By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

By the time I sat down to write this story, we were several weeks into back-to-school ad campaigns for clothing, athletic gear, and school supplies. The term “back-to-school” made me think of popcorn, parakeets and Big Chief tablets.

Maybe your brain doesn’t track like this, but there is something oddly comforting about the smell of freshly made popcorn, the sound of tweeting parakeets, and a new Big Chief tablet. In New Braunfels, it meant shopping at Winn’s.

Winn’s was my favorite back-to-school shopping place. They had everything we needed and then some. Winn’s was what they called a variety store, a five-and-dime or simply dimestore. It was downtown across from the post office on Castell Avenue (now 2tarts Bakery and River Rose Boutique). I loved Winn’s. I can still smell the fresh popcorn and hear the parakeets twittering in the back of the store.

Winn’s, founded in 1926 by San Antonio businessman Murray Winn, opened its 55th store in New Braunfels in 1959. Winn’s Stores Inc. bought the North Castell Avenue property from Norman J. Henne in March of ’59. An 8500-square-foot building was built after they razed buildings previously housing Schumann’s Battery Service, real estate office of Hilmar Doehne, and the burned out remains of Fred D’s Sporting Goods Store.

Before that, school supplies were purchased at drug stores or places like Vollmer’s or National’s Five & Dime (now Antique Mall). It must have been somewhat competitive since the stores tried to entice school shoppers by offering coupons for ice cream sodas or a free pass to the movies. I am not sure that Winn’s ever had that type of promotion.
A typical list from my childhood mirrored that of the 1959 New Braunfels Independent School District first-grade supply list. On it were nine items: #2 pencils with erasers, box of eight crayons, pointy scissors, spiral composition books, mixed construction paper, tissues, jar of paste, a pencil tablet and a cigar box.

This year’s NBISD supply list for first grade has at least 20 items. The basic items are still the same today, including crayons, construction paper, spiral notebooks, tissues and scissors (but scissors are no longer pointy). Gone is the paste that came in glass jars and tasted like mint (so I have been told). Teachers today want glue sticks.

They have replaced pencil tablets with primary notebooks. The pencil tablets were 8 x 12 pads of wide lined newsprint writing paper with Big Chief being the favored brand. Easily recognizable from anywhere, it had a red cover with an image of a Native American chief on it. It was my very own new pad of writing paper for a fresh start.

Cigar boxes were the predecessors of today’s plastic pencil box. Everyone used what was available. Back when people smoked cigars, the pharmacies and stores would save the boxes to sell with school supplies. I loved the smell of tobacco when I opened the lid of my new cardboard King Edward cigar box. Later, as people smoked less, cardboard boxes were specifically made for school supplies in bright colors, but it just wasn’t the same.

As we grew out of the Big Chief phase, we got filler paper to put in our zippered 3-ring binders which we carried in our satchels (a dorkier, more cumbersome book bag). There were no Trapper Keepers or backpacks, but we did have lunch boxes. Mine was a shiny, black-patent-look Barbie lunch kit with matching thermos. Unlike today’s Yeti insulated cups and mugs, a thermos in those days was lined with glass. Yep! A thermos in the hands of a second grader was risky business. Just one bounce when dropped and you had instant crystal maracas (which every mother loved to hear).

As for school clothing choices, there was not a lot available in downtown New Braunfels. Some people ordered through catalog stores like JCPenney or Montgomery Ward. There was no Amazon or overnight delivery so it took weeks to receive it. We got one pair of school shoes that had to last until summer: saddle oxfords or P.F. Flyers or Keds. New Braunfels had B&B Poll Parrot (left side of the New Braunfels Art League next to Scores sports bar) for shoes but they were probably a little pricier than Winn’s.
Winn’s had blue jeans, shirts, socks and tennis shoes in stock for boys. For girls, they had petticoats and slips and socks. They also had a healthy stock of bobby pins, hair bands, clips, and Aqua Net. I really do not remember the dresses at Winn’s because my mom made dresses for my sister and me. But the fabric — there were tons of fabric and patterns and buttons and zippers. I would spend time looking at pattern books while my mom shopped for fabric until I got sent on a mission to find my brother.

My brother, and most of the boys, could usually be found in the back of the store looking at all the things my mother said no to: bubbling aquariums full of fish or the dozen blue-and-green parakeets in a cage or the turtles. He did talk her into a turtle once.

Beyond school supplies, Winn’s had a wonderful supply of anything found in a variety store including lamps, curtains, laundry baskets, toilet paper, garbage cans, kitchen gadgets, costume jewelry, candy, and the list goes on.

In May of 1968, a second location of Winn’s Variety Store was opened in the new Landa Plaza Shopping Center (Das Rec) that was designed to look like faux fachwerk. It was the 87th store. It was closer to our house, but we still liked to go to the downtown Winn’s.

