By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

A drive through downtown New Braunfels is somewhat like a visual history of architecture course comparing different architectural styles from 1845 to mid-20th century. It may just look like a bunch of old buildings sitting side by side to some, but they tell the cultural and socioeconomic timeline of our city.

Take the old city hall building on the corner of Seguin Avenue and Mill Street, before the Wiggins Hospitality Company began transforming the historic building into its newest eatery, the building did not seem to fit in with the more traditional Italian Renaissance-style structures of downtown. It had no distinctive curvilinear parapet, no arched windows, no fancy metal cornice. Simply put, the building was rather plain. Why is it so different?

While we do generally think of government buildings being more about function than aesthetics, the design differences of our old city hall had more to do with the era in which it was built.

The good citizens of New Braunfels had established a government consisting of two elected commissioners and a mayor to handle the city’s business. For a number of years, the city commission and the city clerk occupied space in the courthouse, a massive 3½-story Romanesque-style structure built in 1898.

By early 1929, New Braunfels had grown so much that the city required more clerical help and more space. The county closed in the west courthouse porches to office the city clerk. The need for a real free-standing city hall with adequate space for city staff and records was evident.

Grown? Yep! The decade of the 1920s saw tremendous growth in Texas and New Braunfels due to several key factors. The Second Industrial Revolution took place in the U.S. from 1890 to 1930, infused by innovations in electricity, steel, railroad expansion and oil. The Comal Power Plant was built and came online in 1926, creating new jobs. The end of World War I in 1918 saw soldiers returning armed with new skills. They flooded the urban areas seeking jobs and homes. Our proximity to San Antonio military bases helped. New Braunfels’ population increased by nearly 74 percent in 10 years! Yikes! The little town was becoming a city and had nothing more to their name than a couple of desks, chairs and some records in an office they did not own.

In May of 1929, a bond issue of $35,000 passed to construct a city hall and to acquire the necessary land. Several sites were considered: the Peter Nowotny site (Seguin and Mill); the Landa residence (now County Annex), a lot at Bridge and Seguin, the Comal Hotel (now Prince Solms Inn), Eggling Market Square (possibly Markt Platz as Eggling was previous the name of Comal Hotel), and a lot near the City Hospital (Sts. Peter and Paul Thrift area). Obviously, they chose the corner of Seguin and Mill. Good choice!

By mid-July the City Commission had not only purchased the lot, they had also chosen architect Jeremiah Schmidt. Schmidt was busy between 1929 and 1933, designing and supervising a number of buildings in New Braunfels, including the First National Bank, Comal County jail and courthouse, Seele Parish House, Fire Station No. 2 on Coll Street, and Sophienburg Museum, all in varying styles.

Schmidt’s designs for the old city hall are Classic Moderne, a sub-class of Art Deco architecture. True to the Classic Moderne distinguishing features, the original old city hall has a flat roof with a small ledge at the roof-line, horizontal lines and geometric designs, decorative stone banding, metal casement windows, and glass-block windows used as front door accents. Most importantly, it had prominent outdoor steps rising to a centered, arched entry door on three sides to give the square building a powerful presence. For those of you who have looked at that building all your lives, yes, it originally had an over-sized arched front door.

The contract was let to Sipple Construction, and they broke ground on Tuesday, October 22, 1929, with 110 days to complete work. The stock market crashed exactly one week later, Tuesday, October 29, 1929. The Great Depression took a little while to trickle down to New Braunfels, but they were told to rush the work in December.

The city hall was finished and opened on Tuesday, May 7,1930, at a cost of $30,000. The building housed the city staff of four, Chamber of Commerce and the Board of City Development offices. Summer came and their new building was so warm that the city commission paid to have electric ceiling fans and desk fans installed. The final payment on the 1930 city hall was made in September 1955.

City hall became home to other departments over time. The police department, originally based out of Central Fire Station, moved into the basement. In 1955, an exterior light was added to the basement door since they went in and out at night. The police department moved into their own little white brick building next to old Central Fire Station in 1959. (That little building was later torn down for the new Central Station). New Braunfels Independent School District moved into the city hall basement offices vacated by the police department.

At some unknown point before 1959, renovations were made to the old city hall. They replaced the front doors, bricked in the archway, and hung a metal canopy over the entrance. They installed metal awnings over the windows and, although more efficient, completely changed the clean Art Deco styling.

When the city offices moved into a new home on Castell Avenue in 1992, the Sophienburg Memorial Association purchased the 1930 city hall building to house the ever-growing archives. Following the completion of a new city library, the City of New Braunfels gifted the Dittlinger Memorial Library to the Sophienburg Memorial Association in 2001. The old city hall building was sold to fund renovations to the Dittlinger library building, creating an archives library and museum exhibit hall.

Since that time, the old city hall building at Seguin and Mill has served as office space and restaurants. I’m looking forward to the new Old City Hall Restaurant, making something old new again.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum and Archives.

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

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By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

Last week I took on the challenge of finding out about City Lot 89. It is located on the corner of South Seguin Avenue and Coll Street, across from the First Protestant Church. We know it today as the location of Johnson Furniture Co and their lovely, landscaped corner.

This prime real estate was first drawn by lot from the Adelsverein’s land grant by Aloys Rosser in 1848. Rosser sold it to Jacob Winkler in 1850, who quickly flipped it to H. Bevenroth. By 1854, Bevenroth’s estate had sold Lot 89 to Charles Rossy and his wife, and they sold it to Carl Floege. Six owners in six years — I’m guessing that maybe they wanted farmland not city property or perhaps saw a quick way to make some cash.

Carl Floege, a cabinetmaker by trade, immigrated to Texas in 1849. After obtaining Lot 89 in 1854, he built a home and his first general store on the property. He built a much larger, two-story business on Main Plaza (location of Utilities building) and a larger home off Market Plaza. Impressive! More impressive, he used his carpentry skills and know-how to build the first low-water bridge over the Comal at West San Antonio Street (1856), the Torrey Mill bridge on the Comal at Bridge Street (1867) and a new high-water bridge over the Comal (1873) at the location of his former low-water bridge after it had washed away.

Mr. Floege also used his trade to work on the first Comal County Courthouse (1856), a new 66-foot river ferryboat (1859), add rooms to the New Braunfels Academy (1867), deal with city streets and drainage issues (1873-1874), and build numerous stores and homes. Carl could truthfully say he built a lot of old New Braunfels with his two hands.

Carl Floege sold Lot 89 to Rudolph DuMenil in 1858, after the completion of his larger store and home. DuMenil had emigrated from Germany in 1850, and first lived in Hortontown where he ran a meat market for about eight years. In 1858, he moved into the old Floege home and set up his own general merchandising business in the old Floege Store. DuMenil literally sold everything but the kitchen sink — Hungarian grass, bois d’arc saplings for living fence lines, whiskey and brandy, clothing, dry goods, lead and percussion caps, hardware, tobacco products, paint, stoves and kitchenware. Maybe he did sell the sink! Rudolph also sold an ambulance, pianos and did freighting as well as being involved in local education as a trustee at the New Braunfels Academy.

In 1875, DuMenil auctioned off his store inventory and rented the store building to Carl Floege’s son Herman to use as a wagon business. When Herman Floege moved his business elsewhere in 1881, the store was rented to Homans Saddlery/Leather shop.

Lot 89, with the old Floege home and store, was sold by the DuMenils to Cuno “C.J.” Ludewig in 1902. Mr. Ludewig and his brothers had started a furniture business in 1887 at the location of the old Krueger Chevrolet building (across from Granzin Bar-B-Q). C. J. Ludewig took over the business from his brothers and moved it to the Seguin Street property in 1905. The family lived in the old home and ran the furniture company out of the DuMenil store. In 1929, a new “modern” brick building was built next to the old DuMenil store. It had the first elevator in any building in New Braunfels. Almost 3,500 townspeople attended the new store opening event where souvenir ashtrays featuring Charles Lindbergh’s face were distributed. The building was just one of several “modern” buildings built just prior to the market crash of 1929: Travelers Hotel (Faust) 1927, Comal Power Plant (Landmark) 1926, Greyhound Bus Station (Celebrations) 1929, Booker T. Washington School 1929, and the old City Hall 1929, to name a few.

All three of Ludewig’s sons helped in the store. Local competitors included Jahn Furniture Co., Lack’s Furniture & Automotive, and Starke’s Furniture in Seguin. Ludewig’s sold all kinds of high-quality manufactured furniture that included kitchen, living and bedroom pieces. To promote their company, C.J.’s son, Monroe F. “Fatty” Ludewig, began giving out “little Lane cedar chests” to graduating senior girls in New Braunfels. I still have mine!

When the Ludewig fam­ily de­cided to get out of the busi­ness, they leased the 1929 fur­ni­ture build­ing and the old Du­Me­nil store to Wal­lace and Dorothy John­son in 1966, who con­tin­ued to run the busi­ness un­der the name John­son Fur­ni­ture Co. In 1972, the John­sons bought the prop­erty out­right. In 1984, the old Du­Me­nil Store was sold and moved to Gruene (Hunter Junc­tion) where it sur­vives.

Wal­lace and Dorothy’s daugh­ter Carol pur­chased the prop­erty from her par­ents in 1989 and runs the John­son Fur­ni­ture store to­day. She con­tin­ues the legacy of pro­vid­ing qual­ity fur­ni­ture and decor to New Braun­fels cit­i­zens that be­gan on Lot 89 over 120 years ago.

If you have never been in­side this his­toric fam­ily busi­ness, you have a chance to prac­tice yoga in it on Thurs­day, Oc­to­ber 10, 2024, from 5:30–7 p.m. The $15 fee ben­e­fits the So­phien­burg Mu­seum & Archives. Fol­low­ing prac­tice, a bev­er­age and his­tory talk will let you ex­plore the build­ing.

If you are not into yoga, drop by the store, say hello and check out all the good stuff. Carol’s got a chair, bed or table that is bound to have your name on it.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives: Ludewig, Floege and DuMenil family histories; Reflections program #918-Monroe C. Ludewig; New Braunfels Herald and Neu Braunfelser Herald newspaper collections.

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

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By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

Emmie was not just any little girl. Born Sept 15, 1867, she was the daughter of civic and cultural leader Hermann Seele and his wife Mathilde nee Blum.

Much was expected of Emmie.

Hermann Seele was known as “The Soul of New Braunfels”, a name given him in honor of his impact on the newly founded town. In German, Seele means soul – his name was quite prophetic. He was the first school teacher in NB, holding classes in an elm grove on Coll Street just three months after the emigrants’ arrival to the banks of the Guadalupe and Comal Rivers. Seele organized traditional German societies to protect and keep the cultures of the “Old Country” alive. Vereins (Clubs) and parades like the Gesangverein (singing club), the Drama Club, the Türnverein (gymnastic club), Maifest (May Day) and Kindermaskenball and Parade (children’s masked) promoted both health and culture and kept the German language and literature alive.

Hermann Seele petitioned and got one of the State’s earliest school charters from the Texas Legislature for the formation of the New Braunfels Academy, the first public school in NB. He also helped win the lawsuit of the Veramendi heirs vs the citizens of NB, giving townfolks peace of mind and continued ownership of their property.

Seele was mayor and alderman, preacher and teacher and statesman — a tough act to follow, but Emmie did just that.

Emmie grew up amongst the second generation of the families who had immigrated to Texas. Her father’s stature in town assured her place in town society. She learned, played and worked with members of leading families such as Clemens, Faust, Moreau, Lindheimer, Voelcker, Forcke, Klappenbach and many more. Emmie attended the New Braunfels Academy, however, her father was no longer teaching. She was taught to sew, play several instruments and speak and perform in public (Declamation was a subject in school). Emmie participated in parades, played bridge and performed in plays.

In 1893, she married John Faust, one of the sons of Joseph Faust. Joseph, along with Mr. Clemens and Mr. Tipps, founded The First National Bank in 1881. Son John was also in banking, as well as merchandising, cotton buying and other lucrative endeavors. Throughout their marriage, John and Emmie travelled extensively, taking ocean liners to Europe, and trains to Mexico and parts of the US. Local newspapers record a 1904 trip to Mardi Gras in NOLA and to the St. Louis World’s Fair. They had one of the first automobiles in town and drove to San Antonio to watch “motion pictures”.

Emmie gave birth to twins within their first year of marriage; sadly, one child died at birth leaving them with only their daughter Stella. Stella contracted malaria and the Fausts took her to several health resorts including San Antonio and Mineral Wells and to doctors in San Antonio and Houston.

