Historical Marker
Specht's Crossing
Spring Branch, Comal County · Texas
Erected 1991
Spring Branch was settled in 1852 by the D. Knibbe family and named for a spring flowing into the Guadalupe. Its post office opened in the Knibbe store in 1858 and before the Civil War sat in the home of Peter Horne. G. Elbel, postmaster after the war, recorded that mail service between New Braunfels and Fredericksburg by way of Spring Branch resumed on August 27, 1867. For most of the twentieth century the community counted about twenty-five people; after Canyon Lake filled in the 1960s, estimates rose to 200 by 1990.
What the plaque says
Specht's Crossing Area settlers in horse-drawn carriages used this gravel bed low water crossing of the San Antonio-Blanco Road to reach the German settlement of Spring Branch. Despite frequent floods, use of the crossing increased during the years (1875-1906). Spring Branch postmaster Hans (Von) Specht maintained the post office in his hilltop home overlooking the crossing. Thereafter known as Specht's Crossing, it was later used by automobile travelers until replaced by a low water bridge in 1920. In 1934 a new bridge was constructed by the Civil Works Administration. (1993)
Where it stands
29.88204, -98.45036 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Natural Bridge Caverns — 14 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.
- Gruene Historic District — 23 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.
- Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 23 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.
- Lyndon B. Johnson State Park and Historic Site — 27 miA state park on the Pedernales opposite the LBJ Ranch, with a working Texas-German farm kept as it was around the First World War and the permit desk for the ranch tour.