NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National RegisterSBR of Historic Places Registration Draft Form
1. Name of Property
Historic Name: Main Plaza Other name/site number: NA Name of related multiple property listing: NA
2. Location
Street & number: Main Plaza City or town: New Braunfels State: Texas County: Comal Not for publication: Vicinity:
3. State/Federal Agency Certification
As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended, I hereby certify that this ( nomination request for determination of eligibility) meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property ( meets does not meet) the National Register criteria.
I recommend that this property be considered significant at the following levels of significance: national statewide local
Applicable National Register Criteria: A B C D
State Historic Preservation Officer ______Signature of certifying official / Title Date
Texas Historical Commission State or Federal agency / bureau or Tribal Government
In my opinion, the property meets does not meet the National Register criteria.
______Signature of commenting or other official Date
______State or Federal agency / bureau or Tribal Government
4. National Park Service Certification
I hereby certify that the property is:
___ entered in the National Register ___ determined eligible for the National Register ___ determined not eligible for the National Register. ___ removed from the National Register ___ other, explain: ______
______Signature of the Keeper Date of Action United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft
5. Classification
Ownership of Property
Private x Public - Local Public - State Public - Federal
Category of Property
building(s) x district site structure object
Number of Resources within Property
Contributing Noncontributing 0 0 buildings 1 0 sites 1 0 structures 3 2 objects 5 2 total
Number of contributing resources previously listed in the National Register: NA
6. Function or Use
Historic Functions: LANDSCAPE/ plaza
Current Functions: LANDSCAPE/ plaza
7. Description
Architectural Classification: Classical Revival, Queen Anne
Principal Exterior Materials: STONE/limestone; WOOD/ horizontal board; METAL/ cast iron
Narrative Description (see continuation sheets 7-6 through 7-11)
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft
8. Statement of Significance
Applicable National Register Criteria
x A Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. B Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. C Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction. D Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
Criteria Considerations: NA
Areas of Significance: Community Planning and Development; Social History (local level)
Period of Significance: 1845–1971
Significant Dates: 1845, 1896, 1905, 1926, 1935, 1937
Significant Person (only if criterion b is marked): NA
Cultural Affiliation (only if criterion d is marked): NA
Architect/Builder: NA
Narrative Statement of Significance (see continuation sheets 8-12 through 8-23)
9. Major Bibliographic References
Bibliography (see continuation sheet 9-24 through 9-25)
Previous documentation on file (NPS): __ preliminary determination of individual listing (36 CFR 67) has been requested. Part 1 approved on (date) __ previously listed in the National Register _ previously determined eligible by the National Register __ designated a National Historic Landmark __ recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey # __ recorded by Historic American Engineering Record #
Primary location of additional data: X_ State historic preservation office (Texas Historical Commission, Austin) __ Other state agency __ Federal agency __ Local government __ University __ Other -- Specify Repository:
Historic Resources Survey Number (if assigned): NA
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft
10. Geographical Data
Acreage of Property: approximately 3 acres
Coordinates
Latitude/Longitude Coordinates
Datum if other than WGS84: NA
1. Latitude: 29.703722° Longitude: -98.124520° 2. Latitude: 29.703252° Longitude: -98.123810° 3. Latitude: 29.702226° Longitude: -98.124769° 4. Latitude: 29.702700° Longitude: -98.125459°
Verbal Boundary Description: Main Plaza is a rectangular site cut into New Braunfels’s urban grid at the intersection of Seguin Avenue and San Antonio Street. It is bounded on all four sides by the building edges abutting sidewalks. These sidewalks are adjacent to East San Antonio Street, South Seguin Avenue, West San Antonio Street, and North Seguin Street.
Boundary Justification: The boundary includes all property historically associated with the public square.
11. Form Prepared By
Name/title: Rebecca Kennedy, Architectural Historian; Erin Tyson, GIS Technician Organization: HHM & Associates, Inc. Street & number: P.O. Box 9648 City or Town: Austin State: TX Zip Code: 78766 Email: [email protected] Telephone: 512-478-8014 Date: March 4, 2021
Additional Documentation
Maps (see continuation sheets MAP-26 through MAP-28)
Additional items (see continuation sheets FIGURE-29 through FIGURE-50)
Photographs (see continuation sheets PHOTO-51 through PHOTO-58)
Paperwork Reduction Act Statement: This information is being collected for applications to the National Register of Historic Places to nominate properties for listing or determine eligibility for listing, to list properties, and to amend existing listings. Response to this request is required to obtain a benefit in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended (16 U.S.C.460 et seq.).
Estimated Burden Statement: Public reporting burden for this form is estimated to average 100 hours per response including time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining data, and completing and reviewing the form. Direct comments regarding this burden estimate or any aspect of this form to the Office of Planning and Performance Management. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 1849 C. Street, NW, Washington, DC.
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Photograph Log
Main Plaza New Braunfels, Comal County, Texas Number of Photographs: 13 Photographers: Katie Duffield Hill Dates photographed: June 2019
Photo 1 (TX_ComalCounty_MainPlaza_0001) Photo 7 (TX_ComalCounty_MainPlaza_0007) Contextual view of the central park area (Resource 1), Frontal view of Civil War memorial (Resource 4), showing the Civil War memorial (Resource 4) and camera facing southwest. World War I memorial (Resource 5) in the foreground, and the fountain (Resource 2) and bandstand (Resource Photo 8 (TX_ComalCounty_MainPlaza_0008) 3) in the background. Camera facing southwest. Frontal view of World War I memorial (Resource 5), camera facing south. Photo 2 (TX_ComalCounty_MainPlaza_0002) Contextual view of the central park area (Resource 1), Photo 9 (TX_ComalCounty_MainPlaza_0009) showing the fountain (Resource 2) and bandstand Oblique view of 1976 Bicentennial marker with (Resource 3), camera facing southwest. fountain in the background, camera facing southwest.
Photo 3 (TX_ComalCounty_MainPlaza_0003) Photo 10 (TX_ComalCounty_MainPlaza_0010) Contextual view of the central park area (Resource 1) Commemorative plaque at base of “Friendship Tree,” showing the bandstand (Resource 3), camera facing camera facing east. northeast. Photo 11 (TX_ComalCounty_MainPlaza_0011) Photo 4 (TX_ComalCounty_MainPlaza_0004) View of sponsored brick pavers at ground level, Frontal view of fountain (Resource 2), camera facing camera facing east. southwest. Photo 12 (TX_ComalCounty_MainPlaza_0012) Photo 5 (TX_ComalCounty_MainPlaza_0005) View of sponsored commemorative granite marker, Frontal view of bandstand (Resource 3) facing stairs camera facing northwest. going up, camera facing east.
