The Grotto, Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church

The congregation made a bargain before it built anything. After 45 parishioners died in the 1918 influenza epidemic, Father Wack led them in a vow to build a replica of the Lourdes grotto if no more died, and none did. He went to France for the specifications. Farmers hauled limestone from the Wenzel, Friesenhahn and Schumann ranches, and every stone was washed before it was set. Inside the arch the Virgin stands above a small waterfall and pool, with Bernadette kneeling at its edge. Two more New Braunfels grottos followed, in 1951 and 1982.

What the plaque says

The Grotto, Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church. A major influenza epidemic spread across the United States in 1918 causing many deaths. Under the leadership of Father J.M.J. Wack (d.1927), who served Saints Peter and Paul Church for 38 years, members constructed this grotto to commemorate an end to the disease-related deaths in the parish. Modeled after the Lourdes Grotto in southwestern France, it was built of native rock gathered from area ranches. Aided by parishioners, J.J. Scholz of Nebraska completed the stonework. The congregation dedicated the shrine during a celebration on June 29, 1921. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 0.5 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 — 2.8 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

• The Church of Saints Peter and Paul — steps away
• 1915 New Braunfels Post Office — steps away
• New Braunfels Academy — steps away
• International & Great Northern Railroad in New Braunfels — steps away