Jardin de las almas

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — How we honor our dead says a lot about who we are. It embodies what we believe and how we live and die. For Hispanic Heritage Month, the Sophienburg Museum and West Side Community Center and Library have partnered to focus on where local Hispanic

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Much can be discovered by visiting graves at Comal Cemetery

(Encore of article that first appeared November 26, 2008.) By Myra Lee Adams Goff — Recently I went to the Comal Cemetery to visit family and friends. Don’t tell me that I’m the only one that does that; someone brings the flowers! Since I started writing this column I have

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Weihnachtsmarkt supports Sophienburg

By Myra Lee Adams Goff This week the Sophienburg Museum and Archives will present a great shopping experience to the public. It’s called Weihnachtsmarkt, or Christmas Market, at the Civic Center. It begins Friday, Nov. 19th through Sunday, the 21st. The market offers 60 plus unique booths, plus Breakfast with

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New Braunfels forty-eighters

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — The forty-eighters were refugees of the failed German Revolution of 1848. They were idealists. They fought to establish a liberal and unified Germany using liberty, democracy and unity as their main tenets. The designation “forty-eighter” excludes the hundreds of thousands who emigrated from 1848-1852 for

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Waters of Cypress Bend Park

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — It was a sweltering hot, end-of-summer, August Sunday in 1894, just perfect for a picnic by the river. Marie and Hugo Kramer gathered up their three children and joined Marie’s siblings, Georg and Lydia Hartman, and their in-laws Wilhelm and Walli Hartmann with their two

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Connecting the dots of history

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — Remember dot-to dot coloring books? The fun of dragging your pencil around the page to connect each black dot in order to get an image to color? I find that working at the Sophienburg often entails finding and connecting dots. Recently, Wendy Zunker Coleman donated

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Where exactly is Comaltown?

By Myra Lee Adams Goff — To know the history of New Braunfels is to know the history of Comaltown. This is somewhat true but not entirely. In 1845, there were two towns, separated only by the Comal River‘s original channel which basically runs from Landa Park Lake between the

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Bridging the river

By Myra Lee Adams Goff — What story could be timelier than a story about bridges? The San Antonio Street Bridge, the main bridge across the Comal River linking New Braunfels to Comaltown, is undergoing massive renovations that will take almost two years to complete. Under the circumstances, detours have

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True crime stories: U.S. Marshal “Hal” Gosling

Keva Hoffmann Boardman – At the Sophienburg Museum & Archives, we strive to stick with the facts and tell the truth about New Braunfels history. I realize that our sources can sometimes be biased and flawed, but they are based on firsthand knowledge. I am saddened by the “stories” I

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Dr. Otto R. Grube practiced in New Braunfels

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman, Sophienburg Curator Occasionally, I need to look through the Sophienburg’s newspaper collection. The papers, on microfilm, date from 1852 to present day; it is an amazing resource. Often, an unrelated search sends me “down a bunny trail” (of course, I follow!). As I was researching pigeons

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