Photo 6 TX_ComalCounty_MainPlaza_0006) Photo 13 (TX_ComalCounty_MainPlaza_0013) Oblique view of bandstand (Resource 3) showing both Frontal view of 1976 US Bicentennial marker staircases and windows at base, camera facing (Resource 6), facing southwest. northeast.
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Narrative Description
Main Plaza is at the center of New Braunfels’s historic downtown area. At the intersection of two main thoroughfares, Seguin Avenue and San Antonio Street, the plaza consists of three acres of open space surrounded by commercial and government buildings (map 2). This central open area has been integral to New Braunfels’s urban fabric since the town’s inception in 1845. Main Plaza is bound on all sides by buildings, and includes an outer ring dedicated to transportation and an inner area dedicated to recreation. The perimeter of the plaza is a two-lane traffic roundabout with parking and ornamentally landscaped islands, surrounded by a wide sidewalk. Main Plaza’s roadway has been an important part of the plaza’s function since its inception and is therefore considered historically significant. The centerpiece of Main Plaza is an oval-shaped park that was developed between 1897 and 1907. The park is curbed at its perimeter and has pathways and plantings laid out axially and symmetrically with the surrounding urban grid. This park area is adorned with a fountain, bandstand, and two war memorials. The 1896 cast-iron fountain is at the plaza’s center, the 1905 bandstand sits to its southwest, and the Civil War and World War I memorials—added in 1935 and 1937—are northeast of the fountain (map 3). The bandstand underwent alterations in 1926, but otherwise the resources in Main Plaza have changed very little over time. In total, Main Plaza has one site, one structure, and three objects that are contributing. Main Plaza also has two noncontributing objects: two bicentennial markers, both added in 1976. The plaza maintains a high degree of integrity, with all elements in good repair in accordance with their original design and containing ample material dating from the period of significance.
Location and Setting
Main Plaza is in downtown New Braunfels, the county seat and commercial and social center of Comal County. Comal County is located in South-central Texas along the Balcones Escarpment. The county straddles the Texas Hill Country to the west and the fertile Blackland Prairie to the east. New Braunfels developed near the confluence of the Guadalupe and Comal Rivers, the Comal River originating on the west side of town at Comal Springs in Landa Park. Due to the town’s location near water, it was frequented by many American Indian tribes such as the Tonkawa, Lipan Apaches, and Comanches. Main Plaza is located at the intersection of Seguin Avenue and San Antonio Street, a few blocks south of the Comal River. Main Plaza consists of a large, flat, rectangular open space carved from the urban grid of the four surrounding city blocks. Within the district’s boundaries is an oval-shaped park space surrounded by a traffic circle, parking areas, and sidewalks abutting the surrounding buildings. The plaza is one of several New Braunfels parks. One mile to the northwest is Landa Park, the source of Comal Springs and a recreational area since the late nineteenth century. One quarter mile to the northeast lies Market Plaza, originally called Fleishhalle (meat market), which also dates to the beginnings of the town’s history.1
Two- and three-story historic-age commercial buildings frame Main Plaza to the south and northeast and the Comal County courthouse to the northwest; all are outside of the district boundaries. A courthouse has anchored Main Plaza since the original was built in 1860 in the southern corner of the plaza. Maps from 1881 and 1885 show only 11 buildings directly abutting the plaza, including the original courthouse and the Guadalupe Hotel. Although the plaza was a hub for locals and visitors alike, there were still many empty surrounding lots. Other early buildings included a hardware store, flour and grain store, general store, drugstore, and various sheds and storerooms (figs. 1 and 5). A new courthouse, designed in a Romanesque Revival style, replaced the original courthouse in 1898. The new courthouse remained on Main Plaza but moved from the southeast corner to its current location northwest of the plaza. In addition to commercial and civic buildings, there are currently several surface parking lots adjacent to Main Plaza.
1 Present-day Market Plaza is not to be confused with the Marktplatz, which denoted Main Plaza on early maps, despite literally translating to “Market Plaza.”
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Main Plaza
Main Plaza is an approximately three-acre rectangular public square at the intersection of North Seguin Avenue and East San Antonio Street in downtown New Braunfels. The original town plan’s boundary, drawn by Nicolaus Zink around 1845, is still reflected in the current street grid (fig. 7).2 Since its inception, Main Plaza functioned as a transportion crossroads and center of the city’s political, economic, social, and cultural life. There are five contributing and two noncontributing resources in the plaza historic district, as shown in the inventory below.
Inventory
Table 1. Inventory of all resources within the boundaries of the Main Plaza Historic District. Resource No. Resource Name Resource Type Year Built NRHP Status Photo No(s). 1 Park Site 1897 Contributing 1, 2, 3 2 Fountain Structure 1896 Contributing 9 3 Bandstand Structure 1905 Contributing 6 4 Civil War memorial Object 1935 Contributing 7 5 World War I memorial Object 1937 Contributing 8 6 Bicentennial marker Object 1976 Noncontributing 14 7 Bicentennial marker Object 1976 Noncontributing NA
Since 1897, the plaza included a central park surrounded by a curb and traffic circle. Following modifications in 1976, the park and traffic area changed to an oval shape, accentuating the park’s already rounded corners. The roadway circling the park has two traffic lanes, with a third outer lane for parking. The corners of the paved roadway have landscaped triangular islands and some space for local circulation (fig. 22). Each of the four entry points to the traffic circle have curbed brick islands with crosswalks. At all four sides of the plaza’s perimeter is a wide sidewalk shaded by several trees, some of which may be historic, although adequate documentation has not been found to be certain.
Park
The park area’s layout is defined by three adjacent paved squares, each housing one of the historic resources. The 1896 cast-iron fountain occupies the very center of the plaza, with two small noncontributing concrete US Bicentennial markers directly to its north and south. The 1905 bandstand, an elevated structure with a bell-shaped roof, lies to the southwest. The two 1930s war memorials stand adjacent to each other northeast of the fountain, facing oncoming traffic from East San Antonio Street (photos 7 and 8). The central area also includes several small non-historic-age objects, including granite sponsorship markers around the perimeter, interpretive and historic marker signs at the bandstand entry and between the two monuments, and bronze plaques at the bases of two trees (photos 5, 10, 12, and 13). The sidewalk circling the perimeter of the park area is paved in some places with dedicated sponsorship bricks dating from the 1990s.
Main Plaza’s park area features several plantings and trees, some of which appear to be historic. The southeastern edge of the park has three well-established oak trees, including the “Friendship Tree,” a pin oak planted in 1978. The planting dates of the two adjacent oak trees are unknown, although one has a historic marker at its base, noting
2 Crystal Sasse Ragsdale, “Zink, Nicolaus (1812–1887),” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed August 20, 2020, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/zink-nicolaus. Daniel P. Greene, “New Braunfels, TX,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed September 22, 2020, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/new-braunfels-tx.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft important dates in Main Plaza’s history. There are also two well-established pecan trees in the park, likely historic-age due to their size: one at the southwest edge, and one directly southwest of the fountain. Scattered crepe myrtles fill the area between the monuments and the bandstand, surrounding the fountain. Other low shrubs, flowers, and ground cover adorn the park area; some are in stone-lined planter boxes.
Fountain
The cast-iron fountain at the park’s center (Resource 2) arrived in 1896, fabricated by J. L. Mott Iron Works of New York. The fountain is double-tiered, with an octagonal ground basin and a central shaft topped by a female figure (photo 4). The female figure bears an urn or vase, and stands in the upper pan, dressed in classical drapery. Her urn pours water into the second pan, as do the mouths of animal heads mounted on the shaft between the upper and second pans. The second pan is also adorned with such animal heads; water flows from their mouths to the ground basin below. The fountain is decorated throughout with floral embellishments. The base is made of concrete and metal and has a square pedestal directly under the fountain. Its iron exterior was painted over for some of its history—a 1932 newspaper announcement praised the female statue’s “spring outfit” of silver paint—but it is currently unpainted.3 In the 1930s the fountain was home to catfish, perch, and even eel, and in the 1960s it was stocked with hundreds of goldfish.4
The fountain has received numerous cleanings and regular maintenance, beautification, and repairs over the years. In 1963 the Lions Club financed a renovation project; sandblasting the fountain and repainting it off-white, and installing lighting and new water jets.5 In 1976 the Rotary Club cleaned the fountain and installed new lighting and a surrounding brick plinth.6 Robinson Iron of Alexander City, Virginia, performed extensive repairs in 1994; rust and other damage had left the fountain inoperative for several years. Later in the same year, the fountain was badly damaged by a vehicle, but Robinson Iron repaired it again by April 1995.7 The fountain has received high-quality and historically sensitive repairs and regular maintenance, and retains a high degree of integrity, making it a contributing resource.
Bandstand
Alternately referred to as the “band pavilion,” “music pavilion,” or the “grandstand,” Main Plaza featured a bandstand beginning in 1905. Sited southwest of the fountain, the bandstand is an octagonally shaped gazebo or kiosk (photos 5 and 6). It has a bell-shaped domed metal roof, eight fluted wooden columns, dentiled details along the frieze, molded wood brackets, and turned wooden balusters. The bandstand has elements of both the Classical Revival and Queen Anne styles. Its columns, simple symmetry, and temple-like ornamentation are illustrative of Classical Revival tendencies. Its exuberant roof shape, turned balusters, and overall compositional proportions reflect Queen Anne tastes. According to historic photos, the metal-clad domed roof originally had a smooth exterior surface, but today a shingled pattern is visible. The roof’s surface has a rib aligned with each column below it. The original appearance of the turned balusters encircling the upper level of the bandstand still remains. Historic photos show that the bandstand’s roof originally had a pinnacle extending 10 feet or more from its apex. The exact date of the pinnacle’s disappearance is not known, although it does not appear in a photograph dating from 1960 (figs. 16 and 19). The covered space inside the bandstand measures 27 feet from edge to edge (fig. 20). Prior to alterations in 1926, the floor was elevated above grade and accessible by a wooden staircase with ornamental wooden balusters and a guardrail, which also circled the bandstand floor (fig. 16). The base had a covering of shingles in a fish-scale pattern (fig. 13).
3 “Town Talk,” New Braunfels Herald, May 20, 1935, 4. 4 “Town Talk;” “Vandal Kills Fountain Fish with Detergent,” New Braunfels Herald, December 12, 1963, 1. 5 “New Sprays, Lights Beautify Historic Main Plaza Fountain,” New Braunfels Zeitung Chronicle, December 8, 1963, 1. 6 “Opinions,” New Braunfels Herald and Zeitung, February 26, 1076, 1B. 7 “Fountain Expected to be Operational for April Sesquicentennial Events,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, November 2, 1994, 1.
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The bandstand’s current appearance reflects 1926 alterations that raised the structure higher above grade, in order to install a restroom below. To accommodate the change, the original staircase was removed and replaced with two new concrete-and-stone staircases, one leading up to the gazebo floor and one leading down to the bathroom. While the original wooden staircase appears to have faced a more southerly direction, the new staircase leading up faces east. The 1926 alteration included the addition of a second, west-facing staircase, leading down to the bathrooms below (photo 6). The 1926 limestone base, extending partially below grade, includes four masonry wing walls extending perpendicular to the main structure and flanking the two stairways. The remaining 6 faces of the octagonal base have 2 wooden windows each, for a total of 12 windows (fig. 21). Today, the lower level no longer has public restrooms but instead serves as an equipment and utility storage space.
Sometime between 1974 and 1975, the City (with help from an anonymous private donation) renovated the bandstand in preparation for the Bicentennial celebration.8 These renovations included replacement of failing wood members (especially at the fascia, cornice, and soffit) and some roofing and flashing, as well as thorough paint removal and repainting.9 In 2003 the bandstand became a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark. A 2005 restoration used the bandstand’s 1920s appearance as a reference. Restorationists chose a color scheme based on historic photographs and consistency with other structures. No historic paint remained on the wooden structure, but workers determined the new roof paint color to be accurate when they discovered old paint on the roof during the construction process. The roof returned to its former dark red, and the wooden members to an off-white color scheme.10 The bandstand also received a new sound system as part of this renovation. Plans for the restoration also included replacing rotten wood, stair and floor repair, and replacing doors and windows.11 This renovation may have included the addition of lights mounted to the frieze, which are visible today. The 2005 project’s fundraising goal was $225,000.12 Overall, the bandstand has been well maintained and retains a high degree of integrity, and is therefore considered a contributing resource.
Monuments
Two memorials came to the park in the 1930s. Both are monuments to fallen soldiers of New Braunfels, one for Civil War soldiers from both the Confederate and Union troops, and the other for World War I soldiers (as further discussed in Section 8). Today the monuments stand northeast of the fountain, facing the traffic circle beyond. Before 1976, however, the Civil War monument was on the other side of the plaza, southwest of the bandstand, facing southwest (fig. 19).
