By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

It used to be when you traveled, you would pick up postcards at all the locations you visited. Then you would either send them home to family and friends or keep them as a souvenir. Postcards were cheap, easy and extremely portable. The coming of the digital age has made the popularity of postcards shrink considerably. We no longer buy a card, address it, go find a post office, buy stamps and send a post card; although, in foreign countries, this process could and often did entail laughter and make memories in and of itself. Today, we use our phone to take a photo and “post” it on social media almost immediately letting friends and family in on our travels. I recently got a postcard from a friend in France that I had to pay postage on to receive — they had posted it without postage. Still, it was nice thought.

Looking through the postcard collection of the Sophienburg Museum and Archives, I began to see how today we are missing the personal nature of sending a postcard. Many cards in the collection had been chosen to either remember an event or location or to appeal to the one who received the card and message. They were little “hellos” from loved ones (like to or from a soldier in WWI), a reminder of love (to girl or boyfriends), a reassurance to parents as to one’s safety and prosperity, or an announcement of some personal benchmark (promotion, marriage or baby). I still can pick up books at home and find postcards I used as bookmarks, and I’m immediately taken back in time to remember a person or place.

These little 3 ½ by 5 ½ inch pieces of cardstock have a fairly long history. As early as the 1860s, postcards were printed by both private publishers and country postal systems. These were blank on one side for an “open” message and printed with a stamp on the other side which was also where the address was to be written. By the 1870s, the cost to send a postcard was one penny in the U.S.; that was half the amount of a letter in an envelope.

Illustrated postcards came along in the 1890s. These are mostly greyscale (black and white) line drawings, etchings or engravings of locations. Since the illustrations filled one side of the card, the other side was divided; the right half provided space for stamp and address and the left half had room for a short message. Sometimes there was a wider border on the illustration side that could be used to continue the message.

As people grew more and more mobile via first the railroads and then cars, and as they had more “free time” and spare cash, vacation travel cards became very popular. The 1890s saw an uptick in the thousands of cards printed and sold. Early photographers got into the trend and produced stunning black-and-white photographs of towns, country landscapes, ancient ruins and beaches, as well as iconic works of art and cultural rituals. The world was becoming smaller each time a postcard was, well, posted. They were also collected to place in albums as souvenirs of special holiday vacations.

Postcards from 1915 to the 1930s are mostly printed with a white border. These early color views were produced with colored ink on inexpensive cardstock. They have a white border around the image to save on ink. The illustration also usually has a caption. In the 1930s, postcards are printed on a higher quality paper with a linen-like texture and no white border. The ink colors, on both of these early 20th century postcards, are vivid and intense and sometimes unusual. The color photo postcards we are familiar with today began to show up at gas stations as souvenirs in the 1940s.

There is actually a name for postcard collectors — a deltiologist. Greek deltos (small tablet or letter) and logia (study of). This appellation was coined at Ohio State University in 1945. Prior to that, postcard enthusiasts were called philocartists, a name akin to stamp collectors, philatelists. It’s all Greek to me.

The Sophienburg Museum & Archives collects postcards because they are important in research. They depict specific times and scenes in New Braunfels history. They chronicle our cultural and social events. Postcards can be utilized to teach geography and writing skills to our children. But they are also beautiful and just plain fun.

Beginning in April, an exhibition at The Sophienburg will showcase many postcard images of New Braunfels and Comal County from the collection. I guarantee it will take you back in time in a visually stunning way.

FYI: Postcard collecting is the third largest collecting hobby, eclipsed only by stamp collecting and coin/banknote collecting.

Sources: Sophienburg postcard collection; Smithsonian Institution Archives – Postcards; The Postal Museum – Postcards.

“Around the Sophienburg” is published every other weekend in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung.

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Tourism has been an important economic facet in New Braunfels for many years. All can agree that the beauty of natural springs bubbling out of a rocky hillside to form the crystal clear Comal River, Landa Park, historic homes and businesses, music venues in century old dance halls, and the beer, sausage and Gemütlichkeit of Wurstfest are not really a difficult sell. But who started it all? Who was the very first tour guide of New Braunfels?

