By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

After months of media hoopla over presidential candidates and elections results, I thought it might be nice to share a fun old news story. As often happens, I found a photo. It was of three men and a shot-up old car. What? The search for answers was on.

I pulled the original Seidel negative records and found my first clues. Scratched in pencil were three names: Ed Schleyer, C. Marion, A. Knetsch, and the words “3 bandits”. I knew that Knetsch had been the Sheriff around these parts back in the 30s, and that Schleyer was a deputy and C. Marion had been Comal County Jailor. I headed straight for the newspaper microfilm collection. If you don’t know about this resource, you need to come by and check it out. Nestled among the more than 200 boxes of microfilm reels I located roll 20 of the Neu Braunfelser Zeitung and roll 11 of the New Braunfels Herald; these rolls included the January 1933 editions that should tell me the story.

You would think that I would start with the English edition of the Herald, but as it turned out I put the German Zeitung in the reader first. My technique for reading the German language is to scan for key words — in this case, the names of the three men and the words drei and auto — this pretty much works for me every time. By the 1930s, the Zeitung is carrying “front page” news like most newspapers as well as the Locales (local news) section. I always try these pages first and sure enough, there in column one of page one under Texanisches (Texas news) I found an article taken from the Austin Wochenblatt which recounted a robbery. Here is the translation.

Long before daybreak, three men barged into the room of Julian Rankins apartment in Austin, shackled him with strips of his bedsheet and robbed him of $350 in cash and a valuable diamond ring. After the men left, he made his way over to the window and pulled the tassels of the curtain cord with his teeth. With the drapes opened, he saw the bandits get into a car which had a “big white stripe” on the back. Mr. Rankins freed himself, called the police, and then took off after them in his own car.

When he arrived in New Braunfels and came to the square, he ran into Sheriff Knetsch who smiled and informed him that he already had Mr. Rankins money, ring AND the bandits. As soon as Knetsch had received word of the robbery he and his assistants were on the highway to Austin. A car with a “big white stripe” sped past them. They turned and gave chase through New Braunfels and proceeded southwest to Seguin. They followed it, and one of the flying bullets hit the gas tank and another one perforated the hip of Joe Hobrecht from San Antonio He and his cronies surrendered.

Well, as exciting as this German account of the robbery was, I wondered if the English Herald had picked up the story. Putting the next reel of microfilm in the reader I was pleasantly surprised to find the story also on the front page — this time, it included my bullet-ridden car photo! The Herald, not quite as stoic in its recounting of the story (not surprising), concentrated on the previous records of the felons and the thrilling apprehension of them by Sheriff Knetsch. Just listen to this wonderful example of journalistic fervor.

“…after a spectacular running gun battle early Friday…the officers, Sheriff Knetsch, Schleyer and Marion had chased them about six miles. The chase started when the officers attempted to stop the three men about three miles north of New Braunfels on the Austin highway … after following the men at a mile-a-minute clip through Milltown and out on the Seguin highway almost to the Guadalupe County line with bullets from the pursued men’s revolvers whizzing by the officers at various intervals, the chase came to an abrupt end after the bandits’ car had been riddled with buckshot and rifle bullets and the gas tank perforated. About $350 in cash taken from the victim, Julius Rankins, was recovered together with several valuable diamonds amounting to about $2000.”

Sounds like a scene right out of a vintage gangster film, right? I can so see the robbers hanging out of the roll-down windows, revolvers in hand, bullets flying through the space between the two speeding vehicles. The lawmen, wielding

a rifle and shotguns, spraying the car in front of them with lead. Then, the hit in the gas tank and the bad guy’s car swerving and skidding to a stop in a ditch at the roadside. Talk about an adrenaline rush!

Thank you, New Braunfels Herald, for describing the scene in such vivid detail. Now, my random photo makes sense. If you look closely, you will find our three heroes, Sheriff August Knetsch, Deputy Ed Schleyer and Jailor Charles Marion, standing beside the bullet-ridden gangster car — with a long scratch above the back bumper. Yes, people, there it is — the “big white stripe” that solved the case!

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives: Neu Braunfelser Zeitung and New Braunfels Herald newspaper collections; Seidel negative collection (S331-016)

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Well before the Civil War, circus troupes had made their way to Texas. The earliest mention of a circus in our local newspaper was on Jan. 7, 1859. My interest in the NB circus scene began with an early 1900s photograph featuring a circus parade of camels on Seguin Street. A quick search led to three other photos of camels and elephants marching around Main Plaza in 1932. My curiosity was piqued.

I clearly remember going to the circus as a child. It was magical, scary, exciting and wild. I had seen “lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” on trips to the San Antonio Zoo. We even got to ride the elephants back then. But at the circus, the animals were not all in cages and they were interacting with people. The color, glitter and lights of “The Big Show” mesmerized me.

I cannot imagine what Circus Day was like for a child in the 1860s. Back in an age when travel consisted of going in to town or to the county seat, the circus would be so much more than entertainment. It would have been a travelling world of wonders and marvel — a magical world populated by creatures and people from storybooks. The newspaper advertisements alone conjured up images of exotic places and animals. They were filled with detailed descriptions and woodcuts of the most amazing acts and performers.