The Civil War monument was the first in the park, placed in 1935 (photo 7). The memorial’s physical appearance today is much the same as was described in the New Braunfels Herald in 1935:
The monument consists of a white marble statue about 7 feet high, mounted upon a solid concrete base six feet square and four feet high, just south of the plaza bandstand. The statue is that of a soldier of the Civil War standing at ease with a rifle by his side. At its base is an inscription reading: “To the memory of our fallen soldiers, 1861–1885.”13
8 Stacey Dicke, “Main Plaza,” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application, submitted to the City of New Braunfels, 2015. 9 “Bandstand Repairs Discussed,” New Braunfels Herald and Zeitung, August 16, 1973, 4A; “Bandstand Facelift Gift Told,” New Braunfels Herald and Zeitung, September 27, 1973, 1. 10 Leigh Jones, “A Century Later, Bandstand Still Center of NB,” June 22, 2005, accessed February 26, 2021, http://herald- zeitung.com/news/article_69db39e8-c063-596d-ab3a-926e1caa1e41.html. 11 Note that further research is required to determine if the final project included all of these actions. Scott Mahon, “Efforts to Restore Bandstand Continue,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, January 28, 2005, accessed February 26, 2021, http://herald- zeitung.com/news/article_af9e782f-9e80-5baa-b7ac-32e4303af6f4.html. 12 Jones, “A Century Later.” 13 “Clausnitzer Gives City Monument; Unveiling Slated,” New Braunfels Herald, March 15, 1935, 1.
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Except for the replacement of the soldier’s bayonet in 1997 (which had been missing for an unknown period of time) and cleanings, the memorial has faced little alteration, and appears nearly exactly as it did in 1935.
The memorial honoring the heroes of World War I is one of the many “Spirit of the American Doughboy” monuments made by American sculptor Ernest Moore Viquesney (photo 8). Fabricated in 1934 and installed in 1937, the cast-zinc statue features a “doughboy,” or infantryman, mid-stride, walking through broken logs and barbed wire. He holds his right hand in the air, clutching a hand grenade, and his left arm holds a rifle with bayonet. Below the doughboy’s feet is an inscription, “Spirit of the American Doughboy.” The memorial’s base is made of granite. The inscription on the base has an American Legion emblem and text below, “Dedicated Nov. 11, 1937 to World War Veterans of Comal County 1917–1918. Donated by Mr. & Mrs. E. A. Clausnitzer.”
The World War I memorial needed more maintenance than its Civil War counterpart. It suffered damage in 1986 and received repairs off-site. Both arms and its head were severed from the torso, and it was cracked in several places. Washington University Technological Association of St. Louis completed the repairs.14 At that time, preservationists discovered that the granite base was fashioned out of an old headstone, which bears the name of T. Stokely M. Holmes, who had died in 1905. Between 1996 and 1997, the doughboy memorial received new artillery, replacing the feature that had been missing since 1990.15 Both the Civil War and “doughboy” memorials retain a high degree of integrity and are therefore contributing resources.
Noncontributing Resources
Other resources within Main Plaza include various small-scale non-historic-age memorials and markers. At the north and south ends of the fountain are two concrete bases, added after the period of significance (1971), with bronze plaques reading: “Plaza Beautification and Reconstruction, New Braunfels Rotary Club, in cooperation with City of New Braunfels, New Braunfels Utilities, Texas Highway Department, Dedicated during celebration of American Revolution Bicentennial, 1976” (photo 9). The park also features a “Friendship Tree,” with a marker placed on a stone base at ground level, which reads: “Freundschaftsbaum /Frendship Tree, Gemeinsam gewidmet den Bürgern von New Braunfels / Cooperatively dedicated to the citizens of New Braunfels. Peter Schneider, Mayor, Braunfels / Lahn. Margaret Naegelin, Mayor, New Braunfels / Texas. 24.3.1978 / March 24, 1978” (photo 10). A similarly styled marker on a nearby tree lists important dates in the history of Main Plaza. Other markers on signposts recognize Main Plaza as a Lone Star Legacy park, and the bandstand as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark. These resources are noncontributing because they were added to the site after 1971.
Some of the trees and most of the landscaping in Main Plaza appear to be planted and arranged after the period of significance. Landscaping efforts for the 1976 Bicentennial included distruptive regrading that left many historic pecan and red oak trees’ root systems exposed and damaged.16 The Rotary Club organized plantings of multiple Spanish oaks, crepe myrtles, and Indian hawthorns in 1976, when the impact of the root damage was still to be determined.17 The “Friendship Tree,” a pin oak planted in 1978, replaced an older red oak, indicating that perhaps at least one tree was damaged fatally as a result of the root disruption.18 The large oak trees lining the southeastern edge of the park may be the Spanish oaks planted in 1976, but further research would be necessary to determine that with certainty. Sometime
14 “‘Doughboy’ To Return to Main Plaza on Saturday,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, December 12, 1986, 1 and 3A. 15 “Monuments Get Much-Needed Face Lifts,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, May 2, 1997, 1; “A Call to Arms,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, December 5, 1990, 1. 16 “Concern Expressed for Trees on Plaza,” New Braunfels Herald and Zeitung, February 26, 1976, 9. 17 Lottie Miller, “Pink Blooming Hawthorn to Beautify Main Plaza,” New Braunfels Herald and Zeitung, February 26, 1976, 1C. 18 Sara Samora, “New Friendship Plaque Gets Ready for Display,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, March 20, 2019, accessed September 8, 2020, http://herald-zeitung.com/news/article_8f24710c-4aa3-11e9-b99f-5b10221b9dd1.html.
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Integrity
The Main Plaza Historic District has a high degree of integrity, and alterations to its layout and components have been minimal. The original boundaries of the plaza have remained the same since its inception, and it has maintained largely the same spatial organization since 1897. While the shape of the park area became more oval in 1976, the overall layout and feeling remains the same. Changes to the roadway have been minimal but have included repaving and the addition of curbed pedestrian islands and planters in 1976. The park area has seen minor changes since development began in the late nineteenth century. Repairs to the fountain and memorials have used high-quality materials and craftsmanship and have not altered any character-defining features of these resources. The Civil War monument was relocated in 1976, but its use as part of a public park remains unaltered. The bandstand looks the same as it has since 1926 and has been well maintained. Noncontributing resources in Main Plaza minimally impact the historic site. Overall, Main Plaza retains its integrity of location, design, materials, setting, workmanship, feeling, and association.
