By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

We go see the latest movie and think nothing about it. It is an easy and common thing to do. I don’t even remember the first film I saw, though I’m fairly certain it was a Disney movie. Not so in the early 1900s. I recently found several articles in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung microfilm collection that talk about what it was like to see moving pictures for the first time.

Fred Oheim, a long-time editor of the newspaper, had some wonderful memories. He was born in 1903, so his earliest recollection as a kid was of a film shown on Marktplatz (Tolle Street). A traveling carnival set up a tent for the film. He was too young and too poor to go — which turned out to be a very good thing. After the first showing, rumors spread through town that parts of the film “shorts” were, in fact, “X-rated.” Mostly men were seen entering the tent at the 9 p.m. showtime and “they had a sneaky look about them.” The men all exited the tent with their hats tipped low over their faces.

The first film Oheim remembered seeing was shown by photographer H.D. Klenke who presented short films in a building on South Seguin Street between the Hoffmann and Klappenbach buildings. Fred saw his first “talkie” in the Seekatz Opera House on West San Antonio Street. “Talkies” came out in the 1920s. Synchronized sound was produced via a belt connecting the projector in the booth with a phonograph on a box on the stage. It was rather like a trotline and ran the entire distance from the projector to the phonograph in the cone of light produced by the projection lens. In Oheim’s own words:

There were two knots in this loop of driving belt and I was fascinated watching them slowly travelling down to the stage and back to the projector, particularly since there were always a couple of “snake doctors” (what he called dragonflies) in the auditorium which regularly attacked the knots.”

The synchronized sound from the phonograph never really matched up well with the film. He remembers that it got worse and worse as the film ran. This story conjures up images in my head of Gene Kelly in “Singin’ in the Rain.”

Oscar Haas was our Comal County Clerk and the unofficial historian of New Braunfels and Comal County. Born in 1895, the first film he remembered was shown “over” South Seguin Street. Yes, I said “over.” A projecting device was set up on the second floor of the old wood Naegelin building/residence which pointed directly across Seguin Street at a screen set up on the second-floor porch of the Homann Saddlery business/residence. Attendees sat in the street. The movie was part of an advertising campaign for some product Oscar did not remember. Called “The Train Robbery,” the film was shown three nights in succession and repeated again the following four summers. Most importantly, it was free, which allowed the children to take their nickel and go into Naegelin’s for jelly beans and wine balls. Oscar described the event:

“This movie had no sound track but there were attendants who realistically produced the sounds of the train as it came puffing around the mountainside, crossing a bridge, and the sound of the horses’ hoofs as the robbers came galloping out from a ravine, firing pistols, and brought the train to a stop with passengers ordered to come off the coaches and stand along the side of the track.”

The excitement was absolutely riveting, and Oscar Haas tried to make it to every showing.

Oscar’s wife, Clara, remembered that there was an open-air movie garden on part of the empty lot next to R.B. Richter’s building on West San Antonio Street. She also remembered Martin’s Theater which was located next to the Phoenix Saloon beer garden (now the courtyard in front of the bank building). Martin’s was showing films already in 1914. Other theaters recalled by Clara included The Capitol, which opened in 1924 on Main Plaza (between Comal Flower and Black Whale). The Capitol got its movies and performers straight from the Majestic Theater in San Antonio. The Brauntex Theater opened in October 1942 with the Bing Crosby flick “Birth of the Blues.”

Roger Nuhn, journalist, photographer, newspaper editor, and SWTSU (TSU) professor, grew up in the generation of Saturday serial movie-goers. Roger and his buddies would go each Saturday to catch the next episodes, known as chapters, of popular Western serials. The serials always ended in a cliff-hanger so patrons would have to come back the next week. Jack Kaufmann Sr. was running the Seekatz at this time, and the kids would all wear a special badge they got at the “Chapter One” film. With the badge, entrance each Saturday was then only a nickel — half of a regular child’s admission. The serial chapters were quite a bargain: you got to see the next part of the story, then a full-length Western or adventure film, a two-reel comedy and a newsreel. Cheap and it kept the kids entertained!

Roger also recalled that Jack Kaufmann had a heart of gold. “If he saw some child hanging around the entrance of the movie house looking longingly at the posters obviously without the necessary cash for a ticket, he would go up to the youngster and say, ‘What are you doing out here? The show’s inside, get on in there!’ Jack Kaufmann never got rich but was among the most-loved businessmen in downtown New Braunfels.”