In 1905, the Fausts moved into their grand new home built on the 300 block of W. San Antonio Street. Still standing, this lovely, ornate, Queen Anne-style home cost $6,700 to build. The contractor/builder, Adolph Moeller, reportedly fell off a 20’ scaffolding while working on the home and ended up with “a slight head injury”.

Emmie and John doted on little Stella. She had tea parties with friends and her Seele cousins. They bought Stella wonderful life-size plaster statues in Germany of Rotkãppchen und der Wolf. These graced the landing of the ornate main staircase of the Faust Home. They were later given to the Sophienburg Museum where they still delight children and adults alike.

Stella Faust died in 1908 at the age of 14 years. It was not unexpected but hit the parents hard. John died in 1926 at the age of 65. Emmie dove head-first into philanthropic works, many benefitting the children of New Braunfels. Her tireless good works and generosity soon earned her the name of “Tante Emmie” (Aunt Emmie) from the many real and “adopted” nieces and nephews in the community.

Tante Emmie was a founding member of the Sophienburg Memorial Association in 1925, and a major contributor and donor to the building of the Sophienburg Museum in 1933. Through her time, efforts, planning and money, she built the city’s first public library in 1938. The cost of $7,500 was paid by her alone as a gift to the children and citizens of New Braunfels. No wonder they named it the Emmie Seele Faust Library in her honor.

Tante Emmie then bought and had installed the first traffic light in New Braunfels. Placed at the intersection of W. San Antonio and Academy Streets, it provided safe crossing for the schoolchildren who had to walk from the Academy to the new library on Coll Street.

Tante Emmie served on city anniversary and various parade committees including Maifest, the May Day celebration begun by her father. She was a major organizer of the 1946 Texas German Pioneer celebration, which included the unveiling of the bronze and granite German Pioneer Monument created by the sculptor Hugo Villa. It stands in Landa Park.

Tante Emmie was a longtime member the NB Bridge Club, the NB Garden Club and the Concordia Gesangverein (singing club). She was instrumental in the formation of the NB Parent-Teachers Association and a member of the NB Music Club.

Tante Emmie was one of the tireless ladies of the Womens Civic Improvement Club and a donor to their projects, some of which were a shelter out at the cemetery and building a women’s bathroom under the Bandstand on Main Plaza. As a woman, having a bathroom on the Plaza was/is a stroke of genius!

Tante Emmie was also generous to New Braunfels hospitals. She donated “a new electrical suction and ether apparatus” for use in the old Krankenhaus which made it easier to remove the tonsils and adenoids of children. She later made the largest single donation towards the building of the new New Braunfels Hospital.

Tante Emmie was a member of the German Protestant (First Protestant) Church. She was active in the adult choir, the Frauenverein (womens club) and served as church organist for 14 years. She attended services regularly until a few weeks prior to her death; on cold Sundays she could be seen sitting at the back with a mink stole around her shoulders. She also contributed to the construction of the Seele Parish Hall which was named in honor of her father.

Emmie Seele Faust died quietly at her home in New Braunfels on Sept 28, 1957 — just two weeks after her 90th Birthday.

An Oscar Haas article in a 1950 edition of The Austin American newspaper contained this quote from Tante Emmie:

“All my life, my heart’s desires have been centered in the civic interests of my home city, the city my father helped to establish in 1845. Here, he married. Here, he reared his family. Our family grew up with this community.”

In German we have a saying, “Die Apfel fãllt nicht weit vom Stamm.” (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.) Tante Emmie, like her father Hermann Seele, gave to her community in ways we still enjoy today. As one of a later generation of adopted “nieces and nephews” of Tante Emmie, I am thankful for her energetic generosity and truly proud of her amazing legacy in New Braunfels.

Well done, Emmie.

Sources: Neu Braunfelser Zeitung, New Braunfels Herald, New Braunfels Zeitung-Chronicle, The Austin-American; Sophienburg Museum & Archives.

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By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

I blink my eyes and the town is growing, changing, faster than ever before. That is why I’m drawn to write about the houses and downtown buildings that were old and classic when I was a child. These buildings have connections to people. I want others to know the importance of those connections and for the history to be recorded. Today, we also talk cars.

If you were to look around our ever-expanding New Braunfels today, one could count approximately seven car dealerships. Back in 1949, when the community was much, much smaller, there were actually thirteen dealerships. The Chrysler Dodge dealership was begun in New Braunfels by the Becker family ninety years ago.

August B. Becker, originally from Frelsburg, Texas, moved his family to Seguin in 1921 to run a dairy farm. While in Seguin, he worked for Seguin Motor Company. Becker Motor Company, known then as Becker Chevrolet, was founded on November 16, 1928, by August and his son-in-law, Louis Niemeyer. It was originally the holder of the Chevrolet dealership, which they bought from Jess Sippel. Becker Chevrolet was located in the Forshage Building at 474 W. San Antonio St. Earlier in the year, I told you about the historic Holz-Forshage-Krueger building on W. San Antonio St. and the long line of automobile dealerships that filled its spaces. Becker was there for five years.

August Becker did well with the Chevrolet brand, but he did not like that General Motors required all financing be done through them. He also took issue with GM’s practice of sending cars to the dealer whether they wanted them or not. In 1932, Chevrolet shipped sixty new cars just as the new 1933 model was coming out. The Becker sales staff went door to door in a thirty-mile radius of New Braunfels until all the units were sold. It was the last straw for August Becker and the Chevrolet franchise was sold to the Kruegers in September of 1933.

When the Beckers were trying to decide what franchise to seek out, the agent for the Dodge Division of Chrysler Corporation loaned them a demonstrator for a week, which sealed the decision for Dodge. Upon taking the Dodge franchise, Becker Motor Company moved to the Baetge Garage on South Seguin Avenue. It was located where the Wright Building now stands across from Naegelin’s Bakery.

In 1935, Becker Motor Company moved down the street to 300 South Seguin Avenue, which is now a parking lot for First Protestant Church. About this same time, Niemeyer was bought out by August Becker’s son, Walter. Sometime later, August’s other sons Leroy and George also joined the partnership. The building that they occupied on the corner of South Seguin and Coll Street was owned by Marvin Jarisch. At the end of World War II, Jarisch obtained the Kaiser/Frasier franchise (predecessor of Jeep) and wanted his building back.