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Statement of Significance
Main Plaza embodies New Braunfels’s history of town planning, as well as its cultural values over time. The plaza is an indicator of prevalent planning principles throughout the history of New Braunfels. The plaza, drawn at the intersection of Seguin Avenue and San Antonio Street, is a central feature of Nicolaus Zink’s original ca. 1845 town plan, indicating the site’s paramount value. Furthermore, Zink’s choice to use an axial plan illustrates the influence of contemporary Neoclassical planning ideals that were popular in his homeland of Germany at the time. As New Braunfels developed throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, an explicitly recreational space was delineated from the roadway, combining original Neoclassical goals for the plaza with romantic and City Beautiful American park planning ideals of the time. Since its inception, the plaza was a cherished venue for social events of all sorts, including celebrations, performances, leisurely strolls, and protests. As an early commercial, transportation, and social hub, Main Plaza was an important reflection of the town’s identity. Town anniversary celebrations, performances, and other events, have themselves often been the drivers for development and improvements to the site. The plaza reflects the importance of social gatherings for the functioning and material improvement of a town that was organized on the communal political organization of the Adelsverein. Music and dance were common activities at Main Plaza, giving it a notable place in the legacy of German Texas musical traditions. The plaza has also been an integral part of military events and commemorations. While there are many courthouse plaza squares in Texas, Main Plaza is distinctive for its German cultural origins and its continued use as a social space despite pressures to build a courthouse at its center. Main Plaza is eligible for listing under Criterion A in the areas of Community Planning and Development and Social History at the local level. The period of significance for Main Plaza begins in 1845, the year Nicolaus Zink created the first town plan for New Braunfels. Because Main Plaza maintains significance through the current day, its period of significance ends in 1971, marking 50 years into the past as dictated by National Park Service standards.
Community Planning and Development
The Marktplatz and Early Town Planning
The first wagon train of settlers to arrive in New Braunfels in 1845 was led by a German surveyor from Bavaria named Nicolaus Zink. Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels sent Zink, under the auspices of the Adelsverein, to survey the land and create a town plan so that lots that could be sold to immigrants.19 This was a pressing task because the Adelsverein relied on income from settlers for financial solvency. Zink’s first plan, a rough layout of the town and the surrounding area, indicated locations for important features such as a hospital, Protestant and Catholic churches, and the “Sophienburg,” a never-realized fort dedicated to Prince Carl’s wife Sophie (now the name of New Braunfels’s museum and archives). Whether any of these features or streets already existed at the time of the plan’s creation is unknown. This first plan also clearly showed Main Plaza, labeled Markt or “Market.” Main Plaza appears in roughly its current location, although its orientation is more north–south than its present northeast–southwest alignment (fig. 7). The plaza takes on a hierarchical importance in this early plan. It stands out on the map, and the major axes in the town radiate out from it, showing its intended function as the heart of the city. A contemporary illustration of the 1845 division of lots, and the next available maps of the town dating from 1849 and 1850, show a more developed plan; presumably the fruition of Zink’s work. These maps show Main Plaza labeled Marktplatz or “Market plaza” (not to be confused with current-day Market Plaza, which was then labeled as “Fleischhalle,” or “meat market”) at the nexus of a more formally planned and Neoclassical street grid on a northeast–southwest axis (fig. 8).
New Braunfels’s town plan is indicative of various currents in German urban planning prevalent at the time of its founding. The urban layout was likely influenced by formal Geman Neoclassical planning ideals, which were visible in
19 Crystal Sasse Ragsdale, “Zink, Nicolaus (1812–1887),” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed August 20, 2020, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/zink-nicolaus.
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Baroque enlargements of existing German cities such as Berlin and Potsdam, and possibly much earlier gridded towns such as Bern, Switzerland (founded in 1190).20 These plans include an orthoganal street layout with a central square. The square was an open area that provided space for commerce or gatherings, often fronted by a church or town hall. Large plazas, often anchored by religious or civic buildings, are an essential part of many German cities, including Zink’s native Bamberg. Many members of the Adelsverein were from unplanned German towns that would not have had a gridded street layout like in New Braunfels. Therefore, the use of a formal urban grid in New Braunfels likely indicates the aspirations of German settlers, reproducing something they knew to represent progress rather than than something familiar. The Adelsverein’s goals were largely financial, but the organization also had ideological aims to create a new German state, or to simply provide a fresh start for new settlers.21 An orderly, more intentional town layout would lend itself to the goals and aspirations of those forging a new life.
Public squares are also common in Texas town planning, often taking the form of courthoue squares. Plazas are one of many types of courthouse squares in the state, as outlined by Robert E. Veselka’s The Courthoue Square in Texas. Veselka defines the “plaza” square as one with an open city block adjacent to a courthouse, and attributes plazas largely to Spanish and German influences, rather than European American immigration to the state. Four out of five county seats in the German Hill Country have layout patterns similar to that of New Braunfels, suggesting it was a form preferable to these immigrant groups.22 Fredericksburg, also settled by the Adelsverein, has an open plaza carved out of the urban grid, part of which was later taken up by a courthouse when it became a county seat.23 The plaza in New Braunfels has a unique form, similar to the “Lancaster” courthouse square—a prototypical European American pattern identified by Edward Price and named after a square in Lancaster, Pennsylvania—although Lancasters generally have a courthouse at their center. The Lancaster square form is characterized by streets converging on the midpoints of the square.24 The plaza at New Braunfels was not designed as a courthouse square, but when the town became Comal County seat, the courthouse was built adjacent to the plaza.25
Many Texas towns chose to place their courthouse at the center of their town square, and the choice to keep Main Plaza as an open space is a result of the urban ideals of early settlers. Comal County built two courthouses in the nineteenth century, and at both instances, New Braunfels town government insisted that the courthouse not occupy the center of their plaza: a testament to their priorities for an open gathering space. In 1849, the City of New Braunfels donated a site near Comal Springs to the County for the courthouse, with the provision that the County could not build at the center of Main Plaza, even if they opted to sell the donated site and build elsewhere.26 This provision indicates a strong desire of the people of New Braunfels to maintain their plaza as an open space. The County eventually abandoned the idea of building the courthouse inside Main Plaza, and instead built it next to the southeastern corner of the plaza in 1860 (figs. 1 and 2).27 Coinciding with a boom in Texas courthouse construction in the late nineteenth century, Comal County replaced the original courthouse with a new one in 1898. Main Plaza’s center was once again debated as a potential site. Designed by architect J. Riley Gordon with the center of Main Plaza as its intended location, the new courthouse incorporated entrances at its four corners to suit that location.28 Despite the plan, the courthouse was ultimately placed at its current location, on the northwest edge of Main Plaza. The City of New Braunfels insisted on preserving a more German-style plaza at the town’s main axis, instead of adopting a typical American courthouse-square pattern.
20 Robert E. Veselka, The Courthouse Square in Texas. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000, 134–135. 21 Veselka, The Courthouse Square, 133-136. 22 Veselka, The Courthouse Square, 82. 23 Veselka, The Courthouse Square, 84. 24 Veselka, The Courthouse Square, 20, 137. 25 Veselka, The Courthouse Square, 138. 26 Hardy, Heck, Moore Inc., New Braunfels Historic Resources Survey, January 2009, 3–26. 27 Volz & Associates Inc., Comal County Courthouse Master Plan. Prepared for the Texas Historical Commission, 2005. 28 Texas Historical Commission, “Historic Marker Application: Comal County Courthouse,” 1993, accessed August 26, 2020, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth488977/m1/1/?q=comal%20county%20courthouse.
