By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

I always looked forward to our weekly trip to the grocery store. Although it was only a short twelve or so blocks from our house (and about the same from the Plaza), it felt like we were traveling to an exotic place with odd sights, sounds and smells. It was both scary and exciting to ride in the car as my mother drove over the bridge high above the Guadalupe. The grocery store was Pittman’s Red & White Store.

To me, the store was small and safe with only three aisles and a meat market in the back. If I behaved, I would get to select a treat from the cooler case at the end of the trip. But there was so much more to Pittman’s story than those three aisles of groceries.

The Comal and Guadalupe Rivers marked the boundaries of the land purchased by Prince Carl. The rivers defined the edge of New Braunfels for a long time. The Faust Street Bridge, one of New Braunfels’ most recognizable landmarks, was completed in 1887. The bridge was part of Highway 2, and served as a major crossing for all traffic between Austin to San Antonio until 1934, long before US 81 and Interstate 35 were built.

Highway 2, the Guadalupe River and the railroad brought industry. In 1921, Planters and Merchants Textiles began planning and building their modern water-powered textile mill. It began full production in July 1923. In 1922, just across the road on the edge of the highway in rural Comal County, Litt Atkin (L.A.) Pittman and his wife Eula set up a hamburger stand. According to family history, L.A. and Eula came to the New Braunfels area in 1919. When they wanted to build a business, it was said that the only properties available to them were outside of New Braunfels city limits. They purchased property from Louis Meyer on Highway 2 (now Porter Street).

What started out as a hamburger stand evolved into a grocery store. L.A. worked as a fireman in a factory job while Eula ran the store. They served not only the mill workers, but the families that built homes in the new Meyer Addition. The store was a little of everything to the community. Because it was on the highway, it served as a Greyhound bus station. It also served as a post office and polling place for Comal County. The community was dubbed Milltown by the people of New Braunfels. It was a derogatory name, but the people of Milltown embraced it. The funny thing was, the mill was the largest employer in the county, with a good number of the workers crossing that bridge from town every day to work there.

As the mill prospered, so did Pittman’s. By the late ’20s, the store became Pittman’s Red & White Store. L.A. and his wife built a large home behind the store and raised their children, who also worked in the store. About 1940, the Pittmans built a new modern Red & White Store next door to the first wood frame store. L.A.’s son, Walter, raised his family in the remodeled old store building while working long hours in the new store. The new store had the traditional red and black tile front and plate glass windows. This is the store I remember from the ’50s and ’60s. It was a nice place to be. The air conditioner was cool in the summertime. There was a square table with chairs near the front doors. Hot coffee was available all day along with cold sodas in the cooler. They made sandwiches and burgers to go. They also had a butcher in the back of the store that custom cut and wrapped the meat for customers. Gary, L.A.’s oldest grandson was the butcher. For a while, Walter and Helen Pittman owned a myna bird, and believe it or not, they had it by the back door in the butcher shop. It would whistle and call out Helen’s name all the time. My child-self thought that was so very cool. My adult-self is like, oh my gosh, you had a bird in a butcher shop! So many things wrong with that. The Myna bird accounts for both odd sights and sounds. Across the street from the store, stood the mill, a huge glistening white building guarded by a row of tall palm trees and a green and white neon sign. The odd smells mentioned before? The dyes used contained formaldehyde. Occasionally, the dye vats were flushed into the river and released an acrid smell into the air. Yuck. Best thing ever at Pittman’s? Grapette from the cooler!

Pittman’s store was fundamentally tied to the textile mill, whether it was Planters and Merchants, Mission Valley Mills, or Westpoint Pepperell. Pittman’s opened before first shift so workers could fill up on breakfast tacos (yes!) and get sandwiches for their noon meal. They cashed checks and ran charge accounts for groceries. They even delivered. Before the war, Pittman’s would purchase flat fold yardage of ginghams from the mill to sell at the store. There would be people lined up before the store opened to purchase that fabric. L.A.’s daughter, Bernice, would cut gingham sample swatches stapled together with cardboard labeled Comal Cottons to mail out to people. Mr. McKenna purchase that name for his own retail operation. After the war, Comal Cottons retail store opened across the street. Pittman’s returned to grocery sales and Gary would later go on to a career with Comal Cottons and then fabric sales.

Pittman’s Store remained a staple in Milltown serving people of the area until the family closed the doors for the last time in late 1979.

