Carl Heinrich Guenther

The festival Guenther led grew out of a Fourth of July celebration. In 1853 the New Braunfels Germania invited singing societies from Austin, San Antonio and Sisterdale to the first state Saengerfest, held on October 15 and 16, where each group sang alone and all joined for works by Mendelssohn and Marschner. At the second festival, in San Antonio in May 1854, the societies formed the Texas State Sängerbund, with singers from Coletoville, La Grange, Indianola and Victoria. Festivals followed yearly until 1859, a mixed chorus sang Haydn's Creation in 1860, and the war halted them until 1870.

What the plaque says

Carl Heinrich Guenther (SEPTEMBER 9, 1821 - APRIL 8, 1870) BORN IN PRUSSIA, CARL (KARL) HEINRICH GUENTHER IMMIGRATED TO TEXAS IN 1845. HE WAS A COMMUNITY LEADER, ONE OF NEW BRAUNFELS' FIRST PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS, AND A DIRECTOR OF THE GERMANIA, AN EARLY SINGING SOCIETY. IN 1854, HE WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT OF STAATS SAENGERFEST (STATE SINGERS FESTIVAL), A STATEWIDE MEETING OF GERMAN POLITICAL GROUPS. THEY ADOPTED AN ANTI-SLAVERY PLATFORM, WHICH REPRESENTED AN UNPOPULAR POSITION IN TEXAS. GUENTHER WAS AMONG GERMAN-TEXAN LEADERS WHO ALLAYED FEARS OF DISLOYALTY, AND DESPITE HIS LEANINGS, HE JOINED THE CONFEDERACY, BECOMING A CAPTAIN. AFTER HIS DEATH, HIS WIFE, MARGARETHE (SCHERTZ), WITH WHOM HE HAD SIX CHILDREN, CONTINUED THEIR BREWING BUSINESS. (2010)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 1.3 mi
  The hilltop where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels raised the Adelsverein's headquarters in 1845, now the museum and archive of the German colony that became New Braunfels.
• Gruene Historic District — 4.2 mi
  A cotton town on the Guadalupe that the boll weevil emptied, rescued in the 1970s by a kayaking architecture student, with a dance hall that says it has never closed.
• Natural Bridge Caverns — 12 mi
  The largest known cavern in Texas, found in 1960 by four college cavers under a ranch family's land, entered beneath a 60-foot limestone bridge and still growing.
• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 19 mi
  The headsprings of the San Marcos River, among the longest-inhabited places in North America, once an amusement park with a swimming pig and now seen from glass-bottom boats.

More markers nearby

• First United Methodist Church — 1.2 mi
• Sophienburg Hill — 1.3 mi
• Hermann Seele — 1.3 mi
• New Braunfels Academy — 1.3 mi