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Development of the Central Park Area: 1895–1905
Development of Main Plaza’s park area came in tandem with overall growth of New Braunfels as an economic center. After the arrival of the railroad in 1881, New Braunfels developed rapidly as an industrial and commercial hub. Despite this growth, Main Plaza and the surrounding downtown area still had relatively sparse construction until around 1912. Businesses around the turn of the century included the Hotel Platz (formerly the Guadalupe Hotel), two general stores, a saloon and billiards, and a jewelry store.
Growth of Main Plaza’s park was a decades-long process, beginning with the installation of the first permanent element in the plaza’s center, the fountain. The first accounts of interest in a fountain at Main Plaza date to the 1880s, when the Committee on Water investigated the feasibility of installing a watering place at the public square.29 In 1887, the City deemed such a plan disadvantageous because several merchants paid the City rent to sell water from their homes.30 After the 50th anniversary festivities of 1895, a festival-organizing committee announced they would use surplus event funds to build a memorial at the center of Main Plaza.31 According to historical documentation, Herman Seele, then president of the Executive Committee of Citizens, asked the city council for permission to erect a water fountain on the plaza.32 The festival funds and private donations ultimately fell short of the fountain’s final price, and the City agreed to pay the remaining balance of $58.05.33 This marked the beginning of New Braunfels residents’ deep involvement— financially and otherwise—in the improvement of Main Plaza, creating a community-planned and -funded space, oftentimes with help from local government.
Beginning with the installation of the fountain, early German Neoclassical planning principles began to mingle with American park planning ideals. These American planning currents included the picturesque and romantic movements, as well as the City Beautiful movement. City Beautiful design ideals focused on symmetrical and orderly geometric landscapes, with broad vistas featuring Classical Revival architecture. The axiality and symmetry of the fountain’s placement at the center of Main Plaza reflects City Beautiful ambitions.34 After the fountain was installed in 1896, an article in the Neu-Braunsfelser Zeitung proclaimed:
It is now the duty of the citizens of New Braunfels to provide further plans as soon as possible. Only then will the plaza come to full effect when the fountain is surrounded with ornamental shrubbery and trees and benches, and the plaza will be an ornament to the city as well as a restful retreat for citizens and visitors.35
This statement sheds light on local ideas about Main Plaza, and directly reflects currents in American park planning at the time. American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who visited New Braunfels in the 1850s, had left an influential legacy on American park planning. Olmsted viewed urban parks as necessary places of natural beauty and urban respite, as well as assets to surrounding property value. Olmsted’s designs espoused both romantic and City Beautiful tendencies. Landscaped parks connecting to boulevards, visually pleasing groupings of civic buildings, plantings, street furniture, and trees, were all lauded for their abilities to soften urban settings.36 New Braunfels already had a park space where two grand boulevards came together (San Antonio Street was described by Olmsted himself as “very wide—three times as wide, in effect, as Broadway in New York”); now the town simply had to implement the
29 As described in the Main Plaza Lone Star Legacy Parks application. 30 “Main Plaza,” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application. 31 Haas, History of New Braunfels, 210. 32 According to a document on file with the Texas Historical Commission, “Main Plaza Fountain” Adobe PDF file. 33 New Braunfels Zeitung Chronicle, “New Sprays, Lights Beautify Historic Main Plaza Fountain,” December 8, 1963, 1. 34 Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement, 79, 86–95. 35 As quoted in “New Sprays.” 36 Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement, 42,79
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft necessary planned landscape designs and amenities disseminated by Olmsted.37 These additional improvements began perhaps sooner than expected, when, shortly after the fountain arrived, the city council agreed that it was being overused to water animals. While a watering place had been an original goal for the fountain and park, town leadership now desired a more formally designed space. To solve the problem, the City installed curbing, landscaping, and park benches in 1897 (fig.12).38
The next push for park improvement was the construction of a bandstand for concerts and entertainment. Residents petitioned for the bandstand and contributed $180 in funds raised by Waldschmits’s Firemen’s Band. The City provided additional funding, and the bandstand was completed for a total of $560 in July 1905, built by locally esteemed contractor (and member of the fire department) Adolph F. Moeller.39
This “music pavilion,” as it was originally called, was built to provide a suitable place for the Firemen’s Band to perform, but it hosted many other acts as well. The addition of the bandstand gave the residents of New Braunfels a more formal venue for the events that were already taking place in Main Plaza. Beginning around the turn of the twentieth century, nearby Market Plaza also shifted from a meat market to a more recreational space, hosting events such as carnivals and shows. The transformation of both Main Plaza’s park and Market Plaza from mostly practical commercial centers to recreational spaces indicates a shift in urban values and planning tendencies toward more modern ideas about open space as leisure grounds.
Culmination of Park Development: 1905–1937
Improvements to Main Plaza in the early twentieth century helped transform the site into its current state. The commercial area around Main Plaza continued to grow, and by 1912 there was an increase in density around the plaza and adjacent area, including a new department store and an enlarged bank (fig. 4). This growth was due to several factors, including changes in property ownership as the first generation of settlers aged, and the prosperity of New Braunfels cotton gins and mills due to a cotton and corn boom. In the 1920s the plaza saw further development with the arrival of the automobile, leading to auto-related businesses such as gas stations and auto dealers. By 1912, the architecture surrounding the plaza had the appearance that remains today.
Main Plaza’s bandstand received further attention in this era, when in 1923, Lena Richter of the Women’s Civil Improvement Club came before city council to present plans for installing a restroom. This restroom was intended for mothers who had to take their children to “camp yard privies” while shopping downtown. The council members agreed that this was a worthy endeavor, but there was no funding for such a project, and another two years passed by without action. By 1926, the Women’s Civic Improvement Club had taken matters into their own hands, and city council minutes state that the restroom was already complete and ready to be turned over to the City.40 This restroom addition raised the bandstand above grade, replaced the old base with one of limestone, and added windows for ventilation. The addition of the two war monuments in the 1930s provided yet more striking and monumental vistas in the tradition of a City Beautiful park.