Property was purchased at 547 South Seguin Ave. from Mr. Silvers. Being 1945 and the end of the war, building materials were hard to come by. They constructed the new Dodge dealership out of material salvaged from the demolition of two warehouses at the Landa Mill’s property adjacent to Landa Park. Concrete blocks were not available, so they were made at the building site. Who would ever suspect that sparkling white/gray stucco building was made from salvaged materials? The basic design of the building was sound and has served well for more than 75 years.

The dealership continued to change and grow. In 1946, returning veteran George E. Becker bought into the business. In 1957, August Becker, the founder, passed away. In 1959, they added the DeSoto franchise, but by 1961, it was out of production. In 1966, Walter and George E. Becker bought out their brother, Leroy.

Becker obtained the Chrysler/Plymouth franchise when Ruppel Auto Co. (just a couple of doors down from them) went out of business in 1972. In 1973, the partnership reorganized as a corporation with Walter Becker, brother George Becker and Walter’s son, Arno. After Walter retired, his daughter Cora Jane Becker Welsch and her husband Fritz Welsch became stockholders.

Becker Motor Company has grown, survived a couple of fuel crises and the near bankruptcy of Chrysler Corporation. Yet, it was still consistently a recipient of the Five Star Achievement Award for 34 years. On October 22, 2001, after 73 years, Becker Motor Company signed a Buy-Sell Contract with Kahlig Enterprises.

On March 4, 2002, Bluebonnet Chrysler Dodge opened their doors in the Becker building. They embraced the community, the history, and even the iconic blue and white neon sign greeting customers. They have continued to grow, taking over the old dental office next door and filling the showroom floor with office cubicles. Bluebonnet has even continued the tradition of super achievements, ranking number one in RAM truck sales nationally. Now it is their turn to move. Bluebonnet Chrysler Dodge RAM has purchased ten acres between I-35 and Old 81 to continue what the Becker family began.

I hope the old WWII era building and its iconic blue and white sign will still be loved after they leave.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives; Wes Studdard, Bluebonnet Motors.

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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 think I have got the gist.

I first found a paragraph in the Marjorie Cook files. She was a feature writer/editor for the NB Herald.

Six Shooter Ranch was owned by Coreths and got its name from a man named John Sippel (who married a daughter of Ernst Gruene, Sr. Sippel lived in the house there and used to get drunk, lie on his bed and shoot flies with his six-shooter. The ceiling was full of holes as a result. The house stood on top of the hill adjoining the Eden Home. This was levelled for crushed rock by Landa on a lease from Coreth. Just before the house was torn down, it served as a bordello.

Is your interest peaked? Are there facts to back up any of this tale?

A transcript of an interview with Coreth Family descendants fills in some details of the location.

At one time they [Coreths] owned property from Mission Hill all the way over to the Eden Home. My uncle Rochette Coreth referred to it as the Six Shooter Ranch. There was a quarry there on the edge. That was in 1913, when Landa wanted to establish a rock quarry on the Coreth property and [paperwork] refers to it as the Six Shooter Ranch.

I looked into the land area a little closer and it seems that it was first owned by Ernst Gruene. His daughter Johanna and husband John Sippel lived on the property when they got married in 1873. In 1887, Sippel opened a rock quarry on the hill to get rock and gravel for the construction of the Guadalupe River Bridge (Faust St. Bridge). Sippel later recovered an 8-pound mammoth tooth at the site. The Coreth’s then acquired the land and they leased it to Landa to quarry gravel.

Olinska Sippel Posey, one of the daughters of John and Johanna Sippel, shared a very personal insight on her family. John built a home on the corner of Academy and Coll in 1881, and that’s where she lived so she didn’t live on the Six Shooter Ranch. She did remember that her father was a little bit crazy and dangerous. Olinska remembered that father John took her to visit her Gruene grandparents who lived on Rock Street one day. They crossed the San Antonio Street bridge, went through Comaltown and at the railroad tracks there on Rock Street, John told her to get out and walk the rest of the way. As she walked, he shot his gun several times over her head to hurry her along.

Olinska’s mother Johanna had a mental breakdown in 1893. Olinska said her mother felt she had to file for divorce in 1894. After her husband shot himself in the head on the second floor of his Phoenix saloon in 1900, Johanna Gruene Sippel lived until 1942.

Doesn’t this recollection just break your heart? Here is a bit more of the Sippels’ story.

John was the son of Valentin Sippel, one of NB’s first founders. John was quite the entrepreneur. He and father Valentin built the first Phoenix Saloon — same location, different building — in 1873. Off and on he lived on the 2nd floor of “Sippel Hall” and rented out the first-floor saloon. He also added an alligator pond and a bowling alley. In 1885 he became the local distributor for Anheuser-Busch. John set up a soda and mineral water bottling works, St. John’s Bottling, in 1886. In 1887, he opened the quarry at the Six Shooter Ranch. He added an ice factory to his line of businesses and became the distributor for Lone Star Beer in 1890.

I think his world started falling apart in 1892. His 18-year-old, first-born son Henry was shot and died while at business college in Dallas. The Sippels’ had already lost a two-year-old daughter in 1883. Henry’s death caused Johanna to have a mental breakdown and require several months of hospitalization. John was having a hard time financially as well. The bottling works went bankrupt after a bad freeze and it and the ice factory were put up for sale. Johanna filed for divorce and six years later, most likely depressed and drinking, John shot himself.

Perhaps this is the origen of the “drunk and shooting the flies on the ceiling” story; so much trauma and heartache for this man and his family to handle.

My last reference to Six-Shooter Ranch is later in time. Hanno Welsch Sr. recorded an oral history at the Sophienburg and told an interesting story. His family lived on a farm out on River Road and Rock Street. Remember that the ranch house of the Six Shooter Ranch was located about where the Eden Home and Dean Word’s pit is now.

There was a fella by the name of Clapp, of Clapp Shoe Company. He was living up there. He was a playboy. I imagine they gave him lots of money to get him away from their business. He hooped it up! He had some nice black horses and a buggy; well-groomed. He’d go to town and meet these girls. He’d get a pretty girl from off the train and have big parties there. And he liked six shooters, pistols and stuff like that. He was shooting at the fella that was working in the field on Rock Street, and, of course, once in awhile this fella would shoot back too you know. I don’t know but I think they were both drunk. They couldn’t hit a target.