Winn’s Stores continued to expand in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico under other ownership, reaching 230 stores in 1987. Then things went south. Walmart and other major national retailers began moving into cities with their discount department store model. Then the dollar stores began popping up.

Winn’s sold off stores, closed others, and filed bankruptcy before finally dissolving in 1995. It was a great ride that made a ton of memories! Especially the popcorn, parakeets and Big Chief tablets — and I almost forgot, the ICEEs!

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By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

We are here because of the Comal and the Guadalupe rivers. We have drunk it, powered mills and made electricity with it, and played in the beautiful water since 1845.

Farmers and ranchers in Comal County also used the waters of the Guadalupe and the many little spring-fed creeks that flow into it. But when that wasn’t convenient, they utilized natural ponds and watering holes. There were many: the Crawford Tank, Branch’s Waterhole, Altgelt’s Pond, Stein’s Waterhole, Waterhole Creek, Kopplin’s Waterhole, Weltner’s Pond, Bluff Waterhole, Alligator Hole and the “Goenze Weier” (Goose Pond) in Gesche’s Pasture to name a few.

The largest waterhole from way-back-when was the “Post Ock See” or Post Oak Sea, located about 6 miles out of NB on Hwy 46W. It was said that during long droughts, thousands of head of cattle and livestock were driven by cowboys from all over the area to water at the “Sea”. Local rancher Bill Adams remembered that “when every waterhole in the county was dry and when the Guadalupe was down to a trickle, the “Sea” had water.”

Post Oak Sea, or the “Sea”, covered many acres. By the early 1870s, several ranches surrounded it, but the “Sea” was used by all. When ranchers from other areas as far as Mason were in drought they brought their livestock to Post Oak Sea. In like fashion, ranchers from Comal County who’d lost pasture land to drought were invited to move their cattle to neighboring grasslands. It was a kinder and gentler time. In 1886, Comal County purchased acreage on the “Sea” to use as a public watering and camping place on the way to Fredericksburg. Watering holes were the gas stations and rest stops of the horse-and-buggy days.

Rancher Rochette Coreth shared memories of Post Oak Sea in the local newspaper. “Large numbers of livestock would water there in the days of the open range. Their hooves packed the soil and thereby kept the lake watertight.” Rochette also told a story of his father, Franz Coreth, and the Post Oak Sea. Franz had shot a steer that was watering at the “Sea” to take home to butcher. The steer wandered into deep water before it fell and Franz got soaking wet dragging it to shore with a rope tied to his horse’s saddle horn. His brother and nephew met him on the bank with an ox-drawn wagon. The steer had to be hauled 12 miles to the Coreth Ranch. A cold norther suddenly blew in and, to keep from freezing, the wet Franz crawled into the still warm, field-dressed carcass as they slowly made the three-hour trip home. One of the young men handed him the steer’s liver saying “Here is also a pillow.”

In History of Mission Valley Community, Alton Rahe recorded stories of rancher Bill Adams which included tales about Post Oak Sea. “This was a really unusually large body of water, never known to be dry until 1887, and since then held water for only a short time following heavy rains. We had a big time around this lake fishing … and swimming … On many a moon-lit night we young fellows … would get together at this “sea”, all on horseback, and with several trained dogs, we waited for hogs to come to water … We would hold our dogs and kept quiet until the hogs had filled up on water, and had a good time wallowing in it, then we turned the dogs loose and jumped on our horses surrounding them, the dogs baying and holding them in the water. Some of the best rodeos one ever saw would take place right then.”

What happened to the legendary “Post Oak Sea”?

Why it suddenly went dry in 1887 is still a mystery, but there were several old-timers who came up with guesses. Bill Adams said that he wondered if an earthquake or geological disturbance had caused it to drain. He remembered strange weather. In January and February of 1886, it had been extremely cold and the “Sea” had frozen over except for a patch in the middle. Then, that summer had been terribly dry followed by a massive storm with hurricane-like winds in August. By the summer of 1887, a large crack had opened up in the ground near his home which formed a long horseshoe-shaped line across the area for at least a mile. It was in places 5-6 inches wide and it was established, by throwing rocks down it, to be at least 100 feet deep in some places. Had the basin of the “Sea” also cracked?

Another story postulated that the “Sea” went dry because a group of local lads threw dynamite into the water to stun and harvest fish from deep in the lake. The group later feared that their laziness had destroyed the rock foundation of the “Sea”. Yet another tale blames the building of a fence through the middle of the “Sea”; the placing of fence poles might have pierced the basin and caused the water to leak down.

Post Oak Sea does occasionally return. The newspaper published a photo of it full of water after heavy rains in March of 1957. Rahe’s book has another photo of a very full “Sea” after the 1972 rains that caused a major flood in New Braunfels.