Community Maintenance of a Cherished Urban Landmark
Citizen groups, individuals, and the local government have lovingly maintained the park over the years. Since the 1930s, Main Plaza has been the subject of various planning efforts to improve the space, particularly in relation to
37 Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey Through Texas; Or, A Saddle-Trip on the Southwestern Frontier: With a Statistical Appendix (New York: Dix, Edwards & Co, 1857), 142. 38 “Main Plaza,” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application. 39 Sometimes referred to as A. C. Moeller in various park histories. 40 According to a document on file with the Texas Historical Commission, “Main Plaza Bandstand,” Adobe PDF file.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft traffic and the commercial perimeter of the plaza. In 1963 the New Braunfels Lions Club conceived of and funded a renovation of the fountain, including cleaning, repainting, and landscaping around the fountain’s base.41 By the 1960s, tourism was an important driver for New Braunfels’s planning endeavors, and Main Plaza was a valuable attraction because of its central location. A tourist information office opened at the plaza in the summer months. Less urban parks nearby—such as Landa Park and Canyon Lake—seem to have received more attention than Main Plaza during this era in an effort to attract outdoor recreational tourism.42
By the 1970s and later, improvements at Main Plaza focused on safety for pedestrian access and encouraging commerce. In preparation for the 1976 US Bicentennial event, the Rotary Club fundraised for and organized a Main Plaza beautification project. This project gave the park much attention, including fountain cleaning, brick pathways, and major plantings. During these renovations, the Civil War monument was moved to its present location in order to give the park more balance and symmetry. The Texas Highway Department also contributed heavily to improving the driver’s experience of the plaza by cutting the corners of the park to make it more oval-shaped, and by decluttering signs along the roadway.43
Main Plaza’s resources saw another wave of repair and maintenance in the 1980s and 1990s. The fountain stopped running in the summer of 1989 due to water restrictions and, after inspection of the fountain by a restoration firm, the city decided not to turn the water back on until extensive rusting and damage could be repaired.44 After an aggressive fundraising effort, the city and its citizens raised more than $50,000 to have the fountain repaired in 1994. At this point, New Braunfels residents discovered that a photograph of their city’s fountain was featured in a historic J. L. Mott fountains catalog. This discovery spurred local excitement and gave restoration advocates evidence of the fountain’s historical significance, which was needed to secure funding.45 Just months after the repair, the fountain was struck by an automobile and severely damaged. Using funds from insurance, the fountain repairs were finished in time for New Braunfels’s Sesquicentennial events in April 1995. Following the event, the Sesquicentennial Committee found an extra $30,000 from their fundraising efforts and decided to dedicate these funds to the restoration and maintenance of monuments in New Braunfels, including those in Main Plaza. With these funds, the doughboy’s bayonet, which had been vandalized in December 1990, was replaced. This funding was also applied to replacement of the Civil War soldier’s musket, which had been missing for an unknown period of time.46 Park fundraising in the 1990s included sponsored paver bricks and granite markers, some of which were sold by New Braunfels youth.47 These improvements were related to twenty-first-century planning goals of revitalized urban commerce for locals and tourists alike, as illustrated by New Braunfels’s Texas Main Street designation in 1990. The Impact of Transportation Planning and Design on the Plaza
Due to Main Plaza’s location at the convergence of significant transportation routes, the site has been shaped by shifts in transportation infrastructure. At the time of New Braunfels’s founding, the Camino Real (a Spanish colonial trail) ran near the town’s center. From its inception, New Braunfels was meant to take advantage of its location on travel corridors. The Adelsverein envisioned New Braunfels as a stopover on the route to the more distant Fisher-Miller land grant, but difficulties with the land grant, combined with the good conditions for settlement at New Braunfels, allowed the town to grow into a commercial and social center in its own right. And, although the Fisher-Miller grant could not
41 “New Sprays.” 42 Program Building Committee, Comal County Long Range County Program, September 1967, accessed October 2, 2020, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth636942/m2/1/high_res_d/TXPUB_00145.pdf. 43 “Plaza Looks More Orderly,” New Braunfels Herald and Zeitung, February 6, 1976, 2B 44 Warnken, Mark, “Something Is Missing on Main Plaza,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, February 7, 1992, 4. 45 “Fountain Restoration Flooding with Enthusiasm with Photo Finding,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, November 22, 1992, 1. 46 “A Call to Arms,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, December 5. 1990, 1. Levy, Abe, “Monuments Get Much-Needed Face Lifts” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, May 2, 1997, 1. 47 “Students Help Out Paver Project,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, March 17, 1996, 15.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft come to fruition, New Braunfels still served as a stopping point for Adelsverein migrants traveling to Fredericksburg. In 1847, Seguin Avenue and San Antonio Street—the two roads intersecting at Main Plaza—were thoroughfares to Seguin and San Antonio, and the town was benefiting from traffic between Austin and San Antonio.48 In 1858, the Guadalupe Hotel relocated from South Seguin Avenue to Main Plaza.49 The desirability of such a property for a hotel indicates the degree of traffic by merchants and passersby. By 1870, an important feeder route for the Chisholm Trail (a livestock trading route) passed through Main Plaza.50 Sanborn maps from 1885 indicate several “wagon sheds” around and adjacent to the plaza, attesting to the number of travelers in need of a place to house their wagons. Connection to points in Texas and further afield only increased throughout the twentieth century, as bridges and rail routes made New Braunfels even more accessible. These links affected transit routes as well as the built fabric of the city itself. Because Main Plaza was such a well-traveled intersection, its design often had as much to do with ease of traffic as with beauty.
The transition from a wide-open plaza to a designated roadway and central park area represents the first planning shift with direct links to improving transportation in the plaza. Although Sanborn maps indicate that this shift happened between 1902 and 1907, photographic and written evidence suggests that it had already occurred when the curbs were installed in 1897 (figs. 2 and 3). Main Plaza was the focal point of the town, and it would be logical for residents to desire not only a modern leisure space, but a more intentional roadway that reflected the town’s attraction to visitors. In the early twentieth century, New Braunfels’s transportation planning fundamentally shifted with the introduction of the automobile. Comal County had its first car registration in 1907, and in the same year, New Braunfels passed its first ordinance regulating automobiles.51 Main Plaza and several of the adjacent streets in the center of town were some of the first asphalt-paved roads in New Braunfels. A 1922 Sanborn map denotes the rest of the town’s roads as still paved with gravel. The automobile also affected the built fabric surrounding the plaza. Around 1925, a drive-through gas station came to the south corner of Main Plaza, and auto dealers and repair shops began to replace small traditional businesses such as furniture makers, tailors, and barbers, at and around Main Plaza (fig. 17).