Finally. I think I understand the bordello reference in Marjorie Cook’s notes. Mr. Welsch also talks about the “pretty ladies” which came in on the train. Behind the depot was a one-story house about 30 feet long with a porch along the sidewalk of Mill Street. The mostly dark and shuttered house was “verboten to us youngsters” but Welsch and his friends would slip over to the windows and listen to the “sweet talk”. Hanno describes how the ladies would come in by train, pulling up their skirts above the ankle as they stepped down onto the ground. There were always a lot of cowboys ready to help and then escort the ladies to the “entertainment house”. I think the Clapp gentleman at the Six Shooter Ranch would bring “these girls” to the ranch house to party.

So it looks like I’ve figured out quite a bit of the story. But Mr. Welsch gave me one more tantalizing tidbit connected to Six Shooter Ranch. One day Hanno’s father was plowing in the field down on the corner of Rock Street and he plowed up an old pistol.

It was a very peculiar pistol. It was originally a rim fire and it had been converted into a center pin fire pistol. It had beautiful engraving on it and a nice wooden handle. It must have come from the Six Shooter Ranch somehow.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum: Neu Braunfelser Zeitung; New Braunfels Herald; Marjorie Cook Collection; Myra Lea Adams Goff Collection; Hanno Welsch Sr. “Reflections” oral history.

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By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

As I sit gazing out the back door of the Sophienburg museum on this gloomy December afternoon, it makes me smile as I watch the yearlings romp and play. The does graze nearby in an old pecan orchard adjacent to the Dittlinger home. The jewel of the Sophienburg Hill Historic District, it is one of my favorite scenes — worthy of being captured on canvas. I have never been inside the Dittlinger home, but I have watched it through the changing seasons from my museum window. Today, its balconies and doors are decked out in Christmas greenery. It is captivating.

Begun in 1907 and completed in 1910, the two-story brick home was built by J. Wahrenberger & Son architects of Austin, Texas, for industrialist Hippolyt Dittlinger. It is difficult to place the home in just one architectural style. It is really a composite of Greek Revival and Italianate styles. I must admit, I had to look all of that up. In my limited knowledge of architectural styles, I will try to explain in very simplistic terms. Greek Revival is rather square and symmetrical with tall porches and columns, like the White House. Italianate style houses are of brick or stone, two or three stories tall with bay windows. They are easily distinguished by their gently sloping roofs and deep ornate overhanging eaves. The Dittlinger home has architectural details of both styles.

A large, two-story bay window is the focal point of the front of the house. The front porches stretching two stories gives the appearance that the house is much larger than its 3300 square feet (not including the attic and basement). The columns of the two-tiered porches are round. Mixed styles of columns are utilized throughout the entire design.

The roof lines are emphasized with a band of heavy ornate brackets under the eaves. The northwest side of the house has a carriage entrance with a porte cochere along with a servants’ entrance. The southeast side of the home has a two-tiered side porch. The second story enclosed porch, which served as a sleeping porch, was once an open veranda until it was roofed and glassed.

The mechanical and electrical systems built into the home were quite advanced for the era. A large coal furnace transferred heat through the first floor by means of ducts. The coal furnace was later replaced with a boiler and radiator system. There are no fireplaces in the home. It was also reported that Mr. Dittlinger considered it a sign of wealth not to have a fireplace.

The grand Magazine Avenue home still sits on about an acre and a half of land. There were several other structures on the property as well. Directly behind the main house stood the carriage house. It was a large wooden barn built as the planing mill while the main house was built. The lumber (long leaf yellow pine) arrived by rail from East Texas. Once the main house was finished, the barn became the carriage house boasting a tack room, horse stalls, carriage space, a single automobile bay, and a large hay loft.

Elsewhere on the property was a two-story concrete structure serving as the laundry house. On the lower level was a large water storage tank beside a concrete block stove. The water in the tank was solar heated by piping running across the roof and returning to the storage tank. There were four rinsing sinks in the center of the room. The original wooden laundry house burned down in 1919. After that event, a water well was drilled and a pump house built with a 75-foot steel tower and a 10,000-gallon cypress holding tank. Two smaller wooden frame homes were moved onto the site shortly after the completion of the main house. One was utilized by the Dittlinger’s daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Liebscher, for a short time after they first married. It was mostly known as the “Professor’s House” because it housed the professor who tutored the children. The second wooden house was “Bauer House,” where a family friend lived. Back behind the wooden houses was a chicken coop.

Between the main house and carriage house, there was once a garden. Numerous large pecan trees dotted the property. Many of the pecan trees on the site were planted as each of the Dittlinger’s grandchildren were born. The adjacent corner pecan orchard and Liebscher House facing Coll Street were also owned by the Dittlinger family at one time.

The home, the furnishings, and the Dittlinger legacy were maintained intact while the Dittlinger family descendants occupied it. The property has changed hands twice since. From the outside, the main house appears mostly unchanged. However, children playing in the yard and deer resting in the shadows bring life to the 112-year-old beauty… and it makes me smile.

Sources: Reflections; Sophienburg Museum & Archives; The Past Through Tomorrow: Preserving the Historic Home by Julie Rogers.

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By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

In recent days, we have all watched heart-breaking images flash across our screens as Russia exerts its power over Ukraine. News of such events has stirred up childhood memories of my classmates and I scrambling under our metal school desks during bomb drills of the Cold War Era in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

What?! So, in case you have blocked it from memory or are not old enough to know what a Cold War is, let me catch you up. The Cold War was a period of time that began just after World War II and lasted nearly fifty years. Tension rose between the United States and Soviet Union as both countries tried to spread their ideological influence over the world. The threat of nuclear warfare was very present and left its mark on America.

Let’s back up here. So, during WWII, the Russians were on our side helping to defeat Germany, Hitler, and his National Socialist Party. But two years later, Russians become the enemy? Yes, flexing their muscles in politics, in James Bond movies and even in the cartoons. Remember the Russian-like villains Boris and Natasha of Rocky & Bullwinkle who forever attempted to “catch Moose and Squirrel”? — even children were told that the Russians should not be trusted.

