The New Braunfels Herald

The Herald and the German paper ran side by side for decades before they merged. In 1964 the Zeitung-Chronicle appeared weekly on Sunday and the Herald on Thursday, each with a circulation of 5,000. In 1966 the two combined as the New Braunfels Herald and Zeitung, published weekly by Claude Scruggs until 1979, when the paper was renamed the Herald-Zeitung. Paid circulation reached 7,705 in October 1970. A daily edition appeared from 1983 to 1986, and in the 1990s the paper had a circulation of 8,295 under publisher David F. Kramer.

What the plaque says

The New Braunfels Herald Located in the center of town, this site once housed the Zum Schwarzen Wallfisch Saloon (The Black Whale Saloon) in a small wood structure likely built by Comal Courthouse Contractor Ferdinand Simon, Sr. The New Braunfels Herald, established in 1892 by S.R. Whitley and his three sons, was housed here from 1896 to 1907 and from 1925 to 1944 in a new brick building by A.C. Moeller. The newspaper not only kept the area abreast of local, state and national events, but as the first English newspaper in New Braunfels, it attracted many businesses, residents and visitors to the area who learned of the prosperous and beautiful community. In 1944, the Herald moved to South Castell Street and continued its service to the area. (2016)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 0.3 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

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