This is the story of a boy born in Erbach, Hessen, Germany. It is about a boy who was fascinated with antlers. It is about that boy growing up and emigrating to Texas and creating his own future.

Ernst Dosch was born in 1822. He grew up hunting in the forests of Odenwald, the property of the Count of Erbach. The Count’s father had spent a lifetime collecting antiquities and antlers; the palace has one of the largest and oldest deer and roebuck antler collections in Europe. Young Ernst often walked through the Hirschgalerie at the palace, drawn to the variety and strangeness of the many abnormal antlers — antlers that displayed unusual arrangements and number of prongs.

Dosch graduated from the University of Giesen in Forestry and in 1848, he followed other students to the fabled land of “Texas”. He met young men on board the vessel “Louis” who became lifelong friends and business partners: Julius Dressel, Ludwig von Lichtenberg, G. Theissen, the Dittmar brothers and Ulrich Rische.

Ernst’s Texas story began when he settled with his new friends and some of the Vierziger at the Darmstaedter Farm (present day Danville area in Comal County). The Vierziger or “The Forty” or the Darmstaedters, were a group of about 40 young men from the Darmstadt area who were recruited by Prince Carl and the Adelsverein to set up a utopian socialistic colony in Texas (see https://sophienburg.wpenginepowered.com/?s=Darmstadt for more information). Almost immediately, the marvelous hunting possibilities in Texas took hold of him and he began to collect his own antler specimens.

Socialism was not for Ernst, and he joined up with the local Texas Rangers for a brief stint. He is later often referred to as Capt. Dosch because of this. In 1851, Dosch and his shipmate von Lichtenberg bought Lot #55 (202 S. Seguin) in New Braunfels. After Dosch constructed a building on it, he, with partner Rudolph Nauendorf, opened a store/saloon. This little building became the Star Exchange Saloon and now sits at Old Town at Conservation Plaza.

The newspaper says that times were tough and Dosch moved his business to San Antonio. His friend Ulrich Rische took over the saloon. Buying a lot on Commerce Street, Dosch and a Mr. Wiener opened a saloon and soon built up a nice clientele. In 1861, the outbreak of the Civil War sent Dosch off to Mexico where he lived in Piedras Negras and Monterrey where it seems he made a great deal of money. Dosch then travelled back to Germany in 1863.

On his return to San Antonio in 1866, Dosch got Ulrich Rische to sell the New Braunfels saloon and join him on Commerce Street. Their saloon was advertised as Dosch and Rische in the newspapers, but was commonly known as “The Deer Horn Bar”. Décor of the bar was an eclectic mix of German gingerbread woodwork and the ever-increasing collection of Dosch’s abnormal antlers. Folks visiting the city made a point of stopping to gawk at the more than 600 antler specimens on view. They had to pay attention to the unusual closing times though: 8 pm on weekdays and closed all day Sunday.

Dosch was respected by both the Anglo and German communities in San Antonio. He worked on the elections of friends, petitioned the city council for changes in statutes and advocated for new state laws to change deer season to August thru December (for some reason, the law said you could shoot deer from January to July!). Dosch was a charter member of the San Antonio Texanische Schuetzenverein and its president in 1857. He was a frequent prize winner at shooting meets and festivals across the Texas Hill Country. He presented an old rifle to the New Braunfels Schuetzenverein that he had used in the very first German-Texan Shooting festival on July 4, 1849, in New Braunfels.

Ernst was 81 years old when the Deer Horn Bar closed its doors in 1905. The saloon had had a good run, 36 years, and was known as the oldest, continuously owned and open bar in San Antonio at that time. His fantastic antler collection was moved to storage.

Ernst Dosch died in 1906, but his legacy does not end then. In a wonderful quirk of history, Albert and Emile Friederich open a bar in 1896. They, too, love antlers; Emile even makes furniture out of the horns. Their “Buckhorn Saloon” acquired the Dosch antler collection prior to 1920 and added it to its own. The Buckhorn Saloon (and I hope some of Ernst Dosch’s abnormal antlers) lives on and amazes and entertains San Antonio visitors today.

There is one more memorial to Ernst Dosch. When Carl J. Iwonski drew his view of New Braunfels in 1856, he included the figures of Dosch, Dr. Wilhelm Remer and Viktor Bracht. Ernst Dosch is on horseback, looking over the new town of New Braunfels, with his trusty rifle casually laying across his right shoulder. Don’t you just know he is thinking of his next set of antlers?

By the way, you can purchase a great reproduction of Iwonski’s 1856 view of New Braunfels at Sophie’s Shop in the Sophienburg Museum & Archives.

Sources: Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung Collection; Freie Presse für Texas, San Antonio 1880-1906; Galveston Daily News, 1870-1890; “German Businesses of San Antonio”, Dana Pomykal; Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, p495; Archives collections: 0009 Haas and 1020 Dressel; Old Town at Conservation Plaza; https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/archives-1892-shooting-fishing-abnormalantlers/; https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook.