LaVerne Schwab Pearce, long-time Sophienburg employee and volunteer, shared a story with Myra Lee Adams Goff back in 2008. LaVerne remembered that the first movie she saw was at the Seekatz in 1934. It was Shirley Temple in “The Littlest Rebel.” Temple’s character has to save her Confederate father from execution for treason ,and she does so by pleading with President Lincoln. LaVerne said she was so upset by the action on the screen that she began wailing loudly and her mother had to take her out of the auditorium.

The new-fangled movie business sometimes made it hard to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

One more story …

Jack Coleman, in a Reflections oral history program recorded in 1977, tells of his Uncle Nob Richardson’s first ever movie. It was a Western. There was lots of shooting. Uncle Nob was so upset that he whipped out his handgun and shot a hole in the screen.

Ah, now that’s entertainment!!!

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives newspaper microfilm collection: “Shots at Random,” Roger Nuhn, New Braunfels Herald, Feb. 22, 1973; “Museumantics,” Fred Oheim, New Braunfels Herald, March 1, 1973; “Early-Day Theatricals, Movie Houses Recalled,” Oscar Haas, New Braunfels Herald, March 1, 1973; Reflections program, Jack Coleman, 1977; ”Around the Sophienburg: Brauntex Opened in 1942 with Bing Crosby,” Myra Lee Goff, Jan. 22, 2008.

Photo Caption: Martin’s Picture Palace was the first movie house in New Braunfels. Advertisements for films begin in March 1914.

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By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

I have heard some murmurings in town lately about a place called The House that Jack Built. As often happens at the Sophienburg, I had already done some research into this business. Let me share some facts and a couple stories that I discovered along the journey.

In February of 1927, Albert Nowotny began working on improving his cold drink/confectioners stand located at 1413 West San Antonio Street. Over the next couple of years, he enlarged the nice wood-framed confectionary to accommodate his collection of Native American artifacts as a little museum. Behind that, he constructed a tourist camp which included little cottages facing a central court and a modern bath house and restroom for tourists to use. A tourist court was a fairly new idea that came with the proliferation of automobiles and building of the highway system.

Nowotny’s business was good and in 1930, the little attractive wood-framed confectionary gave way to a new “fireproof” structure. The carpenter on the job was Jack Gill, so the name of the business became The House that Jack Built. The House that Jack Built was designed to mimic the Pueblo-style architecture found in New Mexico and Arizona which better suited Nowotny’s burgeoning Native American collections. The new multi-level building featured a stucco exterior with exposed, extended roof beams and natural pole ladders between the levels for authentic detailing.

The interior had a unique, multi-colored broken tile-and-concrete patterned floor. Cases lining the walls were filled with Native American artifacts collected by Nowotny in the New Braunfels area as well as other examples from the American Southwest, Mexico and even head-hunter axes from the Philippines. Displayed were large quantities of painted pottery, stone tools and points, and shell and bone jewelry.

The “free” museum also contained “a part of Chief Geronimo’s poisoned arrows and water jug.” Amongst the many antique pistols, guns, swords and daggers from the Texas-Mexican War, the Spanish-American War and the Civil War, were “Jesse James’ pistols, a dueling sword lost in 1541 belonging to Coronado and bullets fired by Zachary Taylor into the walls of Mission Obispado at Monterrey on his way to Mexico City.”

Stuffed animals peered from the corners and case tops. Trophy heads and horns hung above on the walls vying for attention amongst beautifully-colored, hand-woven Indian blankets. Nowotny also sold Native American and Mexican artifacts, jewelry and blankets as well as tourist trinkets made in Japan. At one point in time, according to Ogden Coleman, there was even a live bear on a chain!

The confectionary/café featured Mexican food, fried chicken dinners, hamburgers and sandwiches which were served at tables scattered in the center of the large room amidst the historic collections.

Albert Nowotny’s sons helped to run The House that Jack Built. Jerome described an interesting prohibition-era story in his oral history recording at the Sophienburg.

Local newspaperman, Fred Oheim once said, “… that the making of beer at home was legal. You could make up to 200 gallons of wine per family and a certain amount of beer per year, but, it required a federal license. Selling beer, wine, etc. to other folks was illegal … the Revenuers would come and put you in jail for selling not producing it.”

Businesses, also, could not sell alcoholic beverages, but during Prohibition, tourists would stop at The House that Jack Built for a hamburger and ask where they could get real beer. According to Jerome Nowotny, there were “many, many, many men” in New Braunfels that made and sold beer. The stills were usually hidden by hedges of Ligustrum which were commonly used around town in place of wood fences.

