New Braunfels treasures — social, fraternal and otherwise
By Tara V. Kohlenberg — Reaching a certain age and lifespan in New Braunfels entitles me, and others like me, to call buildings/places by other names and not sound crazy. It is like a secret code. We can use the “old” name when referring to a current building, and not many will know what we […]
New Braunfels has seen several daring jailbreaks
By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — I recently found a note in Oscar Haas’s archive collection, “Zeitung, Thursday, July 6, 1899. Use story some time concerning a jailbreak.” He never published the story. I felt like he was “speaking from the grave” and I should look into it. The first purpose-built Comal County Jail was a […]
Rancho Comal at Spring Branch
By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — A Princely Estate — We learn that Maj Leland of New York, has settled among us, having purchased the Comal Ranch of Col. Sparks, fronting the Guadalupe River 9 miles, and laying 22 miles west of New Braunfels … all one body of some ten thousand acres with improvements thereon, […]
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 […]
Snake tales
Keva Hoffmann Boardman — Texas is the perfect environment for many creatures. One of them is snakes, and here in central Texas we have poisonous ones: copperheads, coral snakes, cottonmouths (water moccasins) and rattlesnakes. Early Comal Countians were very familiar with our slithering neighbors. The NB Zeitung records many encounters by citizens all around the […]
