PHOTO CAPTION: The first post office in New Braunfels, the home, hotel, and saloon of Arnold-Henkel von Donnersmark, 1847.

Postmarks tell interesting history

By Myra Lee Adams Goff — A young German count, Arnold-Henkel von Donnersmark, came to the New Braunfels settlement in 1845 with Prince Carl. He built a large frame building where he lived and conducted his hotel and saloon business. In less than a year he had accumulated several thousand

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Photo Caption: Records in the Sophienburg Museum and Archives used in researching Pablo Diaz.

The Pablo Diaz story

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman – Sometimes a little tidbit of information sets me off on a bunny trail. I took one of those trails recently after finding and reading a 1975 letter from Oscar Haas to Mrs. Gregorio Coronado here in New Braunfels. Haas was drawing her attention to the

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The museum’s Mormon mystery

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman – I just finished an exhibit on the Waissenhaus or Orphan’s Home. Organized in 1848 near Gruene, it was the first orphanage in Texas. I perused the Sophienburg’s collections to find original artifacts to use in the exhibit, and knew that of two large dough troughs,

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James Ferguson, early pioneer from Scotland

By Myra Lee Adams Goff If you believe that all of the earliest settlers of New Braunfels were of German descent, then you will be surprised to learn how many European natives were represented. One of those Ausländers (a person not originally from New Braunfels with a German heritage) was

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