By Myra Lee Adams Goff

Prince Carl, on behalf of the Adelsverein, was given the responsibility of establishing two churches in the new settlement of New Braunfels, one Protestant and one Catholic. They were to be established at the same time, but that didn’t happen. Prince Carl engaged Rev. Louis Ervendberg as the Protestant pastor on the coast even before the group moved inland, but could not find a Catholic priest. Meanwhile to satisfy the religious needs of the early settlers, the Protestants and Catholics met together under the leadership of Rev. Ervendberg.

Finding a Catholic priest was difficult. When the prince arrived in the United States in 1844, he visited the archdiocese of Boston and Baltimore, the only organization in America at that time, looking for a priest. When he arrived in Galveston he became acquainted with Catholic Bishop Odin, the Catholic Prelate of Texas, who told him that there were no priests available for the settlement .The two traveled extensively together and became good friends. According to Ferdinand Roemer, “Odin travels continually about the country, visiting the Catholics living scattered in the various parts of the country. Fearlessly and tirelessly he traverses the lonesome prairies on horseback”…

The eventual location of the Catholic Church on Castell and Bridge Sts. has deep historic roots in New Braunfels. From a translation of Prince Carl’s report to the Adelsverein on the 27th of March, 1845, he says this: “Thirty-one wagons have arrived, and I am expecting the last half of the immigrants within a few days. I had an encampment erected on a bluff overlooking Comal Creek. For its protection I think it urgent that three sides be enclosed by palisades, whereas the fourth side is amply protected against attack by the high steep bluff of Comal Creek.”

Nicholas Zink, an educated engineer and surveyor, was given the job of laying out the streets and lots of New Braunfels. He helped set up this first camp of the immigrants. It became known as the Zinkenburg. “Burg” in English means “castle, fortress, stronghold” just like in Sophienburg the “burg” means castle.

After the settlers moved out to their own lots, the Zinkenburg became the site of the first Catholic Church. In 1847, the congregation built a temporary hut of wood and it served for two years as the first church building. This little building was on the site of the present parking lot abutting Bridge Street. It became a Catholic school when a permanent church building was constructed.

After two years, in 1849, Bishop Odin arranged for the first permanent church building. He stated that it was his intention to build the church with his own funds and he asked the Adelsverein to give him the necessary ground for the erection of a building in the city. There were only two other Catholic churches in Texas at this time, Galveston and San Antonio.

This church known as the Walnut Church was closer to the back of the property above the Comal Creek. The building was built by Heinrich Meine and built of black walnut, a hard wood that was known to be prevalent on the Guadalupe River. The building was 35 feet by 25 feet. Newly arrived, Father Gottfried Wenzel, was assigned to New Braunfels. Church archivist Everett Fey states that the Walnut Church served the congregation from 1849 through the Civil War. At that time the church was called St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles. Now the congregation had outgrown the Walnut Church.

Once again, Bishop Odin, seeing a need for expansion, dedicated the cornerstone in 1871 for a new stone church. According to Fey, the stone used to build this church was purchased from the County from the newly torn down Jail.

Now here’s an interesting story. What happened to the Walnut Church? In order to allow services of Mass, Baptism, Confirmation, Weddings and Burials to continue uninterrupted, the stone church was built around and over the Walnut Church. There was room enough inside for the smaller church to be free standing.

When the stone church was complete in 1874, there was no longer need for the Walnut Church. A notice in the Neu Braunfelser Zeitung announced that wood from the Walnut Church would be auctioned off in the church parking lot. The church would literally be pulled out the front door one log at a time. At this point, the church changed its name to the present one, Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church.

The space left by the removal of the Walnut Church greatly increased the size of the church and over the next three decades new altars and stained glass windows, now numbering 22, were added. In 1963 the size of the church was doubled. The final addition took place in 2000.

Many long-time members of Sts. Peter and Paul can claim family relationships going back generations. Everett Fey, who has worked on the church’s extensive archives for years, can stand where the Walnut Church once stood and think back to his g-g grandparents, Stephan and Margarethe Klein who worshipped there. A few steps further into the church, his grandfather, Theodore Wenzel, was the Sacristan in the first stone church. He moves up closer to the altar where his brother, Fredric Fey, was ordained a Deacon, and then finally to the most recent altar where his daughter, Janice, recently married.

A church rededication took place five years ago in 2009 on the site of where the Walnut Church once stood.

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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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