In 1949, the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear device, signaling a new and terrifying phase in the Cold War; umm, that they had what we had and that they could use it on us. By the early 1950s, schools across the United States were training students to dive under their desks and cover their heads. Fears over the escalating arms race prompted President Harry S. Truman’s Federal Civil Defense Administration program to develop the “Duck-and-Cover” school drills and to educate the public about what ordinary people could do to protect themselves. I remember the drills, not so much the name of it.

Every club and organization in New Braunfels had a Civil Defense chairman: the American Legion, PTA groups, Rotary, Lions. etc., to distribute safety preparedness literature and get the word out. Workshops and meetings were held to help educate each family as to how to protect and sustain themselves in the event of an enemy attack. Schools sent home safety plan flyers as to how children would get home to their parents and where to meet them in emergency situations.

In the early 1960s, the U.S.-Soviet arms race really heated up. The disastrous 1961 U.S.-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba failed miserably. Instead of overthrowing Castro, it resulted in stronger ties between Cuba and the USSR putting Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba and the nuclear threat directly in our back yard. The Cuban Missile Crisis was thirteen days of confrontation in the fall of 1962 between the US and Russia that was a true near miss. New Braunfels School District dismissed school early and published the evacuation plans on the front page of the Herald during the ’62 Cuban Missile Crisis.

After that, the country, and New Braunfels, ramped up to protect not just against a bomb, but “The Bomb”. There were bomb shelters in public buildings, like the old City Hall on Seguin Avenue, and a fallout shelter under the police chief’s house. My dad worked for New Braunfels Lumber on the west corner of Castell and Coll (now HMT Engineering). The lumber yard had a personal bomb shelter for sale sitting out in their yard for anyone who could dig a hole deep enough to put it in.

In 1962, New Braunfels received one of 90 packaged hospitals in Texas for use following enemy action or major natural disaster. It was supplied by the office of Civil and Defense Mobilization. The packaged hospitals were outgrowths of the mobile army hospitals used during the Korean War (like on “M*A*S*H”). Most of them were located at least 15 miles from assumed strategic target areas like San Antonio. They were expected to provide at least half of the hospital beds following a major emergency. Let that sink in. Assumed Strategic Target Areas. That means that San Antonio military installations (Kelly Air Force Base, Randolph AFB, Lackland AFB, Fort Sam Houston Army Post, Camp Bullis) and Austin’s Bergstrom AFB, which was actually part of the Strategic Air Command, were strategic targets!! … and New Braunfels would either be the help on the periphery OR collateral damage. Yikes!!

Not only were people worried about protecting people, people were also worried about protecting their stuff. With the world condition being what it was, a group of San Antonio businessmen recognized the need to provide secure vital records storage in case of a nuclear attack. In 1962, they formed Emergency Records Storage, Inc. and built a nuclear-age underground storage facility located in the hill country outside of New Braunfels. It was said to be the only bomb-proof underground vault in a 10-state area which met rigid government specifications. For a fee, the company stored duplicate records in the form of microfilm, magnetic tape, regular hard copies and eventually floppy discs for banks and governmental entities in the event of an attack or disaster. For more than three decades, the records company did a brisk business serving people from Texas and surrounding states. As with most anything, technology grew past the need in the 90s when banks and companies began backing up records on their own computers. Less and less was stored in the vault as the years passed, and the corporation finally dissolved in 2015.

Growing up in New Braunfels during the ‘50s and ‘60s was wonderful even if the world was a scary place. Outside of the “bomb drills” and cartoon references, I was blissfully unaware of most of these things. Growing up now, in a very technologically savvy time, our children may not be. I hope they are as lucky.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives; New Braunfels Public Library; New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung.

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By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

Some fifty years ago, New Braunfels was still a small town. You know, very Mayberry, where they pulled up the fire hydrants, rolled up the sidewalks and locked them in the bank every day at 6 p.m. At least they did from my child-eye view. One of the few things that I remember about drives through town on a summer Saturday evening, was stopping in front of Seidel’s Studio and Camera Shop to look at all of the beautiful portraits — brides, babies, families. The images captured the essence of the subjects in that one moment in time. Without knowing it, the Seidels became some of the greatest historians of New Braunfels. The Seidel story begins post WWI.

Otto Seidel and Johanna Schmidt met and married in Germany in 1921. Johanna’s mother and stepfather, Mary and Frank Bluemel, had emigrated to Texas in 1913 before the war. Mary wrote letter after letter to the Seidels, telling them wonderful things about New Braunfels and inviting them to come. The young couple took a chance and moved to New Braunfels early in 1922. Otto had a little photography experience from WWI, so it seemed only natural that he would want to buy a photography studio, which he did. The Seidels bought Bluemel’s Studio from Frank Bluemel.

Unlike today, a professional photographer was required to take pictures of things, everything from weddings to new buildings to accidents. Professional cameras in that day and age were big and bulky and absolutely nothing was automated. The photographer stood under a big black cover to look through the viewfinder at an upside-down image while holding a trough of black powder on a stick. A cotton string was lit and the photographer manually opened the shutter when the flame ignited the powder in the trough, creating a flash. In the best of conditions, say, standing in a room with said camera taking a picture of a single person, it could be very tough to get consistently good photos. Otto Seidel had a knack for it. Can you imagine having to travel with that giant thing? Travel they did. In the mid-20s, the Seidels were asked to take construction photographs of the McQueeny and Clear Springs Dams, with their huge, bulky camera complete with black powder flash, down inside the dam structures. They also were asked to take photos during construction of the Comal Power Supply /LCRA building. There were no aerial photos, no drones back then, so when asked to photograph all the tin roofs in New Braunfels, Otto climbed the tallest structure he knew of. He set up his huge camera and tripod on top of the Coll Street water tower. Yikes! In later years, the cameras were smaller, but the electric flash required an eighteen-pound battery pack slung over one’s shoulder to make it work.

Originally, the studio was located on Castell Avenue between the back of what is now The Phoenix Saloon and the Hinman House/Communities in Schools. By the early 30’s, Seidel’s Studio moved to the Hinman Building on W. San Antonio above Peerless Pharmacy (where Dancing Pony is now).

