The Sophienburg stands on the Vereinsberg, the hill where the founder of New Braunfels put his headquarters. Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, commissioner-general of the Adelsverein, a society of German nobles promoting emigration to Texas, bought a well-watered tract on the Guadalupe and Comal rivers from Juan Martín Veramendi and Raphael C. Garza. His first wagon train of immigrants, led by Nicolaus Zink, reached it on Good Friday, March 21, 1845, and the town took the name of the Solms family seat on the Lahn River. Before Carl left for Germany on May 15, the Zinkenburg stockade was nearly done and work was under way on a log fort on the hill. He named it for Princess Sophie of Salm-Salm, whom he married at Bendorf that December.
The colony grew fast and buried many. By July 31, 1845, 505 people had arrived, and the town cemetery recorded 293 burials in 1845 and 1846. The Comal springs drove mills and shops, and by 1850 New Braunfels was reported to be the fourth largest town in Texas. The Sophienburg served as the society's headquarters until its bankruptcy in 1853, and a storm destroyed what remained in 1886.
Townspeople bought the site in 1926 and opened a state-chartered museum here in 1933. Today the museum fills the former Dittlinger library building, with exhibits on the immigrants' crossing and the town that followed, and an archive of more than a million photographs, documents and maps, open to researchers by appointment.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour