New Braunfels: County Seat of Comal County

The land sale named on the plaque was challenged for a generation. In 1852 heirs of Juan Martín de Veramendi sued to recover the Comal Tract on which the town stood, and in 1854 the Texas Supreme Court ruled in their favor. Townspeople offered to pay the bankrupt emigration society's debt with interest, but the heirs refused. They sued again in federal court in December 1876, and a citizens' committee fought the claim until April 1879, when the court decided for New Braunfels. A bronze plaque with the decision was set on the pioneer statue in Landa Park.

What the plaque says

New Braunfels: County Seat of Comal County Early inhabitants of this area included Karankawa, Lipan, Tonkawa and Waco Indians. Between 1844 and 1846, the Verein Zum Schutze Deutscher Einwanderer in Texas (Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas) sent more than 7,000 German settlers. Several hundred of them arrived in this area in 1845. Led by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, they founded a community here on Good Friday, March 21, of that year. Rafael L. and Maria Antonia Veramendi Garza sold the colonization society more than 1,200 acres of land for the settlers, who held a drawing for lots shortly after arriving. Briefly referred to as Comal Springs, the community was named New Braunfels for the German town of Braunfels on the Lahn River. On May 11, 1846, the Texas Legislature incorporated the city, although the charter was not ratified until the following year. By 1850, New Braunfels was reportedly the fourth largest city in Texas. Because of its temperate climate and abundant natural resources, agriculture and industry thrived. Early craftsmen included bakers, blacksmiths, butchers, button and fringe makers, cabinetmakers, carpenters, coppersmiths, locksmiths, machinists, saddlers, tailors, shoemakers, tanners, tinsmiths, turners and wagon makers. Industries included brick kilns, cotton gins, a door and blind factory, flour and grist mills, breweries, a sawmill, a soap and candle house, and a woolen mill. The city's settlers were undaunted by early hardships. Many old-world customs survive among descendants of the original colonists, and the city's heritage is reflected in its buildings, street names and institutions. (1970, 2005)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 0.4 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

• Comal County, C.S.A. — steps away
• The New Braunfels Herald — steps away
• Phoenix Saloon — steps away
• International & Great Northern Railroad in New Braunfels — steps away