New Braunfels forty-eighters
By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — The forty-eighters were refugees of the failed German Revolution of 1848. They were idealists. They fought to establish a liberal and unified Germany using liberty, democracy and unity as their main tenets. The designation “forty-eighter” excludes the hundreds of thousands who emigrated from 1848-1852 for mostly economic reasons. It also […]
Let’s talk chili!
By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — An English-language advertisement in the German-language Neu Braunfelser Zeitung caught my eye: Mexican Restaurant Seguin Street — New Braunfels Meals at all times during the day for 25¢ Chili con carne, frieholes, tomales, fresh oysters, hot coffee and chocolate Cruz Gonzales That might sound pretty normal to you, but this […]
Pittman’s Red & White Store
By Tara V. Kohlenberg — I always looked forward to our weekly trip to the grocery store. Although it was only a short twelve or so blocks from our house (and about the same from the Plaza), it felt like we were traveling to an exotic place with odd sights, sounds and smells. It was […]
Backroad bingo
By Tara V. Kohlenberg — After this past week’s historic Arctic storms Uri and Viola had us in winter lockdown, I jumped at the chance to go driving through the Comal countryside under the clear blue skies. It wasn’t just the sunshine and 70-degree temperatures that were so inviting. It was our history on display […]
Three bandits and a big white stripe
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 […]
Serdinko’s story
By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — Request from Fargo, North Dakota: Do you know anything about a New Braunfels photographer named J. Serdinko? “Uhhh…yeah,” I thought to myself, “but not enough to answer this request!” The Sophienburg photograph collections contain several hundred thousand images; about 300 of those are impressed with Serdinko’s name. These take the […]
“Reflections” on movie history
By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — What do New Braunfels and the 1929 Academy Award for Best Production (Picture) have in common? The answer is in Jack Kaufmann’s oral history recording for the Sophienburg Museum’s “Reflections” radio program. Jack’s father, John P. Kaufmann, Sr., owned and ran one of the early theaters or movie houses in […]
Names of places tell a cultural story
By Keva Hoffmann Boardman – I discovered something interesting the other day. In a 1954 New Braunfels Herald column called, “The Melting Pot,” the writer, Gordon Rose, discusses the names of nearby localities known by both German/Anglo and Mexican citizens. The names these two cultures chose give us insight to how people thought about things. […]
A flight to remember
Replica of the Wright Vin Fiz, 1911. Keva Hoffmann Boardman — On Saturday, October 21, 1911, James Ogletree and a buddy finished gathering pecans along the Guadalupe River near the Gruene Road bridge and walked up to his grandfather H.D. Gruene’s store. There, they heard the MKT depot manager exclaim that he had just received […]
Connecting the dots of history
By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — Remember dot-to dot coloring books? The fun of dragging your pencil around the page to connect each black dot in order to get an image to color? I find that working at the Sophienburg often entails finding and connecting dots. Recently, Wendy Zunker Coleman donated a small oil painting of […]