After a quick search through the Archives, I found that it might be a man by the name of Karl Klinger. Okay, so this might need a little background. In 1845, New Braunfels was settled by German immigrants led by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, Commissioner General of “The Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas” or Adelsverein. When the townsite was surveyed and laid out, the Prince chose a large section of land for the Adelsverein. According to the earliest town maps, the land was bordered by what is today Hill Street, Guenther Street, Cross Street and Butcher Street. A three-room log cabin with large doors was built on the crest of the small hill overlooking the settlement to serve as both the Adelsverein headquarters and guest quarters for visiting dignitaries. The building was also to be the beginning of a fortress to protect the colonists. Now, Prince Carl was already betrothed to Princess Sophia of Salm-Salm, so he did not stick around long in New Braunfels (actually only about 6 weeks). Before he left for his homeland, he dedicated the property and named the log structure “Sophienburg” (Sophia’s Fortress) in honor of his fiancée. A couple of other structures were erected on the site including a supply warehouse (or magazine) for foodstuffs and farm implements (thus the street named Magazine Avenue). After the Adelsverein went bankrupt in 1847, the whole Sophienburg Hill property was sold & divided to satisfy debts. The original headquarters building fell into disrepair, standing as a decaying memory of the Verein for over forty years until it was destroyed in a storm (that’s another story for another time).

For a good part of those forty years, the original Sophienburg building was occupied by Christian (aka Karl) Klinger as a sort of caretaker. Klinger had immigrated to Texas in 1845 as a servant of Prince Carl from the Province of Bavaria. He is listed in census records as a “joiner”, which is an antiquated term for someone who joins wooden building components like stairs, doors, and window frames. He also served during the Civil War in Captain F. Heidemeyer’s Company of Infantry, Texas State Troops, 31^st Brigade with the rank of Private. According to an 1888 New Braunfels Zeitung article, Karl Klinger lived in the “only rainproof corner” of the dilapidated old Sophienburg headquarters building until it collapsed (now that’s dedication!). So, what do you do when your historical hilltop home is blown away? What Klinger would do — build a small cabin to operate out of, keep on showing people around the site, keep telling the history of the Prince, Sophienburg Hill and stories about his time as a bugler in the Prussian Regiment of the Guards. To support himself, he sold such items as candy, soda drinks, homemade cider and postcards… the first tour guide and father of tourism in New Braunfels! Klinger was so well known that he was even included in an anonymous poem lovingly penned in German and submitted to the Zeitung in 1877:

The Sophienburg in New Braunfels

At New Braunfels on the hill
An old ruin perched;
There once dwelt the knight
Where now the Klinger lives.
He planes there all day
He tends to play the flute,
His beer is good, the cider clear
For Little money, one gets a lot.
And if you step out in front of the door,
One sees a friendly picture’
There lies the town in green adornment
Shrouded with gardens.
Prince Solms, a good knight,
Had this house built
Thirty-two years ago
To see something different.
After his much loved Lady
Did the Prince name it.
Sophienburg was its name,
So it is still known today.
There in the valley below swayed
The grasses back and forth,
Where you see the manicured farms
Was in those days, bare and desolate.
Wherever the eye turns
One sees today the fruits of Labor
What the parent’s diligence provided,
Was a blessing for their young.

Fast forward to 1928 and when S.V. Pfeuffer, along with a handful of very civic minded people, raised money during The Great Depression to acquire part of the Hill property and build a museum and library. The Museum, built on the original Hill Property, was dedicated on October 8, 1933. New Braunfels Herald accounts of the dedication reported “this was the first instance in the Southwest, at least, where a memorial has risen on the exact site where a city or town had its birth.”

Almost 84 years to the day, the Sophienburg Hill will be recognized by The Texas Historical Commission as a significant part of Texas history by awarding it an Official Texas Historical Marker. The designation honors Sophienburg Hill as an important and educational part of local history. As an added bonus, The Lindheimer Chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas will also recognize the Sophienburg Hill as an Historic Site of the Republic of Texas.

A ceremony to commemorate these two events will be held on Tuesday, October 10, 2017 at 401 W. Coll at 5:15 pm. The Comal County Historical Commission invites the public to share in and witness this exciting dedication of the historical Sophienburg Hill.

Sources:

• Neu Braunfelser Zeitung
• New Braunfels Herald
• The First Founders, by Everett A. Fey
• THC application for site status

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Have you ever watched animals communicate with each other? No words, just bark, growl and whine. They get their point across. If they didn’t, they would have invented words. That’s what humans did. Some still bark, growl, and whine, but these sounds are usually accompanied by words.

Early human communication consisted of a system called “tell-a-woman”. Now, don’t get mad at me, ladies, because there was also “tell-a-man” and by the number of saloons in early New Braunfels, I’m guessing that men won out. This ancient form of communication was around long before the telegraph, telephone and tell-a-SKYPE, where you see the person anywhere in the world.

Depending on where you lived and who you associated with, different languages developed. Time went on and there was a need to communicate with people far away.

