When I think of Botanists in New Braunfels, I immediately think of Ferdinand Lindheimer. Lindheimer was given property on the Comal for his botanical garden. No doubt his accomplishments were many, but there were others in the field who contributed much to the beauty of our town. One in particular helped make NB the “garden spot” of Texas and that was Otto Martin Locke, Jr. He was a third generation New Braunfelser and a third generation horticulturist. He died in 1994 so some of you may remember him.

Here’s his family story:

Johann Joseph Locke, hailing from Prussia, arrived in NB in 1852 and in four years bought two 10- acre plots of land on the Comal Creek, what is now Town Creek and running to the Landa Street area. It eventually also covered the area from the RR tracks to the hill. Seeing a need for ornamental trees, as well as fruit-bearing trees, he put his knowledge of horticulture to use and began the first nursery in New Braunfels.

For 30 years the business thrived and then was taken over by Johann’s oldest son, Otto Martin Locke, Sr., who named the nursery “Comal Springs Nursery”. He was responsible for developing and producing fruit and pecan trees, vegetables and ornamental shrubs. Large orders were shipped by train. One order of 50,000 peach trees was sent to Mexico.

Many pecan trees around town were grown and grafted by Locke. I grew up knowing that the 10 pecan trees in our yard, the soft-shelled Daisey Pecan, were developed by Locke.

In 1906 Locke planted 50 to 60 thousand roses and developed the Bonita Arbor Vitae, which is a variety of evergreens. Other plants developed by him were Heidemeyer apple, Strington apple, Ferguson fig, Comal cling peaches, Dixie peach, November peach, Daisey pecan, Fall City tomato, Germania rose, Locke’s pride pear, Perfection pear, Old-favorite pomegranate, McCarthy plum, and Guadalupe dewberry. Locke was granted the first state permit for irrigating using state waters (Comal Creek).

The Otto Lockes trained their four boys in the nursery business in NB, Poteet, and San Antonio. The boys were Emil, Herman, Walter and Otto, Jr. It was this youngest boy who made the biggest impact on the whole town of New Braunfels.

Otto Martin Locke, Jr. and his wife, Etelka Rose Locke, acquired property between W. San Antonio St. and Hwy 81 S. in 1928, after the death of his father. They began the Otto Martin Locke Nursery that they operated until Otto’s death in 1994. At the time that Otto and Etelka moved to their new property, Herman and Thekla Locke and their son Howard, formed the Locke Nursery and Floral on part of the old property in the area of present streets: Lockner (Locke Nursery),Howard (Howard Locke),and Floral (obvious).

When Otto and Etelka Locke bought the property on W. San Antonio, it was a cotton field. Etelka was famous for her gardens, once planting 5,000 tulip bulbs in the 1940’s. (For pictures of theses tulips, log on to Sophienburg.com and click on column). She planted the garden around the Lindheimer House on Comal Ave. and the McKenna Memorial Hospital. Otto planted a chestnut oak for the Arbor Day ceremony at the Landa Park office. They used no pesticides on their ten acres, using only chameleons, lizards and snakes to eat the bugs.

Otto Locke’s love of animals as a child grew into a business. He became famous nationally and internationally as a major importer and exporter of exotic native animals and birds for zoos around the world. Inquiries came for birds, snakes, and armadillos. He traded his stock for monkeys, exotic snakes, lion cubs, alligators, crocodiles and even kangaroos. Animals were shipped to many countries and continents- England, Mexico, Germany, Singapore, Australia, Africa, Calcutta, and India. He supplied many snakes for Hollywood. Locke Nursery provided the closest thing to a zoo that New Braunfels had, for these animals were all on display. Children’s trips to the nursery were a real treat.

Looking toward the old nursery from I.H. 35 S., you see the remnants of the old sign, “Locke Nursery”, and thousands of overgrown trees, helping us remember a thriving business for 138 years. But…

“We’ll never smile at a crocodile again”.

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Oh. This. Car.

The circa 1930 photo of Locke’s Nursery & Floral Co. parade entry is fantastic, isn’t it? It was taken in front of one of the Locke greenhouses at 298 West Landa Street. The entire car has been draped with what looks like shiny (green?) colored fabric so that real flowers, vines, ivy, moss and ferns could be pinned or even sewn on. The hub caps are stuffed with fringed fabric. A large parrot is perched on each of the front corners of the roof. Decorative cords extend from the hood ornament all the way over the roof. Wait a minute — is that the FTD Mercury logo on the hood?

