Historical Marker
Mission Hill
New Braunfels, Comal County · Texas
Erected 2023
Before it carried a name the hill was a land grant: the state gave 320 acres to Andres Sanchez in 1847, and he passed them to Daniel Murchison in 1854. Two 1878 maps already label the place Mission Hill, though a local historian who searched archives in San Antonio and Austin found no proof that a mission ever stood on it. A marker of 1936 put the mission near the hill, and one of 1968 puts it at Comal Springs. In 1918 General Pershing watched troops from Fort Sam Houston maneuver from the top.
What the plaque says
Mission Hill The highest point in the city of New Braunfels, this site is long believed to be important to Native American and Spanish interests. It is unknown if there was a mission on the exact site, although the name was associated with this hill by the 1840s. In 1856, German immigrants Friedrich Ludwig Hermann (F.L.H.) and Georgine Conring purchased the land. During the Civil War, Ernst Conring operated a saltpeter kiln. In 1883, the Conrings sold the land to Franz and Minna Coreth. In the 140 years the Coreth family owned the property, they built significant homes on the property and engaged in goat, sheep and cattle ranching. Mission Hill recalls early activity and settlement in the area. (2023)
Where it stands
29.71256, -98.16331 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 2.6 miThe 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 — 4.0 miA 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 — 11 miThe 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 miThe 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.