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By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

Main Plaza. We drive around it every day. It captures the imagination and baffles the tourists (and sometimes the new locals). It’s a magical place in the heart of our community that dons “new clothes” for each occasion, no matter the season, drawing us into the scene. Ever wonder how that came to be? It was created that way by our ancestors.

When the first German immigrants came to New Braunfels in 1845, surveyor Nicholas Zink laid out the town in the European tradition, with a large open public space in the center, used for meetings and celebrations. In German, the space is known as a Platz. In Italian, Piazza. In American, Plaza. You might think, well, that’s the same thing as a town square. Except, that it is different. If you look at most of the town squares across Texas, like in Seguin or San Marcos, you will find the courthouse quite literally sitting smack in the middle of the square. Our courthouse was purposely built on the edge of the Plaza, to maintain the feel of their German homeland, with the people’s space in the middle. In New Braunfels, it is Main Plaza.

For the first, say fifty years, the plaza was a completely open space, where horses and wagons could travel in whatever direction they desired. More recently, I hear people call Main Plaza a “roundabout” or “traffic circle,” as if it is merely a function of traffic patterns. But it is not. In fact, the first to occupy the big open space was the fountain. The Plaza Fountain was added in 1895 with money left over from the 50th Anniversary Celebration of New Braunfels. Protective curbing came later to keep the horses from drinking out of the fountain.

The Bandstand (it is not now, nor has it ever been a gazebo) was built in 1905 to stage musical and singing programs. It used to have public restrooms and storage space underneath for chairs. The monuments of Civil War and World War I Soldiers were dedicated to honor the fallen sons of New Braunfels. The landscaping, sidewalks and trees have changed over the years, as has the location of the monuments, but the sentiment of community pride tied to Main Plaza has always been the same. At one time, the Schmitz Hotel changed hands. The new owner remodeled and changed the name to The Plaza Hotel. The hotel has since been restored to its original name and façade. New Braunfels Coffee shop was once Plaza Drugstore.

That is the story of Main Plaza, but that is not the end. “Main” in front of something indicates that there must be more. More plazas? Yep! There were more! This generation does not have the lock on green space. Two plazas that still exist were born out of function. Butchers took animals from hoof to table, and it could be a messy, smelly business. They were relegated to the outer edges of town to keep the flies away. Market Square, off Comal Avenue and bordered by Tolle on both sides, was for the butchers. The tannery was just beyond that toward the Comal River, well, because those businesses just go together. Market Square has recently undergone a wonderful makeover. Keep your eyes open for upcoming summer music events there.

Another plaza near downtown, is Haymarket Plaza (now Park). The name is fairly straight-forward. It was the site of the hay market. It is located on Comal Avenue, also bordered by Hampe and Simon (pronounced See-mon) Street. The area was once part of Lindheimer’s farm. It also was the site of an African-American school. In 1964, the Naval Reserve built a radio training center on a small corner of the property.

The last two plazas are not quite as easy to see anymore. They also require a little more backstory. After Prince Carl laid out New Braunfels on the west bank of the Comal, the Veramendi Garza family laid out their property on the east bank. They named the city Comaltown. Immigrants arriving in 1848 bought property in Comaltown. Twenty-two years later, the remainder of the Veramendi properties were divided and sold as Braunfels. Braunfels was bounded on the north by North Street and to the south by South Street and the east by East Street. So simple. Both had centrally located public spaces called plazas on the earliest maps. Comaltown was bordered by Garza Street and the river. The Comaltown plaza was bordered by Austin, Guadalupe (now Houston), Union and Garza. In 1850, M.A. Dooley gave Lot 4 on the corner of Austin and Guadalupe for the building of a school. The German American Union School was chartered in 1852. It became known as Comal Union School. It was later used as an African American school until about 1935. The property across the street from the school later became known as Union Plaza. The NBISD donated Union Plaza in 1954 to build the New Braunfels Hospital, now Christus New Braunfels.

The other plaza in Braunfels was called East Braunfels Plaza. It was bordered by Veramendi, Commerce, Main, and Houston. At one time, Fire hose cart Company No. 4 and fire warning bell was located in the middle of the that plaza. In 1924, there was great discussion and an election to decide where to build the new Ward School of NBISD. The board leaned strongly toward Union Plaza, but the citizens wanted East Braunfels Plaza to be the site of the new school named for the second president of the Republic of Texas, Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar. It is still there.

Our Main Plaza has been the site of public meetings, grand Anniversary events, 4th of July celebrations and parades, Diez y Seis parades, anti-Prohibition events, cotton markets, Cinco de Mayo and Wurstfest celebrations. Some plazas now have hospitals and schools, but our ancestors purposely planned the plazas as spaces for public use. Thank them for their forward thinking and relish the spaces in our downtown.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives; Herald-Zeitung archives.

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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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