. Director of the Conservation Society, took me on a tour. There is nothing as empty as an empty classroom. Going into the abandoned school, that strange feeling returned. A classroom needs children.

There were wooden desks of all sizes with a hole in the top for an ink bottle. They still had those when I was in elementary school. Our fountain pens had a little bladder that had to be filled with ink. What a mess! In this old classroom the teacher sat in the back of the room by the door. I’m surprised she didn’t notice the initials carved in the older students’ desk, probably by a pocket knife which I’m told, was every boy’s toy. Slate boards were on each desk taking the place of paper. The large chalkboard (black, later green) had the lesson for the day in German script (Fraktur).

Other relics are a long table from the Ursaline Academy in San Antonio displaying photographs of groups of school children. Water was drawn out of a well or a cistern and put in a portable water fountain. There are two large bells. The smaller of the two at one time stood in front of the Guadalupe Hotel (Plaza) which was a stagecoach stop. The bell was used to welcome arrivals. The larger was a school bell to call students.

Rehler gave me a “Texas Public School’s Report Card from 1925 that parents had to fill out about their own child. It was for a 7th grade girl going into the 8th grade. I put myself in my mother’s shoes, evaluating her only chick on a scale of 1 to 100. Knowing that I was a “city girl” in New Braunfels, I would have failed miserably. I would have a “0” in canning, care of stock, care of poultry, cooking, gardening, general farm work, milking, providing fuel, sewing, and sweeping,. I would have done fairly well in dusting, washing dishes, obedience, neatness, reliability and special work. In my case, special work would have been socializing.

The St. Martin’s Church, originally adjoined to the old Church Hill School, was moved in 1968 next to the Hortontown Cemetery on Loop 337. The school remained and was eventually donated to the Conservation Society in 1975 to be used as a museum.

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Almost everywhere we go in New Braunfels, there is history hidden in plain sight. Perhaps it is something we drive by daily, but when asked about it, can’t recall where it is. Perhaps it is a building that looks like any other built within the last twenty years, except it is closer to a century old. Some things we just take for granted, like “ice”. Yes, ice, that clear, cold object floating in your tea prompting the name, “Iced tea”. Have you ever thought about how they got “ice” in South Texas? It is available from the door of most refrigerators now, but what about a 175 years ago? Ice has only been manufactured in New Braunfels for a little over a hundred years.

It is fairly easy to understand that the meals prepared by the founders of New Braunfels were probably meager by our standards. They ate what they hunted and harvested fresh from the garden because the food spoiled quickly. Meats were smoked or dried to preserve them. Vegetables and fruits were canned or made into jams to have food throughout the winter months. Up North, ice was harvested from the frozen lakes and streams during the winter and stored in ice houses. The ice was then delivered by wagon to help keep food cool in ice boxes during the summer months. Large blocks of ice were put into the top compartment to keep the foods cool below. By the 1850s, ice was being shipped to the southern U.S. by special insulated trains and boats. In 1859, French engineer Ferdinand Carré patented the first absorption refrigerator. One of his machines was shipped through the Union blockade to Mexico and eventually was moved into San Antonio, Texas. By 1867, there were three companies in San Antonio making artificial ice. By 1900, there were 766 ice plants in the U.S. with 77 in Texas. It wasn’t until 1916 that New Braunfels got its first ice plant, Citizens Ice Company, built by E. A. Clousnitzer.

Located at 262 Jahn St., Citizens Ice Company plant consisted of a mechanical refrigeration system, water cooling tower, ice pit that formed 300-pound blocks of ice and a cold storage vault. The plant originally had the capacity to produce ten tons of ice per day. A 1926 expansion increased the output capacity to thirty tons per day. The ice was delivered by horse-drawn wagon to homes in New Braunfels. The ice plant was in full operation until about 1960. It sat vacant until restored and made into a discotheque/supper club called “The Ice House” by Mike Kilgore in 1974. Since then, it has had several incarnations as a club/bar and is currently known as “Conway’s”.

Mr. Clousnitzer was quite the entrepreneur. Born in Germany in 1869, he not only built Citizens Ice Company in New Braunfels, he built a second plant in Taylor, Texas, and obtained a plant in Temple. He was very civic minded and generous to this beloved city. In 1935, he donated the Civil War Memorial “To the Memory of our Fallen Soldiers of the Civil War 1861-65”, honoring all soldiers of that war. In 1937, he donated a second war memorial, “The Spirit of the American Doughboy”, honoring the soldiers of World War I, as well as donating six palm trees which were planted along the streams of Landa Park. Both statues can be found on the plaza. You can read more about them in the Around the Sophienburg article by Myra Lee Adams Goff at https://sophienburg.wpenginepowered.com/statues-on-plaza-honor-soldiers/.

There was also another ice plant in New Braunfels, not quite as easily seen, but you probably know it. New Braunfels Brewery was established in 1918. Since brewing beer and ice for cooling went together, the New Braunfels Ice Company was begun within the same plant. Located at 441 N. Guenther St., it produced 300-pound blocks of ice. By 1922, New Braunfels Ice doubled their capacity. During prohibition, the brewery closed and the ice plant was acquired by South Texas Ice. In 1945, RK Dunbar bought the company. He eventually sold off three of the plants and kept the two located in Seguin and New Braunfels. In 1950, when the Dunbars established the New Braunfels Smokehouse restaurant, the ice portion of the business still operated under the name South Texas Ice for many years. The Seguin plant was sold off in 1974. The Smokehouse continued to make block ice until the mid-80s when they began producing the clear cubed ice that you find in your ice chest or party drinks today.

Look at that, a whole article about something as small as an ice cube. Drive around, see what you’ve missed and stay cool!

Sources:

• Sophienburg Museum & Archives
• Mike Dietert
• New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung

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