Albert would tell son Jerome, “Gehen mit die Leute, nicht der Herr.” (Go with the people, not with God.) He then gave Jerome an address for a local “small businessman”. Jerome would escort the tourists to that location where they would buy beer and then usually tip him $5 — very good money in those days. Albert never sent him to the same place twice in a row in order to make sure all “small businessmen” got a fair chance for a sale and to protect them by “spreading the risk, so-to-speak, of the illegal operators.”

In the 1940s, Percy and Norma Rose Richter rented and operated The House that Jack Built. My dad, Carroll Hoffmann, worked there as a busboy. It was no longer a museum but a very popular café and bar. It did, however, have a totem pole out in front of the building. Open 11 am to 11 pm, the café often ran out of food on Saturdays. My dad would ride his bike to work from Academy Street in the morning and Mr. Richter would put his bike in the back of the truck and take him home at night. Dad had to be there early to mop the colorful floor. He would always check for change beneath the tables and in the coin return slots of the little jukebox selection boxes on the tables. Does every little boy do this?

The building was altered again before my Dad’s time. The second-floor rooms had been enlarged into a banquet hall and the front half fenced in to create an outdoor terrace. Newspaper advertisements announce dance bands and society articles record parties that took place at The House that Jack Built. My dad said it was tricky for the waitresses to get food and drink up the stairs. He remembers that NB Highschool Head Coach Weldon Bynum took the ’48-’49 football team up there to eat steaks one night. Apparently even back then, football players were BMOC.

After the Richters, the café was run briefly as the Langston Café. In 1953, Felix and Harry Zoeller purchased the building and it became Zoeller Funeral Home until 1978. Harry Zoeller said that the unique tile floor was one of Nowotny’s selling points for the building. The Comal County Juvenile Residential Supervision and Treatment Center (Teen Connection) bought the building in 1981. The House that Jack Built/Zoeller Funeral Home presently houses Connections.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives; “Reflections” oral History program #21; NB Herald archive; Heritage Exhibit notes; personal interviews.

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Replica of the Wright Vin Fiz, 1911.

Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

On Saturday, October 21, 1911, James Ogletree and a buddy finished gathering pecans along the Guadalupe River near the Gruene Road bridge and walked up to his grandfather H.D. Gruene’s store. There, they heard the MKT depot manager exclaim that he had just received a telegraph message stating “a fella named Rodgers is going to fly an aeroplane right down the Katy tracks to San Antonio tomorrow!” To the boys, who were used to the wheel age, the idea of a man flying was more than a little hard to swallow.

The news of the fly-over of the first airplane to fly from the Atlantic to the Pacific made its way by word of mouth like a wild fire up and down the streets, roads and dirt tracks in and around Gruene, New Braunfels and Solms. Just after 12 noon, folks would see their first aeroplane!

Teenager Oscar Haas was working at a store in downtown NB that Sunday, October 22. All the stores and businesses closed up a bit before noon allowing everyone to make a beeline to secure a place along the MKT tracks. A steam engine hissed by, pulling a Pullman sleeper and a day coach (for the pilot’s family, sponsors, manager, and mechanics), a hangar car (for plane parts and a car) and a caboose the roofs of which were painted white to be easily seen by the pilot.

Youngster Fred Oheim and several of his pals had run to the courthouse and rushed up the stairs to the tower along with Dr. A. Noster to view the fly-over. Dr. Noster had brought a pair of field glasses with him which he shared with the excited boys. With those glasses they clearly saw the “box kite-like plane with a tail behind it for steering assisted by a pair of vertical flaps in front. The motor and radiator were in the center of the plane, with the propeller just behind the trailing edges of the wings.… Rodgers sat on the edge of the lower wing and worked two levers to warp the wings and move the elevators … his feet on pedals that controlled the rudder. A broad leather strap around his waist held him in his seat.”

Back in Gruene, people had begun to gather at daybreak causing the bartender in the saloon (Gruene Hall) to open early and let in the menfolk. “It was a brisk, cool morning and [they] had a few shots.” Ogletree and his friends watched the ladies scoot off to the store across the street. After a while, someone suggested that the best view would be from atop the store. The bartender pronounced the bar closed but allowed the thirsty to take a bottle with them.

People then crowded into the store, up the stairs to the second floor, through a trap door to the attic and then through another trap door out onto the roof. This trip was accomplished by sober and drunk men, women in long skirts and petticoats and children like James Ogletree and his cohorts.

The jovial crowd braved the crisp, fresh wind all eyes straining to see up the tracks to the north. “The aeroplane!” alerted the group, but on closer inspection the brown spot was only a buzzard.