Those advertisements still illicit a reaction today. When I had two Sophienburg volunteers, Dennis Schwab and Rose Emich, translate the NB Zeitung German print, we still reacted with, “What!” “Oh my goodness!” “Really?” and “Can you imagine?” These outbursts were followed by laughter as the flowery prose of the early circus “advance men” was turned into English.

The first circus to make the Zeitung was Maybie’s Menagerie & Circus in 1859. The troupe—which included 30 people, 80 horses, two elephants, one camel, five lions, and numerous smaller animals and birds—paraded through town in brightly painted wagons and costumes of rainbow-colored satins. The sight, smell and sound alone would have been spectacular. It gets better. The elephants drank water from the Comal River!

After 1865, more and more circuses found their way to New Braunfels. The Stone, Roston & Murray Circus had organized and traveled for 5 years in England, Germany, France and Spain before coming to the United States. Their full one-column advertisement featured woodcuts of circus wagons, daring trick-riders and amazing performing dogs. (We get the phrase, “dog and pony show” from these early circuses.) The advert goes on to say that special seating — secured by delegated men — would be available to women accompanied by a gentleman. Personally, I don’t get the need for such an upgrade, but apparently the 1860s women did.

A small, but well-attended Mexican circus was reported in July 1869. It featured balancing acts and feats of strength. What was interesting was the breakdown of performer ethnicity: Mexicans, Spaniards, Americans, one German and one Chinese juggler. Apparently, this circus was politically correct way before its time.

Several circuses came through around Christmas time. The Hight & Chambers Circus & Menagerie was in town for Weihnachts Feiertag (Dec 26^th or Boxing Day). Woodcuts of lions and elephants accompany the list of performers: 10 trick riders, 11 acrobats and wire walkers and 20 musicians and minstrels. The menagerie had a 500 lb. baby elephant, polar bear, Bengal tiger, monkeys, meerkats and baboons.

In the 1870s, the shows got bigger — the word “mammoth” was often used in the descriptions. The Crescent City Texas Circus was first owned by H. M. Smith and then NOLA-born Charles Noyes. Each, in turn, set the Big Top up in NB. Smith brought 33 performers, 24 trained horses, two American and one German clown, and a band so good that “they didn’t want to sound like they were bragging, but.” They not only gave a discount to large families, but they also advertised positions for two new brass musicians. There is no report of any young New Braunfelsers running away to the circus…but who knows?

The Noyes-owned version came with Jenny Lind the Elephant, white 2-humped camels, dromedaries, lions, leopards, tigers, hyenas, kangaroos, Japanese pigs, llamas, African deer, Nile zebras, bears, sacred cows, Dutch ostriches, white peacocks, Brazilian parrots, silver pheasants, cockatiels, African grey parrots, anteaters, badgers, monkeys, baboons and over 100 “colored and feathered” birds. The menagerie part of the circus had become a veritable traveling zoo.

There were many, many more “big shows” mentioned in the Zeitung throughout the end of the 19^th Century and into the 20^th Century. But the advertisement of the Cole Circus in December 1872 blew us all away. It promised a mile-long parade of 300 men and horses, 350 wild and trained animals, birds, snakes, and other curiosities that cost $1,600 a day to maintain. There would be 20 decorated golden cages full of animals “worth seeing,” the only genuine hippopotamus in the country, a herd of camels, Bengal tigers, leopards, lions, hyenas, capybaras, a horned horse (A UNICORN!), tapirs and monkeys. And if that didn’t whet the appetite of even the most jaded circus attendee, there was also a 20 ton, 26-foot long, 18-foot diameter black whale on an enormous horse-drawn wagon! I looked it up. Circuses actually embalmed whales and took them on the road. It doesn’t end here. This two tent, gas-lit show could accommodate 5,000 people, and included a wax museum with notables such as Sleeping Beauty, Prince Alexis of Russia and Col. James Fish. One ticket bought it all.

Truly, this was pretty close to being “The Greatest Show on Earth.”

Sources:

• Sophienburg photo collection
• Neu Braunfelser Zeitung
• History of New Braunfels and Comal County, Haas, Oscar
• www.circushistory.org

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In the early days, when Seguin Ave. was considered the main street in New Braunfels, the first houses and businesses were constructed there. Possibly Seguin Ave. was so named because most people entered the town from guess where? Seguin. When the settlers first crossed the Guadalupe River in 1845, they traveled from Nacogdoches Road to Seguin Ave. and then on to the location where they would camp above the Comal Creek. Hermann Seele wrote about coming to the town on Seguin Ave. Early traveler and historian Friedrich Olmstead, commented that he found Seguin Ave. in New Braunfels three times wider than Broadway in New York.