In 1939, the business relocated to a very modern art deco building at 453 W. San Antonio Street (now Keller Williams Realtors). The family home was right next door. The Seidels had two boys, Edmound and Rudy (born 1922 & 1924) who were involved in the business even as children. In his spare time, Otto would shoot pictures of Landa’s Park and surrounding New Braunfels. Seidel’s Studio printed hundreds of scenic post cards to sell in the drug stores for ¼ cent each. The children helped lay the cards out all over the floor of the studio to have room to dry.

In 1941, the Seidels became a direct dealer for Eastman Kodak Company. They processed customer’s film promising same day service. With the help of their son Rudy, they gradually broadened their services to include cameras and camera equipment sales, becoming Seidel Studio and Camera Shop. More services meant the need for more space. They enlarged the building in 1951. Rudy took over the business in 1955. They doubled their footprint again with an expansion in 1957. The building was remodeled in 1970, as were many other buildings at that time, to give it a Bavarian fachwerk look. The Seidel building finally was sold by the Seidel family in 2006. The building has been remodeled again in recent years to the ultra-modern stucco and glass version we see today.

The Seidels were very devoted to their work. Otto, Johanna, and Rudy worked all day and well into the evening six days a week, shooting studio portraits or business/industrial locations during the week followed by weddings on Saturdays. In the meantime, they had to process the film and print photos. Before color film, everything was shot in black and white. Color photographs were produced by “hand tinting” the black and white images with shear paints. On bridal pictures, the color of each gown was documented so that it could be tinted the proper shade. It was very time consuming. The Seidels were also called upon to shoot photos of accidents for the police or sheriff departments, many times in the middle of the night. Rudy and Otto saw some pretty gruesome sights. The year before the Studio sold, the Seidels calculated that they worked every day but 4 Sundays.

In 1970, the photography studio was sold to Vera Shaw, an eighteen-year employee, also from Germany. The studio operated as Braunfels Studio until 1989. Rudy continued with the camera shop. They sold state of the art cameras and equipment. The Herald-Zeitung bought many a camera there. After Otto Seidel died in 1976, the camera business was sold to Pat and Connie Miller in 1978. Shortly afterward, Herb Skoog learned that 48 years of negatives held in storage were about to be thrown out. Skoog encouraged the Millers to donate all of the Seidel Studio’s negatives to the Sophienburg Museum and Archives. The Seidel Collection at the Sophienburg contains approximately 25,000 photos and negatives.

The Seidel family of photographers chronicled the history of New Braunfels from 1922 to 1970. After that, their legacy was continued by those under their tutelage. Generations of New Braunfels residents have been captured on film by the Seidels. Were you one of the photos in the portrait window.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives; Reflections; Seidel Collection.

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By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

We have become somewhat accustomed to seeing motor homes, mobile homes, and tiny homes as they move down the highway to their new resting place. However, seeing a stucco building moving through downtown is more of a spectacle. That is exactly what I saw one morning in December.

As I watched the building moving along Comal Street, it brought to mind photos of the Joseph Faust home being moved to make way for a new hotel in 1929 (currently Faust Hotel). The home, a three-story classical revival beauty, was stripped of its bricks and rolled down the muddy South Seguin Avenue to its current location at 305 S. Seguin. (Read more on that story online in Around The Sophienburg November 30, 2010.)

So why move an entire downtown building deemed insignificant to save? The answers (and ultimately more questions) lie in the history. At the beginning of our story, Harry and Helena Landa purchased milling interests in New Braunfels. They developed an enterprise which became the forerunners of Dittlinger Feed & Flour Mills (now ADM Milling) and Servtex Materials (Parker Brothers and CEMEX). Their grand estate became Landa Park and the Highlands Addition on the Hill. They also owned many properties in town. The Landa homestead, about two acres, was situated between East San Antonio Street and Mill Street and behind the Courthouse and other business properties facing Seguin Avenue. In 1851, Joseph built his bride a nice wooden home, complete with outbuildings, along with the Landa Store that sat on the corner of Main Plaza and E. San Antonio. In 1891, their son, Harry Landa, razed the home and built a grand mansion for his parents on the same site (now Comal County Landa Annex). The Landa businesses continued to operate and grow under Helena and son, Harry, after the death of Joseph in 1896. Helena died in 1912, leaving her estate to Harry and his four sisters. The terms of her will ordered the sale of the property ten years after her death.

Okay, so on with the little building. Harry married in 1913 and continued to live in the Landa Mansion. Sometime about 1925-26, Harry built a 22’ x 42’ stucco office building located at 173 E. San Antonio St. directly behind the Landa store. It had windows all around, along with doors on the front & back. It also had a side door to slip into the big store through the alley. So, why would you build a new building on property that had to be sold?

The Landa Milling Company was finally sold in June of 1926. In reading a copy of the will, it explains that only the business properties had to be sold. There were other tracts of land bequeathed to each of the children/heirs that were not included in the “ten year” requirement. Harry received the two-acre main plaza property from his mother. I suspect that Harry may have built the building for his own personal office as his office phone was listed at the 173 address in 1928. He had posted “new stucco store for rent” for the same address.

In January of 1929, the Herald announced that the City Library was being moved from the corner Landa store to another location. Harry completely re-did the big store to accommodate Montgomery Ward in a long-term lease (which lasted less than a year due to the Crash). The stucco building behind Montgomery Ward, the Landa residence and Mill St. cottage were listed for rent. Harry Landa died in 1951. His holdings around Main Plaza were sold in 1954 to Jac Eisenberg (owner of Eisenberg Furniture in old Montgomery Ward Store). He then old the properties to First Federal Savings & Loan in 1957. First Federal occupied the Landa Mansion from 1948 until they moved into the renovated corner building in 1958. The mansion was torn down in 1964.

A myriad of entities rented the little stucco building through the years. The Landas hosted the Public Library at 173 E. San Antonio in 1931, before it moved to the Sophienburg Museum in 1933. In 1940, Tip Top Cleaners occupied the building. And as a side note, Fred and Maria Luna and Modern Beauty Salon were listed in the adjacent fachwerk building at 189 E. San Antonio (now gone). In the late ‘40s, the stucco building was the site of the Casa Blanca Café & Bakery, also associated with the Maria Luna Meza family.

