New Braunfels

The founders' town grew into an industrial one. From 1846 until the 1880s Hispanic and Lipan Apache shearers came each spring for sheep-shearing season. The Germania Singing Society, a Schuetzen Verein and an early Turnverein kept old-country ties alive. By the early 1880s about 2,000 people lived here, linked by telegraph and rail to Austin and San Antonio, with textile mills on the Comal; electric streetlights and a telephone line followed. A courthouse opened in 1898. The town grew from 3,165 in 1912 to some 12,200 by 1952.

What the plaque says

New Braunfels Founded on March 21, 1845 by Carl, Prince of Solms-Braunfels, Commissioner-General of the Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas. Named after Prince Solms' estate, Braunfels, on the Lahn River in Germany. Its permanence was assured by John O. Meusebach, the second Commissioner-General. The first colonial officials were Jean J. Von Coll, bookkeeper; Nicholaus Zink, surveyor; Theodore Koester, physician. L.C. Evenberg served as pastor and Hermann F. Seele as teacher. Comal County was created on March 24, 1846, by an act of the first Legislature of Texas. The New Braunfelser Zeitung, oldest German newspaper in Texas, began publication on November 12, 1852, with Ferdinand Lindheimer as editor. The first Staatssaengerfest was held at New Braunfels on October 16, 1853, and the first special tax for school purposes levied and collected in Texas was voted by New Braunfels on March 17, 1856. Erected by the State of Texas 1936 with funds appropriated by the Federal Government to commemorate one hundred years of Texas independence.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 1.2 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 — 2.7 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 — 13 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 — 18 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

• Landa Park — steps away
• New Braunfels Gemischter Chor Harmonie — steps away
• Site of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe Mission - Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission — steps away
• Wurstfest — 0.4 mi