By Myra Lee Adams Goff —

Prince Carl in the diary of his sojourn to Texas writes about sleeping on the ground, using a pistol case as a pillow. Even before the emigrants arrived, he feared an Indian attack. He recalled a patriotic drinking song called “Deutschland Hoch.” Rewriting his own words to this song, he envisioned the German emigrants heroically defeating the Indians. This never happened.

When the emigrants arrived in New Braunfels they were led to an area on the Comal Creek bluff (location of Sts. Peter and Paul Church). Here the Prince had a trench dug facing the prairie and cannon and gabions were set up to protect the emigrants from Indian attack. Twenty-two young men were chosen to guard and help secure the area.

Hermann Seele believed that the Indians were never a serious threat, but more of a nuisance. Soon the Indians were mingling freely within the settlement. This from Seele: “I saw the Prince light a cigar for one of the Indian women. He did this as graciously as if he were presenting a rose to a princess.”

Who were these Indian tribes in the New Braunfels area? They were the Tonkawa, the Lipan, the Waco, and occasionally the Karankawa, Kickapoo, Coahuiltican, and Comanche. By far the most prevalent in the area was the Tonkawa.

The Tonkawa was a nomadic tribe of hunters and gatherers. Evidence of their presence can be traced back 11,000 years. They possessed great athletic prowess, walking great distances, running with great speed, and enduring hunger for long periods of time. Their shelter was of small conical framework poles covered with branches, brush, and hairless horsehides. Their food consisted of deer and all the wildlife still in our area, but they seemed to prefer decayed meat. A story that took place at the Weisenhaus (orphanage) was one in which the Ervendbergs prepared a meal for the Indians, which they devoured. Immediately afterwards they went down to a field where they devoured a semi-decomposed carcass of a horse.

The Tonkawas decorated their bodies with tattoos and paintings. At the museum we have small “paint pots” consisting of rocks with indentations in which paints made of red cinnabar and yellow sandstone and mixed with animal fat were concocted.

Tonkawas practiced “ritual cannibalism”, which means that they engaged in eating the bodies of their enemies in order to get strength from their flesh. Hermann Seele encountered one such cannibalistic orgy on his trek to New Braunfels where they had fried and boiled flesh of one of the Tonkowa enemies — a Waco warrior.

The only tragic Indian incident relating to the settlers occurred when two of Prince Carl’s soldiers were returning from a scouting trip to Austin and were attacked, killed and scalped.

In later years when changes were made to the surface of the land (roads, utilities), artifacts began emerging. Albert Nowotny, a local amateur archeologist, in 1929 made several artifact collections and removed eight aboriginal burials unearthed when sewers and power lines were installed. Nowotny owned a restaurant (Teen Connection building) called The House That Jack Built and his collection was on display there. The Sophienburg has quite a few collections of flint tips and arrowheads, including Oscar Haas’s, in the museum.

Several archeological surveys have been made in the Comal Springs area including Landa Park and the area west of Fredericksburg Road. Beginning at the base of the Balcones Escarpment, traveling south on Fredericksburg Road, then west on Landa Street, and then north on Parkview, this 50-acre tract was originally owned by George Klappenbach whose home still stands at the edge of the escarpment (now owned by Tim and Lizabeth Barker).

The beautiful springs and the accessibility of water made the Comal Springs area a natural for Indian gatherings and so do we today gather at the same spot. Wonder what artifacts will be found there eons from now!

This story originally appeared in the Herald-Zeitung on April 29, 2008.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives; Around the Sophienburg by Myra Lee Goff.

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By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

I have heard some murmurings in town lately about a place called The House that Jack Built. As often happens at the Sophienburg, I had already done some research into this business. Let me share some facts and a couple stories that I discovered along the journey.

In February of 1927, Albert Nowotny began working on improving his cold drink/confectioners stand located at 1413 West San Antonio Street. Over the next couple of years, he enlarged the nice wood-framed confectionary to accommodate his collection of Native American artifacts as a little museum. Behind that, he constructed a tourist camp which included little cottages facing a central court and a modern bath house and restroom for tourists to use. A tourist court was a fairly new idea that came with the proliferation of automobiles and building of the highway system.