Sources: https://historicbridgefoundation.com/txbridges/hillcountry/comal/faust.html; Sophienburg Museum & Archives; Around the Sophienburg, Myra Lee Adams Goff; Gary Pittman; Bonnye Manning.

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Driving down Magazine Street the other day, I may have muttered some choice words when I bounced into a pothole that, I promise, a whole pig could have fit into. By the time I got to the Sophienburg, I was thinking hard about the streets in NB. Were they ever worse than they are now?

Oh. My. Yes.

Imagine a time when there were no motor vehicles, only wagons, carts and carriages ALL pulled along by horses, mules and oxen teams. There was a lot of _ _ _ _ on the roads.

To alleviate the amount of manure and urine and God only knows what else was laying on those dirt streets, they needed to be “sprinkled” with water daily. Sprinkling also improved health and living conditions by lessening the awful dust problem caused by street traffic. Shop owners on the main business streets were forever dusting and washing off produce, wares, floors and store counters.

A sprinkling wagon was a large and heavy vehicle designed to carry a tank that held up to 1000 gallons of water. A sprayer system was hung off the back that delivered water “more natural than a shower itself” according to the Fairchild sprinkler wagon patent in 1879.

The first sprinkler wagon in NB was built at the Comal Ironworks (near the old Comal Cottons mill) by Theodor Meckel in October 1893. Citizens paid Meckel a small fee to sprinkle the street in front of their home or business. The City also paid Meckel to sprinkle Main Plaza and the first block of W. San Antonio Street.

In 1905, the City paid Julius Buske a salary of $754.10 ($2.25 per hour) to haul gravel to fix potholes and to sprinkle the main streets. With continued growth came more dirt streets and dust — – more animal-powered vehicles and muck. A small poem was published in the Herald.

The sprinkler man in our town, he works with might and main,
To get the pavement sprinkled well before it starts to rain.

The local Womens Civic Improvement Club marched to the rescue by purchasing a new street sprinkler wagon for the city in 1914. The Mayor “expressed his high appreciation and thanks.” These women also championed the placement of public restrooms under the bandstand on Main Plaza. These women were good people.

By 1917, the city’s growth had made the dust/sanitation problem of gravel streets nearly impossible to maintain. Mr. Clemens suggested the new-fangled asphalting of Main Plaza and W. San Antonio to Academy Streets. The Uvalde Rock Asphalt Company was hired and completed the paving by February 1918, giving “the principle part of the city an up-to-date appearance.” FYI: A public notice was published warning everyone “not to burn trash or make fire for any purpose on the new asphalt street paving, as it will damage the paving.” Duh….

The City Council noted in 1918 that the City had paid $12,590.93 of the downtown paving bill and that 30 (named!) individuals had chipped in another $8,820.32 to extend the paving to the curbs on both sides of the streets. Incidently this public/private payment system remained in play up into the 1960s. The City would pay 1/3 of the cost of paving a street; that part was laid down the center. The other 2/3 of the cost was paid by the owners of the property on each side of the street; they were responsible for the pavement to the curb in front of their homes/businesses. Neighborhoods petitioned the City for paving, then had to get all the property owners to agree to the terms — not an easy thing to do.

A combination street sweeper and sprinkler was purchased in 1922, reflecting the dual nature of NB streets. Dust from unpaved side roads was being carried onto the asphalted main streets. F.F. Fischer ran the unit for 50 cents an hour.

In 1932, the demand from folks across the river in Comaltown was addressed by the renting of a motor-driven sprinkler truck. The truck accomplished in 5 hours what the horse-drawn sprinkler wagon could manage in 7. FYI: It required 22 hours to sprinkle all the unpaved streets in just downtown NB at this time.

Eventually, the city streets get paved and the dust problem is more or less solved, but that doesn’t really happen until the 1960s. That means I should remember gravel roads, but I don’t. By the time I was hitting the streets, it was pretty much all paved. All this has made me come to the conclusion that instead of muttering under my breath when I hit that pothole, I am going to joyfully praise the Lord that 1. I drive a car and 2. I drive on paved roads

Sources:

• Neu Braunfelser Zeitung, New Braunfels Herald, New Braunfel Herald Zeitung
• A Pictorial History of New Braunfels, by Myra Lee Adams Goff and Rosemary Leissner Gregory
• Wheels that Won the West Archives blog, David Sneed
• Meckel family history, Sophienburg Museum & Archives

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The fall of the worldwide stock market, known as the Great Depression in 1929, was not of major concern to New Braunfelsers. Being an agrarian area, the county was more affected by a serious drought that had occurred in the early 1920s up to about 1925. The effects on crops to the farmers was loss of farmland. Many farmers were just trying to recover from losses in 1929 and what was happening in the rest of the United States was not as important to their immediate needs.