H.D. Gruene had put his gigantic U.S. flag on the rooftop flagpole (a rite reserved for the Fourth of July, Texas Independence Day and National Inauguration Day) to salute the pilot. The bartender had also passed Gruene’s assortment of fireworks and brought a large sky rocket with him to the roof. Shortly before noon, they heard “an odd humming sound from the north and a brown speck appeared in the sky over a train with white car tops…we could see it [the plane] plainly. It looked like a long framework with two white wings across it…the pilot sitting out in front of the lower wing.… On the bottom of the lower wing were the words ‘Vin Fizz’ (Cal Rodgers was sponsored by Armour Packing Co., who made the bubbly drink).

As the plane headed straight for Gruene, a cheer went up, men shot off their six-shooters, ladies screamed, children cried and then the bartender set off the giant sky rocket. As it “arched beautifully in front of the plane and burst into a brilliant red flare Rodgers saw it all and wobbled and flopped his wings.”

H.D. Gruene, anxious for the integrity of his old roof, coaxed the people down. The celebration continued in the streets and, of course, in the saloon. As Ogletree and his pals peered through the bar’s windows at the men drinking and playing cards (minors and women were not allowed inside), they witnessed an altercation. A stranger had pushed an employee back over and onto a table, scattering chips across the floor. “He then pulled a knife and made for the employee who dove through the windows over our heads and rolled under a wagon at the hitching rail.” The stranger made for the door and the wagon.

A deafening roar from an old Winchester 44 six-shooter in the hands of H.D. Gruene accompanied a well-aimed shot into the wagon showering the knife-wielding stranger with wood splinters. The stranger, with that subtle encouragement, rode out of town and Mr. Gruene calmed down the assaulted employee with a cold beer.

According to Ogletree, it was “a glorious day.”

Cal Rodgers began his transcontinental flight on September 17 at Sheepshead Bay, NY. He landed in Pasadena, CA on November 5. Out of the 49 days of elapsed time, he only spent three days, ten hours and four minutes actually in the air. He made 69 separate flights in crossing the US. By using westbound railroad tracks and his wife’s neck-chain watch sewed to his leather gauntlet to navigate, he landed in and took-off from open prairie land, uncut pastures and parks. He survived 16 – 39 major near-fatal crashes and minor mishaps; each time both he and his plane, the Vin Fizz, were fixed up by his support team. By the end of his trip, the Vin Fizz had been repaired so many times over that only one rudder and wing strut remained from the original modified Wright R airplane.

His flight over justTexas took two weeks and 23 stops.

Before his fly-over of New Braunfels that October Sunday, Rodgers was laid over in the little town of Kyle to wait for parts. Rodgers had his crew assemble a Wright Model B plane so he could take spectators for rides at a fee. When a little boy, Newt Milhollan, offered him a quarter, Rodgers set him in the passenger seat and said, “This one is a gift, a gift of flight, the sky and the wind. You will see your whole town and the fields around it. You will know a different world. Now that is a gift to remember.”

Sources: Oscar Haas collection, Fred Oheim collection, Reflections #133 James Ogletree, NB Zeitung Oct 29 1911, NB Zeitung-Chronicle Jun 12, 1959, NB Herald-Zeitung Oct 4, 1973 — Sophienburg Museum & Archives; Daily Bulletin, Brownwood, TX Oct 21, 1911; “Flying Across the Continent” by French Strother; http://www.nationalaviation.org/; http://www.aerofiles.com/

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It’s been reported that Texas has more buried treasure than any other state. There are 229 sites within our borders with an estimated total of $348 million in unclaimed treasure.

Generations of Texans and starry-eyed treasure hunters have sought for the hidden loot of famed robbers like Sam Bass, secret Spanish gold and silver mines, or even buried Confederate gold. I’ve stumbled across a couple of treasure finds that have occurred right here in our neighborhood. Here’s a good on from long ago.

Johahn Steiner had chosen his 320 acres at the upper spring of Coyote Creek on the Guadalupe River watershed near Cibolo. One day in October 18–, while hunting turkey, he stopped to look at some unusual rock formations and noticed the entrance to a cave about six feet above the creek bed. Scrambling up to take a look, Johahn (as all good Texans do) first poked inside with a big stick. Sure enough, he heard the loud rattling sound of a coiled up rattlesnake. He killed the rattler with one well-aimed shot, then carefully reached in to obtain the rattles for a trophy (again, how Texan!). His hand fell upon a smooth rounded object. Bringing it out into the daylight, Steiner was greeted with the hollow eyes and toothy grin of a skull.