Someone (or two) developed a system of communicating from hill to hill. Smoke signals. It was too far to yell or growl from one place to another. The English developed the semaphore, a signaling device using flags or lights. On top of the hill was built a contraption with shutters where men could flash signals from one tower to another tower. A message could be relayed as far as 85 miles. This system was obsolete by the middle of the 19^th century with the invention of the telegraph. Several systems were invented before the invention of the telegraph.

Samuel F.B. Morse is given most of the credit for inventing the telegraph. This may not be entirely true but Morse did prove that signals could be transmitted by wire. Several inventions led up to the invention of the electric telegraph all over the world. The Morse Code, a series of dots and dashes, was used. Western Union built its first transcontinental line in 1861 following the railroad tracks.

Morse received funds from Congress to install a line between Washington D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland. His idea was to bury wires. This idea failed so he had the idea to hang wires from trees and this also failed. Finally he had the idea to hang the wires from poles. In 1844 Morse stationed himself in the Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol in Washington D.C. He sent the famous message “What hath God wrought” to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore. Vail got the message.

By 1846 a new business, the Associated Press, took full advantage of the telegraph to send messages to newspaper offices. What a boom for rapid communication! The national election results of 1848 were sent via wire to newspapers for the first time.

Abraham Lincoln’s State of the Union address was transmitted over telegraph wires to all “loyal states”. Obviously Confederates didn’t get the speech. Lincoln was supposedly fascinated by the technology of the telegraph and would spend hours, even overnight, in the War Department building, keeping track of what was going on during the Civil War. Messages were easily sent to newspapers across the United States but it seemed impossible to send a message by wire to Europe.

An American businessman named Cyrus Field organized a new company called the New York Newfoundland and London Telegraph Co. Field began laying 2,500 miles of cable from Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula. After several failed attempts of the use of the wire, Queen Victoria in England successfully sent a letter of congratulations to newly elected president, James Buchanan, on the advent of his election.

By the end of the 19^th century, most of the world was connected by the telegraph.

What was happening in New Braunfels as far as communication? When the emigrants first came to the Republic of Texas, the fastest and slowest form of communication was by mail. It took about three months for letters to arrive from Germany on a ship and then had to be transported overland.

Letters and penny postcards were delivered to stations by stagecoach. The stagecoach stopped at the Schmitz Hotel located on Main Plaza. Throughout the Civil War (ending in 1865), news about the war reached New Braunfels by stagecoach. Then there was the Pony Express. In 1880 the International and Great Northern Railroad came to New Braunfels and mail was sent by rail.

At a special meeting of the NB City Council on May 12, 1865, the mayor gave permission to the Western Union to fix the places for posts with the agent in such a manner that the free passage and use of the streets of the city would not be obstructed. The operator that worked the telegraph had to learn Morse Code. When the message arrived over the wire, it was written down and then hand-delivered to the person it was meant for. In1871 the telegraph office moved from the Schmitz Hotel to August Schmitz’s home on 267 Mill St. It is confusing, but unknown, the relationship of August to Schmitz Hotel owner Jacob Schmitz. In 1876 Charles Schmitz took his father’s place as telegraph operator at the Mill St. home. In 1879 the telegraph office was moved back to the hotel and then moved to the train depot in 1887.

Eventually the telegraph and telephone offices merged. City Council passed an ordinance Dec. 10,1895, granting Southwestern Telephone and Telegraph permission to erect and maintain on the streets, alleys and public ways, poles, fixtures and wires necessary to supply NB citizens with communication by telephone.

The house at 267 E. Mill St. still stands today at the same address where August Schmitz once operated the early telegraph office. The land on which this house sits was originally conveyed to Francis Gilbeau by the German Emigration Company in 1847. The third owner was August Schmitz, the telegraph operator. Until recently the property belonged to the Fuhrmann-Ludwig family and last year the property was bought by Danny and Anna Lisa Tamez. The building actually has two complete rental units. The fachwerk walls are still standing, as are the original floors. The story is that the bricks that line the walls were put together with mud and water from the Comal River a block away. They also bought the Ludwig house directly behind the E. Mill St. property facing E. Bridge St. which they have also restored.

The early home housing the telegraph office and the Ludwig house on Bridge St. downtown have been restored for vacationers to be able to enjoy a little bit of the past in the present. Danny and Anna Lisa Tamez also own the Gruene Estate on Rock Street. This 15-acre B&B was built in 1857 and is the original homestead of Ernst and Antoinette Gruene.

Since change is inevitable, what changes will take place in communication in the future? Will we be communicating only mentally as science fiction suggests?

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