Nicholas Zink, surveyor and engineer for the Adelsverein, set up our Main Plaza, and intersected it with Seguin Ave. and San Antonio St. By May of that first year of settlement in 1845, Zink had plotted the town lots and a drawing was held for each lot.
Let’s look at one of the old homes built on Seguin Ave. in 1870 or maybe as early as 1866. The house which still stands is located at 228 S. Seguin Ave. on lot #56 between the Faust Hotel and the Taco el Tapatio. This house has been the home or office of some very influential people and the house itself has received some very prestigious designations. In 1968 the Texas State Historical Survey Committee awarded a marker to this building. In 1999, it became a New Braunfels Historic Landmark and in the year 2000 the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The person responsible for having the house constructed was Carl Wilhelm August Groos, born in Prussia, Germany in 1830. He immigrated to Texas with his brothers and sisters and his widowed father in 1848. His two brothers, Friedrich and Gustav, became very important in his life. For two years Carl lived in Fayette County and then moved to Gillespie County where he lived with relatives.

In 1854 Carl joined his brothers Gustav and Friedrich in Eagle Pass. Brother, Friedrich had secured a contract in 1849 with the United States Government to send freight into Eagle Pass. He formed the F. Groos and Company.

During the Civil War in 1862 Carl was arrested by Confederate authorities and taken to San Antonio. A letter that had been addressed to him was found on the body of a Mexican killed near the border of Texas and Mexico. Carl was eventually released and returned to Eagle Pass. He then moved to Matamoros where the Groos Company had a branch office. The firm weathered the Civil War by freighting cotton to Mexico.

After the war, Carl moved to San Antonio where the F. Groos and Company was relocated. In 1870, Carl married Hulda Amalia Moreau. She was the daughter of Franz Moreau, who was a cotton broker in New Braunfels and a German consul. Shortly after their marriage, Carl had a home built on Seguin Ave. Family history notes that it was a wedding gift to Carl and Hulda. Hulda’s father, Franz Moreau lived at 190 S. Seguin Ave. His home was built in 1854 and is still standing and serves as an office complex. Between the Groos home and the Moreau home was a store that became known as Moreau and Groos. After the Civil War, the economy in New Braunfels was suffering but business was booming in San Antonio. In 1872, Carl and Hulda moved to San Antonio but kept the home at 228 S. Seguin Ave. for summer visits until 1879.

The history of the property goes like this: The first immigrant to draw lot #56 was George Kirchner. If Kirchner built some sort of house on that lot, it wouldn’t be surprising, because he could easily go to the German Protestant Church, where he was a member. Kirchner died very soon in 1846 and the administrator of Kirchner’s estate conveyed the lot to Jacob Winkler for $60. In 1857, Winkler sold the lot to August Forke who sold it in 1866 to Charles Bender and four years later it was sold to Carl Groos, the subject of this information.

When Carl bought lot # 56 on Seguin Avenue he also bought lot #72 directly behind this lot on Castell Ave. It is believed that he had the house built on lot # 56 in 1870. The adobe brick L shaped, Gothic Colonial house with its cypress floors was beautifully crafted. The front door contains ruby glass and the cement frame windows are of original rolled glass. In 1879 the house was sold to Groos’ sister, Emilie and her husband Johann Friedrick Giesecke, Mayor of New Braunfels. After that, Giesecke sold the house to Fritz Scholl who owned it until 1946, when it was purchased by Arlon and Faye Krueger. After Arlon Krueger’s death, the house ownership remained in the family and became home of the New Braunfels Art Center and then the business office of Ambassador Robert Krueger.

Here is more of the story that resulted in the transformation of F. Groos and Company to the Groos National Bank. Carl’s brother Friedrich, a graduate engineer and architect, had a United States Government contract which he procured in 1849 for sending freight into Eagle Pass. The freighting business was successful despite the danger operating in Indian Territory. Branch businesses were located in New Braunfels, San Antonio, and Matamoros, Mexico. Carl and Gustav joined Friedrich in a mercantile company in 1854. It was called F. Groos and Co. A primitive form of banking was necessary for the operation of a frontier store. Saved money was hidden in boxes, cotton bales, axels of wheels or just about any hiding place. This resulted in the brothers forming the Groos National Bank of San Antonio. This bank became a very successful financial institution in San Antonio. The banking business prospered so well that the freighting was discontinued. Carl became the first president of the firm and in 1879 built the first building in San Antonio devoted exclusively to banking at the corner of Commerce and Navarro.

What happened to the original builder of the house on Seguin Ave.? After Carl and his brothers became founding members of the Groos National Bank, Carl built a beautiful home in 1880 at 335 King William Street in the King William Historic District in San Antonio. He hired famous architect, Alfred Giles, to design the San Antonio home. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The house was eventually purchased by the San Antonio Council of the Girl Scouts of the USA who sold it to Charles Butt, founder of the grocery chain.

The King William Historic District, the state’s first historic district, was created in the late 1800s on the south bank of the San Antonio River. Prominent German merchants brought with them a distinct architectural style and created an elegant residential area of 25 blocks. For a real treat, log on to the King William Historic District and view these magnificent homes.

Carl Groos died in 1893 and is interred in San Antonio City Cemetery #1. His first home still remains on Seguin Ave. in New Braunfels, Texas.

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