Nowotny’s business was good and in 1930, the little attractive wood-framed confectionary gave way to a new “fireproof” structure. The carpenter on the job was Jack Gill, so the name of the business became The House that Jack Built. The House that Jack Built was designed to mimic the Pueblo-style architecture found in New Mexico and Arizona which better suited Nowotny’s burgeoning Native American collections. The new multi-level building featured a stucco exterior with exposed, extended roof beams and natural pole ladders between the levels for authentic detailing.

The interior had a unique, multi-colored broken tile-and-concrete patterned floor. Cases lining the walls were filled with Native American artifacts collected by Nowotny in the New Braunfels area as well as other examples from the American Southwest, Mexico and even head-hunter axes from the Philippines. Displayed were large quantities of painted pottery, stone tools and points, and shell and bone jewelry.

The “free” museum also contained “a part of Chief Geronimo’s poisoned arrows and water jug.” Amongst the many antique pistols, guns, swords and daggers from the Texas-Mexican War, the Spanish-American War and the Civil War, were “Jesse James’ pistols, a dueling sword lost in 1541 belonging to Coronado and bullets fired by Zachary Taylor into the walls of Mission Obispado at Monterrey on his way to Mexico City.”

Stuffed animals peered from the corners and case tops. Trophy heads and horns hung above on the walls vying for attention amongst beautifully-colored, hand-woven Indian blankets. Nowotny also sold Native American and Mexican artifacts, jewelry and blankets as well as tourist trinkets made in Japan. At one point in time, according to Ogden Coleman, there was even a live bear on a chain!

The confectionary/café featured Mexican food, fried chicken dinners, hamburgers and sandwiches which were served at tables scattered in the center of the large room amidst the historic collections.

Albert Nowotny’s sons helped to run The House that Jack Built. Jerome described an interesting prohibition-era story in his oral history recording at the Sophienburg.

Local newspaperman, Fred Oheim once said, “… that the making of beer at home was legal. You could make up to 200 gallons of wine per family and a certain amount of beer per year, but, it required a federal license. Selling beer, wine, etc. to other folks was illegal … the Revenuers would come and put you in jail for selling not producing it.”

Businesses, also, could not sell alcoholic beverages, but during Prohibition, tourists would stop at The House that Jack Built for a hamburger and ask where they could get real beer. According to Jerome Nowotny, there were “many, many, many men” in New Braunfels that made and sold beer. The stills were usually hidden by hedges of Ligustrum which were commonly used around town in place of wood fences.

Albert would tell son Jerome, “Gehen mit die Leute, nicht der Herr.” (Go with the people, not with God.) He then gave Jerome an address for a local “small businessman”. Jerome would escort the tourists to that location where they would buy beer and then usually tip him $5 — very good money in those days. Albert never sent him to the same place twice in a row in order to make sure all “small businessmen” got a fair chance for a sale and to protect them by “spreading the risk, so-to-speak, of the illegal operators.”

In the 1940s, Percy and Norma Rose Richter rented and operated The House that Jack Built. My dad, Carroll Hoffmann, worked there as a busboy. It was no longer a museum but a very popular café and bar. It did, however, have a totem pole out in front of the building. Open 11 am to 11 pm, the café often ran out of food on Saturdays. My dad would ride his bike to work from Academy Street in the morning and Mr. Richter would put his bike in the back of the truck and take him home at night. Dad had to be there early to mop the colorful floor. He would always check for change beneath the tables and in the coin return slots of the little jukebox selection boxes on the tables. Does every little boy do this?

The building was altered again before my Dad’s time. The second-floor rooms had been enlarged into a banquet hall and the front half fenced in to create an outdoor terrace. Newspaper advertisements announce dance bands and society articles record parties that took place at The House that Jack Built. My dad said it was tricky for the waitresses to get food and drink up the stairs. He remembers that NB Highschool Head Coach Weldon Bynum took the ’48-’49 football team up there to eat steaks one night. Apparently even back then, football players were BMOC.

After the Richters, the café was run briefly as the Langston Café. In 1953, Felix and Harry Zoeller purchased the building and it became Zoeller Funeral Home until 1978. Harry Zoeller said that the unique tile floor was one of Nowotny’s selling points for the building. The Comal County Juvenile Residential Supervision and Treatment Center (Teen Connection) bought the building in 1981. The House that Jack Built/Zoeller Funeral Home presently houses Connections.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives; “Reflections” oral History program #21; NB Herald archive; Heritage Exhibit notes; personal interviews.

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