The drought and the stock market fall was met with an increase in population of people moving to Comal County, especially if the move was to seek jobs. The local citizens needed the jobs for themselves so the locals didn’t look too kindly on this increase in population. Is this possibly where the term “aus Lander,” or “out of the land,” comes from? In New Braunfels, the population in early 1920 was 3,590. In 1930 it had jumped to 6,242. Imagine the effect on a town with limited jobs available. Up until this time, jobs were plentiful because business was good, but when the drought came, some farmers and ranchers left their farms to get work in town. Many didn’t plant crops. Even the mesquite trees lost their leaves, and that’s unusual.

The history of Gruene can give you a clear picture of what was happening generally in the county during the depression. The town of Gruene was a major economic contributor to New Braunfels. Can you imagine Gruene as we know it today, becoming a ghost town? Here’s the story of the rise and fall and rise again of Gruene. The rise of Gruene had mostly to do with the importance of the cotton industry and the creativity of Henry D. Gruene.

Gruene was the son of Ernst and Antonette Gruene who emigrated from Germany with the first group of immigrants in 1845. Their son, H.D. Gruene was born in 1847 in New Braunfels. As a young man, he was interested in ranching and was even part of cattle drives from New Braunfels. He returned to Texas in 1872. He purchased some land from his brother in the Gruene area, originally called Goodwin. Along with his new bride, Bertha Simon, he built a home on the Guadalupe River. Here’s where the cotton crop comes in:

Gruene involved himself with the importance of growing cotton. The production of cotton was so important that the economy of the South was referred to as King Cotton. Cotton was actually grown here in the early 1850s. Cotton growing was long gone by the time I was born, so I was surprised to see photographs of bales and bales of cotton brought to town on hundreds of flatbed trucks. Whatever happened to the King?

When Gruene advertised that he was seeking tenant farmers, the response was overwhelming with 20 to 30 families seeking opportunities. Two types of tenant farmers were hired. There were half renters whose implements were owned by Gruene and whose food and clothing were to be bought on credit at Gruene’s Mercantile Store. They gave one half of their crop earnings to Gruene. The other type of tenant farmer was one who had their own implements and teams but gave one third of their profits to Gruene. Each family was assigned a plot of one hundred to two hundred acres according to the size of the family.

Gruene was very successful and established a mercantile store (now the wooden Gruene Mercantile Store) and eventually a gin, lumberyard and dance hall. He built the Gruene Mansion and several family homes and then the red brick mercantile building in 1904. The town flourished into the 1920s.

By 1927 the worst of damage from the drought seemed to be over. Guess who came along in 1925, “a lookin for a home.” The boll weevil. Add this little critter to the drought that was already in progress and the cotton crops were gone. King Cotton was dethroned.

A song about this bug was written by Brook Benton. I’ve taken a few lines from it. Only the last line is to be sung. The rest is stated.

Let me tell you a story about a boll weevil
A boll weevil is an insect
And he’s found where cotton grows
Where they come from no one knows.
The farmer said to the boll weevil
“Say why do you pick my farm?”
The weevil just laughed at the farmer and said
“We ain’t gonna do you much harm
We’re lookin for a home
We’re looking for a hooooooooooooooome.

The tenants were ruined and the farming system stopped in 1938. The San Antonio to Austin road moved to where the IH 35 corridor is now and stopped going through Gruene. Gruene was deserted but like the phoenix (mythical bird), it rose again later.

Large businesses in the county and city suffered losses and loss of tax revenue to governmental agencies from decreased land values. This made progress impossible and slowed recovery. Larger industries like the Landa Industry, and the Planters and Merchants Mill (textile mill, later Comal Cottons) had a big impact on the whole community when Jobs became scarce. But Comal County moved slowly forward until the economy finally moved on.

Much of the information for this paper was taken from a master’s degree thesis written by Iris Schumann, long time coordinator of the aarchives collections of the Sophienburg Museum and Archives. There is much more to the thesis than I have reported here since the thesis covered the depression in Comal County beginning 1920 all the way up to the end around 1938. She covered many human-interest stories about how people came together helping each other out. Her conclusions is that because of this kindness and charity on the part of the citizens, New Braunfels made it through the Great Depression. Thank you, Iris for the contribution of this research to our history.

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