It was August 18, 1910. Thirteen florists met at the Society of American Florists convention in Rochester, New York, and formed the country’s first flowers-by-wire service. The new group, Florists’ Telegraph Delivery Association (FTD) would use the telegraph system to partner flower shops. The idea was the brainchild of John Valentine who had the idea of expanding the floral industry by offering customers a way to send fresh flowers anywhere in the United States.

Valentine was already using the telegraph system to get orders from out-of-state florists. He would cut, arrange and pack the flower order, then send it by train in an ice (refrigerated) car to its destination. He guaranteed his fresh flowers in an incredible three- to five-day delivery time! By networking the FTD members via telegraph though a central clearing house, florists around the country could fill orders for clients in just hours. Valentine even came up with the slogan: “Say It With Flowers.”

In 1912, FTD introduced their logo — Mercury Man — a symbol still in use today. This same symbol graced the hood of the Locke’s Nursery parade car.

I got to wondering just when New Braunfelsers were able to participate in this flower-by-wire technology. How fantastic it must have been to be able to “Say It With Flowers” to friends and relatives seldom seen. A dig into the newspapers revealed that two local floral companies were members of FTD as early as 1926: Locke’s Nursery & Floral Co. and Linnartz Floral Co. In a time when women often grew their own flowers for gifts and decor, these two businesses appear to be the first to venture into the floral industry.

Locke’s Nursery was begun by Johahn Joseph Locke in 1856, on Comal Creek (Town Creek development and Landa Street). In the 1870s, the business was taken over by his eldest son, Otto Martin Locke Sr., and was renamed Comal Springs Nursery. In 1928, his sons, Herman and Otto Jr., split the business: Otto and wife Etelka opened Locke’s Nursery on property between W. San Antonio Street and Highway 81 South; Herman and wife Thekla (along with their son Howard) formed Locke Nursery and Floral Co. at the old property in the area of Lockner (Locke Nursery), Floral and Howard (Howard Locke) streets. According to newspaper adverts, Thekla ran the floral company part of the business.

Linnartz Floral Co. was located at 876 and 882 W. San Antonio St. Curt Linnartz had built a grocery store on the property around 1920 (today that’s the William Edge Salon across from the Children’s Museum). He added a 14×15-foot building next to his store to accommodate his wife Paula’s flower shop a few years later. The shop was expanded to include a glassed-in greenhouse for growing flowers and plants year round in the mid-1920s. Linnartz Floral Co. got its own phone line in 1926. Upon retiring in the mid-1940s, Curt and Paula sold both the grocery store and the floral company building to Erno Weyel. Some of us remember Weyel’s Foodliner.

These two seem to have been the main town florists and the only ones regularly advertising in the newspaper and phone books throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Both Locke and Linnartz participated in several FTD-sponsored National Flower Shut-In Day events. This was a nationwide noncommercial project that utilized over 5,500 florists together with local garden clubs and other organizations to distribute bouquets and potted plants to hospital patients, disabled veterans, handicapped children and other shut-ins. Its objective was to make a large part of the shut-in population “happy with the gift of flowers.”

It didn’t take long for other townsfolk to get into the flower biz. A quick scan through old phone books, city directories and newspaper adverts revealed a growing number of florists and nurserymen springing-up all over town.

• 1928 — A. W. Steinbring Nursery, Wald Road
• 1937 — New Braunfels Nursery and Floral Co., 288 W. Landa St.
• 1945 — Weidner’s Flowers, 1153 Lee St., FTD member
• 1947 – Viola’s Flowers, 822 W. San Antonio St., FTD member
• 1950 — Salvador Gonzales Nursery, Highway 81 West. FYI: When Landa Park Manager Harley Schulz had the giant elephant ears thinned out each year, Gonzales would trade shrubbery and plants for the elephant ear bulbs! He would sell the bulbs and plants to his customers.
• 1952 — Eduardo Sanchez Nursery, 1614 W. San Antonio St.; Kiesewetter Gardens, 224 Landa St.; Kneupper Flower Shop, 287 W. San Antonio St.

The floral industry in New Braunfels exploded in the 1950s due to an increase in population and in expendable finances.

Even in my lifetime, women who grew and cut flowers from their own yards began ordering flowers to give to friends or use for church and event decoration.

Today, there are about a dozen florists and half a dozen nurseries in NB, and that is without counting lumber companies and grocery stores. We can still “Say It With Flowers” and I, for one, am happy about that!

Sources:

• New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung — Sophienburg collection
• New Braunfels telephone directories and city directories — Sophienburg collection
• Curt Linnartz recording — Sophienburg “Reflections” oral history program
• “Locke nurseries business of the past” — Around the Sophienburg, newspaper article August 26, 2012

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