Johahn carefully crawled into the cave and found the complete mummified remains of a Native American. An assortment of arrows lay near him — stout ones with heavy stone points good for buffalo hunting and lighter arrows for use in warfare. There were also two bows, a spear, a tomahawk and “a buffalo-hide shield fringed with scalps of coal-black straight hair.” Just a little away from the body, lay a buckskin-wrapped and tied bundle. It was heavy!

Taking the bundle to the cave’s entrance, he unwrapped the buckskin and found 20 small metal bars, about 2 pounds each, with a brownish tint of dust and grime. Johahn took his knife, carefully scraped the grime off a bar and revealed shiny yellow metal — GOLD!

Steiner’s head began to swim with thoughts about what to buy. A stove? Cattle? A rocker and bed? A sombrero with silver conchos, silver spurs and a fine saddle with silver trim?

Steiner repackaged the small bars into two bundles. The next morning, he rode into San Antonio to see a dealer located near the Alamo. He gently placed the bundles on the counter. The dealer unwrapped the bars and thought for several moments.

“I’ll give you $8.” Steiner blinked, “You mean, $8000. Is it not gold?”

Without saying a word, the dealer placed a gold ring into a bowl and set it next to Steiner’s metal bars. He picked up a bottle of “saltpetresaure” (nitric acid) and dribbled the liquid over the ring and the bars. Nothing happened to the ring; Steiner’s bars began to dissolve.

“It’s bronze, a kind of brass,” explained the dealer. “The Spanish brought it in great quantities to trade with the Indians. The Indians, not knowing the difference in the metals, traded their Mexican gold rings and necklaces for the bigger bars of finely polished brass.”

Poor Mr. Steiner. But his was not the only story of gold treasure I found.

On August 24, 1964, Frank Luna was working with a water pipeline crew 10 miles south of New Braunfels. He spotted a corroded copper chest hidden under mesquite brush and called over his foreman, C. A. Ruppel. The men pulled the chest out of the bushes.

“We thought it might be a bomb,” Ruppel was reported to have said. However, the two men obviously thought it could be something much more valuable since they first agreed to split the contents 50-50 before they opened it. Cutting through the brass rod which made the lock, they forced open the chest revealing tidy stacks of gold coins under a metal grate.

The 84 golden coins on top were inscribed with “Hispan Arum Rex” and “Ludovicus 1 Dei Gra”. The Spanish coins of King Luis 1 of Spain covered stacks of 2, 436 — wait for it — brass washers with milled edges to give the illusion of stacked coins!

Luna and Ruppel contacted Sheriff Fellers who put the chest in his office at the courthouse. Folks came in the hundreds to gaze upon the mysterious treasure chest. Sheriff Fellers was reported saying that he wished, “someone would legally determine who owns it and get it out of my office!” The news went viral. Ruppel and Luna spent the afternoon smiling for photographers from TV stations and answering questions from reporters. Newspapers across the state and even one from Chicago, were asking the big question, “Are they real gold?”

Many believed that the coins were real, for hadn’t the chest been found on the El Camino Real? Surely each of the 84 coins was worth $2000 which made the whole chest worth over $1 million. By late afternoon, almost 300 “prospectors” were digging along the road near the site of the find.

Dr. William Burns came up from the Witte Museum. He examined the chest and found shiny screws. It weighed in at 122 pounds. “Too light,” he declared, “the chest an elaborate hoax.” Just in case, he tested the metal coins and found them to be brass. Still clinging to the hope of some reward, Luna and Ruppel placed the chest in Guaranty State Bank and hired themselves lawyers to keep track of each man’s claim. Two coins were reported to have been sent to the US Mint for further analysis.

A week later, the mystery of the “gold” treasure chest still made headlines. The hoax had been implemented with great skill: two dies had been engraved to make the coins and all those washers had milled edges to look like coins. Several thought that the chest must have been part of a Hollywood stunt or promotion. William Mahon, a professional gold digger from Garland, said it would have cost “$10,000 to pull off such a fantastic stunt.” He told Ruppel and Luna to get bids on the value of the chest and then call him, he was ready to buy the ‘truly worthless masterpiece of bamboozlery” for $500.

The mystery continues. After the first blush of excitement, the treasure chest hoax fades from the news. I would love to know the rest of this story, so if you can shed some light on this, please contact me at the Sophienburg Museum 830.629.1572 or post on the Sophienburg Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/sophienburg.museum/).

Sources:

• The New Braunfels Herald
• The New Braunfels Zeitung Chronicle
• The San Antonio Express-News
• The Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung Jahrbuch, Fred Oheim, Editor
• https://www.legendsofamerica.com/

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