In the ‘50s, it housed Comal Insurance, Hoppe School of Music and Guadalupe Valley Memorial Park sales office. In 1966, the building was remodeled with the memorable tile and mansard roof. Modern Beauty Salon and owner Maria Meza, became the longest resident of that address. Somewhat like the Landas, Maria Mena Luna Meza established her own family enterprise and legacy. As a young woman, she began her first hair salon in January of 1935. She opened Modern Beauty Salon two doors down in 207 E. San Antonio. The shop moved to the 189 address, operating there for about twenty-six years before moving into the 173 address, which lasted about fifty-four years. Eighty-five years of Modern Beauty Salon, plus all of the other family café’s, bakeries and homes that took place in that one little strip of downtown New Braunfels, is quite a legacy, which has almost all been demolished in the name of progress. The little stucco building, built by one ambitious merchant and taken up by another ambitious business owner, was worth saving!

On the cold, drizzly morning of December 15, 2020, the little stucco building was loaded onto a specialized trailer, like a giant pallet jack. They estimated the weight to be about 35,000 pounds. Surprise! It was more like 85,000 pounds. The little building made its way down Comal Street, made the corner at Coll Street, and on to its new spot, right behind Dr. Fred Frueholz’ stately home located at 305 S. Seguin. See how I did that? The building will be restored and used for historical education. We are beyond grateful to those involved in the restoration.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives; Around the Sophienburg by Myra Lee Goff

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By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

It’s happened again. While looking for an old house address in the archive, my eyes strayed across the page to an unknown item, and my curiosity got the best of me. I needed to solve the mystery of a street named Pecan. I had no idea where that was. Having lived nearly my entire life in New Braunfels, with the exception of a few years away at school, I thought I could tell you where almost every old street was in this town, but it seems that was not the case.

With magnifying glass in hand, I headed for the map drawers. I went for the earliest representation of New Braunfels as surveyed by Nikolaus Zink in 1845. Zink was an army officer on leave and at the disposal of Prince Carl. He is responsible for laying out the newly established colony in the manner of European towns, with streets and town lots arranged around a large open main plaza. Zink even added a smaller market plaza a little further from the center of town. For his efforts, Zink was granted 25 acres along the Comal Creek along with his own named street designated along the edge of his property. Early street names were in German. The two main ones, San Antonio Strasse and Seguiner Strasse (strasse means street), obviously marking the direction to those cities, intersected at Main Plaza. I also found Berg (Hill) Strasse, which ran along the base of the hill where the Sophienburg sat. There was Brücken (Bridge) Strasse, which led to the pecan tree bridge across the Comal: Fahr (Ferry) Strasse, which led to the ferry crossing on the Guadalupe; and Sack Gasse, (sack alley), which led from Lindheimer’s garden to the ferry crossing. No Pecan Street on that map.

Moving on to an 1868 map, I found it. Pecan Street was short, only two blocks long, located between Zink Street and the Comal Creek. But that mystery led to others with more streets that I did not recognize, many names of which are now different. New Braunfels more than tripled in size in just twenty-three years, challenging the numbers of today’s rapid population growth. Prince Carl settled New Braunfels on 1285 acres purchased from the Juan Martin de Veramendi Family. The Veramendis in turn, hired an agent named Murchison to develop and sell lots in Comal Town, situated across the Comal River, but that’s another story.

The two settlements were quite separate, as it required a ferry to cross the river. Two separate cities easily explains the duplication of street names: Commerce, Liberty, Washington, Union, Ferguson. It looked like a patchwork quilt, where the subdivisions and streets did not quite line up. It seemed that each developer did not take into account that it had to connect to other already existing streets. So, in October 1926, the City Commissioners voted to change all that, marking the streets in a uniform manner for city delivery.

In downtown New Braunfels, Grand Avenue, was somewhat in line with Hill and therefore changed to Hill Avenue. Both sides of Market Plaza, parallel to San Antonio St. were changed to Tolle Street. Ferry Street, one block long, was made an extension of Jahn Street. Pecan, Market and Solms (a little short street by Boy Scout Hut) were sort of in a straight line, so they all became Market Avenue. Coll Street, Church (the piece of Coll that ran beside First Protestant Church) and Warnecke (may have been the little street running from Solms to river) streets were all changed to the Coll Street that we know now. They also took Yankee (beside the mill, supposedly named for Torrey, who was from Connecticut), Gilbert and Ferdinand (possibly the short street perpendicular to Warnecke) and made a very disjointed Gilbert Street. Sack Street became Simon (See-mon) located near Lindheimer Plaza.

The 1926 action also included changing Prinz Road, where Prince Carl is said to have once owned 100 acres, to Landa Street. There is now a Prince Drive in the subdivision in the same area. High became Willow Avenue. Hoecke Street became West Bridge Street. An unnamed street in the Schulze addition on the west side of town was designated Katy Street. The street running north of Comal Creek was named Floral Avenue, as it ran along the Locke Nursery property from the hill to the creek. Later, maybe in the 70’s, a railroad crossing was put in connecting Floral and Walnut. The whole street became Walnut, except for the little dead end piece of Floral on the hill. They also changed South Union in the Kuehler addition to Kuehler Avenue.

And what of the other duplications mentioned earlier? They were not addressed in the 1926 reports, so it is not clear when the changes happened. The new names do appear on the 1936 map. Comal Town retained Commerce, Liberty, Washington and Union. In New Braunfels proper, Commerce became Clemens (named for businessman Johann Wilhelm Clemens of Clemens Dam fame) Avenue. Liberty became Hampe Street; and Washington became South Guenther. Ferguson, a one block long avenue connecting San Antonio and Mill streets, was retained by New Braunfels. In Comal Town, Ferguson Street, so named because it was adjacent to Ferguson-owned property, along with an earlier version of Basel Street, went away when Liberty Street was extended to East Dittlinger/San Antonio Street.

There is so much information to be found in these old maps, some of which can be found in articles by Myra Lee Adams Goff on our website or in her book, Around the Sophienburg, available at the museum. If all of this street information is more than you can absorb, just know that the Commissioners tried to make it simple for us when they adopted the ordinance stating that San Antonio Street is the dividing line between north and south and Seguin Avenue the dividing line between east and west. All streets parallel with Seguin Avenue would be known as avenues, and all streets parallel with San Antonio Street would be called streets. Easy, Right?

Sources: Sophienburg Archives, Around the Sophienburg by Myra Lee Adams Goff; First Founders by Everette Fey

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