New Braunfels,Texas
New Braunfels is the county seat of Comal County, Texas. The town is located on the clear waters of the Comal River, an engine of much of the community’s economic prosperity. New Braunfels was established in March 1845 as a way station for German immigrants on route to the colonial lands granted by the Republic of Texas to the Society for the Protection of German Immigrants (Adelsverein).
The first commissioner-general of the Adelsverein, Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, purchased the two leagues of land on which he built New Braunfels from Rafael C. Garza and his wife Maria Antonio Veramendi Garza of San Antonio on March 15, 1845. Thefirst settlers began arriving at the future town site, known to local Tejanos as Las Fontanas (the Fountains) for the abundant natural springs in the area, on March 21, 1845, under the command of the Adelsverein’s engineer, Nicolaus Zink. Engineer Zink went to work quickly laying out the town. He established it in a regular pattern, with all streets crossing at right angles. The main thoroughfares converged at a central square (marketplace). He laid out tracts to be used as town and farm lots as well. The new community was to be named New Braunfels, after Prince Carl’s estate on the Lahn River, Braunfels.
Due to the presence of several central Texas Indian tribes in the immediate vicinity, the German settlers quickly erected a stockade on the east bank of the Comal River, which they called the Zinkenberg in honor of Nicolaus Zink. Soon after his arrival at the burgeoning community, Prince Carl laid the cornerstone for a more substantial fortification, dubbed the Sophien- berg after his lover, Princess Sophia of Salm-Salm. This structure was to serve as both a defensive outpost and headquarters for the Adelsverein. In 2005 the Sophien- berg houses the Sophienberg Museum, dedicated to preserving Texas’s German heritage.
The industrious German immigrants who chose to settle in New Braunfels, although faced with hardship, built a successful community almost from the beginning. The location of the town along the Comal River provided fertile land for agriculture and the hamlet’s proximity to Austin and San Antonio offered markets for the sale of surplus foodstuffs and manufactured products. Educated German farmers in the area of New Braunfels made the most of their situation, pioneering dry agriculture well ahead of other North American planters.
When the German naturalist and traveler Ferdinand Roemer visited New Braunfels shortly after its establishment, he found a community of well-built houses, farms, businesses, and industries. Churches were established quickly, at the expense of the Adelsverein, and Roemer observed a diversity of commercial establishments, including an apothecary, a bakery, and even a restaurant. His only regret regarding the community was that so many educated Germans of noble birth had been reduced below their social station.
On March 24, 1846, the Texas legislature organized Comal County out of Bexar County. The election of county officials on July 13 saw a number of German immigrants propelled into public office. The legislature, further, incorporated New Braunfels on May 11, 1846. The first election of municipal officials was held on June 7, 1847, after the city charter had been formally ratified.
By the year 1850, it was difficult to deny New Braunfels’s success. Its location on the Comal River and the industriousness of its German settlers fueled this rapid advancement. In 1850 New Braunfels was the fourth-largest city in Texas. In 1846 William H. Merriweather built the first mill on the Comal River, and by 1850 it was producing 10,000 bushels of meal and 50,000 feet of lumber per year (Biesele 1930, 135—138). By 1860 New Braunfels had developed into a major center for industrial production, boasting a sash and door factory, a soap and candle factory, brick kilns, breweries, and grist and saw mills.
In the same year, the value of farms in the vicinity of town had reached $561,527 (Biesele 1930, 135-138). The Germans who founded and developed New Braunfels placed a great deal of value on the community’s academic, spiritual, and cultural life. On March 22, 1846, the Adelsverein opened the doors of the first church in New Braunfels, to be used by the Evangelical Lutherans and to function as a community school. Reverend L. C. Er- vendberg served as both pastor and schoolteacher. This school, dubbed the Church School, served up to as many as 100 students at a time, until it was replaced by a public school on October 3, 1853. Ervend- berg went on, with his wife, to establish an orphanage and school at his farm of Neu Wied near New Braunfels. On May 16, 1848, Ervendberg’s orphanage was incorporated as the Western Texas Orphan Asylum by the Texas legislature.The German interest in public education ran counter to that of most Anglo- Texans, who preferred to educate their children at home. When funding for public education was not forthcoming from the state, the New Braunfels electorate established its own publicly funded school. Established in 1858, the New Braunfels Academy raised operating revenue through direct taxation. The state of Texas would not follow suit with a similar plan for all Texas schools until the ratification of the constitution of 1876.
The Germans of New Braunfels enjoyed a robust social life. Numerous trade groups, shooting societies, and singing and dancing clubs were established. The first singing society in Texas, Germania, was established in New Braunfels on March 2, 1850. On October 16, 1854, New Braunfels played host to the first statewide Saengerfest. In 1855 Herman Seele built a brick Saengerhalle in New Braunfels to accommodate such festivals.
In 1852 Ferdinand Lindheimer established New Braunfels’s first newspaper, the Neu-Braunfels Zeitung (New Braunfels Newspaper). Lindheimer was moderate politically, encouraging the German immigrants to live in harmony with their Anglo neighbors but to keep their own cultural heritage intact.
He spoke out against Unionism during the Civil War, counter to the sympathies of most German Texans. The Neu-Braunfels Zeitung continued publication in German until 1957.By 1900 New Braunfels was serviced by the International-Great Northern and the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas railroads, linking the city to Austin and San Antonio. The economy and industrial base continued to grow steadily until the Great Depression. The boll weevil epidemic dealt a serious injury to the textile industry, which recovered slowly. The post—World War II era represented a transition toward an economy based on tourism. With the opening of Landa Park in 1936, the Comal River began to emerge as a major tourist attraction. In 2005 the Schlitterbahn Waterpark and Resort is one of the top attractions of its kind in the world. New Braunfels has become famous for its annual tribute to the German spirit of Gemuetlichkeit during the October celebration of Wurstfest, which seeks to preserve and promote the community’s German heritage. The population of New Braunfels was 36,884 in 2000 (United States Census Bureau, New Braunfels, Texas, U.S. Census Bureau United States Fact Finder http://factfinder.census.gov/).
Jerry C. Drake
See also Adelsverein; Fredericksburg, Texas; Meusebach, John O.; Solms-Braunfels, Prince Carl of; Texas
References and Further Reading
Biesele, Rudolph Leopold. The History of the German Settlements in Texas, 1831—1861. Austin, TX: Von Boeckman Jones, 1930.
------. “Early Times in New Braunfels and Comal County.” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 50 (July 1946): 75—78.
Haas, Oscar. History of New Braunfels and Comal County, Texas, 1844—1946. Austin, TX: Hart Graphics, 1975.
Jordan, Terry G. German Seed in Texas Soil: Immigrant Farmers in Nineteenth-Century Texas. Austin: University of Texas, 1975.
Zelade, Richard. Hill Country: Discovering the Secrets of the Texas Hill Country. Austin: Texas Monthly, 1983.