Pittman’s Red & White Store

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 […]

‘Bout birthin’ babies

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman – Tokology. When you read that word, what do you think of? When I came across an old book in the Sophienburg’s collections with this title I was intrigued. If you are like me, you may have thought this book was about “the study of toking” or “a how-to book on […]

Backroad bingo

By Tara V. Kohlenberg — After this past week’s historic Arctic storms Uri and Viola had us in winter lockdown, I jumped at the chance to go driving through the Comal countryside under the clear blue skies. It wasn’t just the sunshine and 70-degree temperatures that were so inviting. It was our history on display […]

Serdinko’s story

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — Request from Fargo, North Dakota: Do you know anything about a New Braunfels photographer named J. Serdinko? “Uhhh…yeah,” I thought to myself, “but not enough to answer this request!” The Sophienburg photograph collections contain several hundred thousand images; about 300 of those are impressed with Serdinko’s name. These take the […]

Waters of Cypress Bend Park

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — It was a sweltering hot, end-of-summer, August Sunday in 1894, just perfect for a picnic by the river. Marie and Hugo Kramer gathered up their three children and joined Marie’s siblings, Georg and Lydia Hartman, and their in-laws Wilhelm and Walli Hartmann with their two children. Mrs. Williams and her […]

What do you call that street?

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 […]

“Reflections” on movie history

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — What do New Braunfels and the 1929 Academy Award for Best Production (Picture) have in common? The answer is in Jack Kaufmann’s oral history recording for the Sophienburg Museum’s “Reflections” radio program. Jack’s father, John P. Kaufmann, Sr., owned and ran one of the early theaters or movie houses in […]

Names of places tell a cultural story

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman – I discovered something interesting the other day. In a 1954 New Braunfels Herald column called, “The Melting Pot,” the writer, Gordon Rose, discusses the names of nearby localities known by both German/Anglo and Mexican citizens. The names these two cultures chose give us insight to how people thought about things. […]

A flight to remember

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 […]

Die Neunköder and the castor bean

Keva Hoffmann Boardman — When nine young men from Frankfort emigrated to Texas in 1849, they were given the nickname of “Die Neunköder” or “the Nine Lures” or “the Niners.” One of them, George Weber, described the group of adventurers: “Taking a sailship at Antwerpen, we finally landed at Indianola after a 57-days voyage…after a […]