I took my Mom and we drove up Hwy 46 to locate the site of the famous historical watering hole following Mr. Rahe’s directions. “Travel west on Hwy 46, pass the intersection of FM 2722. Before you get to the Comal County Road Dept/County Engineers office on the left, you can still see the basin of the Post oak Sea on your right. A small amount of water is usually visible. The stock tank closer to the highway with big rocks was constructed recently and has nothing to do with the original Post Oak Sea.”

Take the short drive out 46 or at least google map it and look at the satellite image of the area. You can indeed still see the footprint of Post Oak Sea on the landscape. If you go after a good rain, you will even see a little water in what was once the largest watering hole in the county.

Sources: History of Mission Valley Community by Alton Rahe; Sophienburg Museum: NB Herald, NB Herald-Zeitung and Neu Braunfelser Zeitung collections; Oscar Haas collection; “Reflections” recordings #936 and #403.

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I recently found photos of Alfred Selke in the Oscar Haas collection. In August 1926, Selke and several coworkers were walking around the grounds of the new Comal Power Supply Co. (LCRA). They caught what he described as a “lobster” in the millrace pond. The group gathered for photos to chronicle the oddity including displaying the “lobster” on a cloth to show its size. Knowing it couldn’t be a lobster, I decided it must have been a great-granddaddy of a crawfish. When Charlie Nowotny came in to do his volunteer time at the Sophienburg, he saw the photo and informed me I was wrong.

“It’s a prawn. I caught one once.”

Now Charlie has at least a million stories to tell, so I wasn’t completely sold on that identification. Together we googled “giant fresh-water prawn” and there it was: Macrobrachium rosenbergii. Needless to say, I was humbled. Charlie was smirking contentedly.

Charlie’s dad, Clarence Nowotny, worked 43 years for Dittlinger Flour Mill which was across the road from the new power plant. On Saturdays, Charlie would come into town with his dad and while his dad worked, Charlie fished. This was back in the 1940s and Charlie was just a kid.

As an historian, I am all about connections and I love this one. Mr. Selke would see Charlie fishing and would walk over from the power plant and tell him he couldn’t fish in the millrace pond. 10 year-old Charlie would say “Yes, sir,” and walk away; respecting your elders was a big thing back then. He would pick up his gear and walk behind one of the buildings and wait for Mr. Selke to go back inside the power plant. Of course he would return to his fishing spot once the coast was clear.

On one occasion, Charlie and friends caught one of the giant fresh-water prawns – 20 years later in the same pond where Mr. Selke had caught his “lobster”. Charlie took the giant prawn home with him and released it into the cattle tank on their property off 306 where it lived for many, many years. Sometimes the prawn would sit out on the edge absolutely still. “You could swear it had died,” recalls Charlie, “but you would take a stick and poke it and off it would go into the water.”

Charlie’s fish tales don’t stop there. He and his dad also fished the Comal for bass, catfish, and Rio Grande perch. If they caught a bunch of perch – say 30-40 – Charlie’s dad would drive through Comaltown on the way home and give the whole burlap sack of perch to a family they knew in need of a little neighborly help. The bass and catfish would be taken to the cattle tank and released.

During the drought in the mid 1950s, that old cattle tank was drying up. Charlie’s dad asked the local game warden, Bill Sumbling, if he could borrow the seining net. The Nowotnys used the net to drag the tank. They caught and then released over 1500 catfish fingerlings into the Comal River. Charlie swears that the catfish caught in the park today are the progeny of those little fingerlings saved from the drought.

People have told stories of eels and alligators found in the Comal and Guadalupe Rivers in the early years of New Braunfels. A story ran in the NB Herald, on June 24, 1938, about Mayor Sippel sighting a nine-foot alligator on his property at Solms Creek. He called in Marshal Knetsch who came and dispatched the creature. The Herald reported, “Though he never knew it, Mr. Alligator spent the remainder of the afternoon posing with his captors while Mr. Seidel snapped pictures.” True story; the photos are in the Seidel collection at the Sophienburg.

By the time Charlie and his buddies were fishing the rivers, the only alligators they caught were alligator gars. According to him, not only the most, but the biggest specimens were found below the Schumannsville Dam, south of New Braunfels, on the Guadalupe River. Here, the boys and young men would compete to see who could land the largest gar. Charlie’s dad Clarence hooked “a big one” and “worried that thing for over 40 minutes.” When he finally landed the monster, they discovered he had hooked it in the back fin!

Fish tales – you gotta love ‘em.

Sources:

• Oscar Haas collection-Selke photos
• New Braunfels Herald, June 24, 1938
• Interview with Charlie Nowotny

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