Throughout the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, planning efforts around Main Plaza have attempted to improve the safety of traffic around the plaza. In the 1950s, the roadway saw various improvements, including the 1954 addition of traffic islands and redirection of traffic to one way. More islands were slated for future installation if the 1954 island proved successful at improving safety, but more were not added until 1976 (as part of the extensive redevelopment project for the US Bicentennial celebration).52 The Bicentennial plan, designed by the Texas Highway Department, included the park’s change from a rounded rectangle shape to its current oval shape. This created a more natural curve in the roadway, making it easier to navigate by automobile.53 As part of this change, the city replaced the old curb around the park, and the Texas Highway Department repaved the roadway.54 Planter islands came to the plaza’s corners in the 1990s.55 In 1985, Walter P. Moore and Associates, Inc. of San Antonio made four alternate plans to reorganize traffic flow, one of which proposed placing a traffic signal in the middle of Main Plaza and moving park areas to the four corners. Ultimately, none of these proposed alterations were accepted.56 After New Braunfels received Texas Main Street designation in 1990, Ford, Powell & Carson Landscape Architects created a downtown landscape master plan for
48 Haas, History of New Braunfels, 73. 49 Texas Historical Commission, “Old Schmitz Hotel,” Recorded Texas Historic Landmark Marker Application, 1971, from the Portal to Texas History, accessed August 20, 2020, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth488976/m1/1/?q=guadalupe%20schmitz%20hotel%20new%20braunfels. 50 “Main Plaza” Lone Star Legacy Park Award Application. 51 Haas, History of New Braunfels, 214. 52 “Pedestrian Island Slated for Plaza,” New Braunfels Herald, December 7, 1954, 1; “City Pledges Support for Rotary Plaza,” New Braunfels Herald and Zeitung, February 13, 1975, 14; “Island Wall,” New Braunfels Herald and Zeitung, April 15, 1976, 16. 53 “City Pledges Support.” 54 “Plaza Looks More Orderly,” New Braunfels Herald and Zeitung, February 5, 1976, 2B. 55 “Landscaping Masterplan Means New Horizons,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, March 3, 1991, 13. 56 “Traffic on New Braunfels’ Main Plaza Keeps Going in Circles,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, June 29, 1997, 1, 3A.
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New Braunfels that included recommendations for Main Plaza. This plan suggested converting the traffic circle to one lane only, an idea that was rejected by city council in 1995.57
Social History
As a geographic and cultural core of New Braunfels, Main Plaza has been a crucial part of the town’s social identity since its beginnings. The social activities of the plaza have morphed with the passage of time; originally serving as a market square, social and entertainment hub, and intersection, the plaza has evolved to include even more leisure activities and tourism throughout the twentieth century and into the present day. The plaza was a crossroads on early travel routes, and thereby a venue for commercial growth. It was a place for spontaneous social interaction, as well as more organized events such as parades and festivals, and a venue for the development of German music and dancing culture in Texas. As the site of county government, the plaza also held formal governmental functions, and was a space for both commemoration and political activism. These uses and contexts made the plaza a crucial place for representing community identity. Residents used it to gather and express their aspirations and values, as well as their political voice and drive to improve their community.
Commercial, Social, and Cultural History
The town of New Braunfels was founded in 1845 when it was settled by the Adelsverein, a German immigrant society under the leadership of Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels. The town had a geographical advantage as a stop on well- traveled routes. New Braunfels was located near the Spanish colonial trail Camino Real, as well as on the travel route German migrants used to head further westward, and on the route between San Antonio and Austin. The town capitalized on this by developing the commercial capacity to meet the needs of travelers, as well as the needs of its own townspeople. The scarcity of food and wares in the area (San Antonio, Seguin, and Austin were too far away to rely on for basics) gave New Braunfels an opportunity for developing a burgeoning manufacturing and agricultural economy within its first decade.58 Germans also made the most of the trades they brought with them, known for making high- quality wagons. Frederick Olmsted marveled at the quality of the town’s wagons during his visit in the 1850s, and recounted that New Braunfels had seven wagon manufacturers at the time.59 By 1850, the town’s status as a major crossroads had impacted its growth; New Braunfels was the fourth largest town in Texas, with 1,298 inhabitants.60
During the late nineteenth century, businesses relocated from other parts of town to the plaza, indicating its growing importance for commercial opportunity. The Guadalupe Hotel moved from South Seguin Avenue to Main Plaza in 1858. In 1885, Zum Schwarzen Wallfisch (“The Black Whale”) saloon relocated to Main Plaza.61 Around 1890 Main Plaza also became an important marketplace for the sale of cotton bales.62 When a new Comal County courthouse was built in 1898, the city chose not to use the center of the plaza, but instead at the plaza’s edge. Along with the courthouse, Main Plaza also hosted a county jail, and both of these government institutions doubtlessly also contributed to the plaza’s foot traffic and commercial growth. Commercial enterprises often catered to the social nature of the plaza, such as saloons, a bowling alley, a beer garden, and “lodge rooms” showed on Sanborn maps from the 1880s to the early 1900s.
57 “Traffic on New Braunfels’ Main Plaza,” 3A. 58 Daniel P. Greene, “New Braunfels, TX” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed September 22, 2020, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/new-braunfels-tx; Louis E. Brister, “Adelsverein,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed September 22, 2020, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/adelsverein; Coers, “New Braunfels Market Plaza.” 59 Olmsted, A Journey Through Texas, 141. 60 Veselka, The Courthouse Square, 137. 61 Robin Blackburn, “From Paper to Pub, Site Has a Rich History,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, September 4, 2016, accessed October 20, 2020, http://herald-zeitung.com/news/article_264a721c-7aee-11e6-ad12-03ee201f0e92.html. 62 “Main Plaza” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application.
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Beyond these everyday uses, Main Plaza’s tradition of parades and anniversary celebrations also began in this early era. The first documented celebration at Main Plaza was a Fourth of July event in 1846, the year after the first immigrants arrived in New Braunfels.63 Records from later Fourth of July celebrations show that Main Plaza was a stopping point on a parade route. In 1861, a reporter described a somber celebration held during the Civil War:
The 4th July yesterday, not with as much fan-fare and waste of powder as at former 4th July celebrations, was observed here in dignified manner commensurate with present times of war. The home-guard militia and the bugle corps marched along the main streets to the beat of a drum. Arrived at the plaza, the militia staged an exemplary military review.64
In 1876 (the year of the US Centennial celebrations), a more sprightly parade passed through Main Plaza and stopped there for photos.65 The first Founders Day parade is said to have circled Main Plaza in 1870, 25 years after the town’s founding, and has every 25 years since (fig. 10). Another significant New Braunfels parade, Kindermasken, or Kindermaskenball parade—which literally translates to “children mask dance”—is a German tradition celebrating springtime and children. The first Kindermasken occurred in either 1846 or 1856, with children dancing in costume through town.66 After the completion of Herman Seele’s 1855 Sängerhaus at the end of present-day Seele Street, children ended the parade there, marching from Mill Street and passing through Main Plaza en route.67
A telling illustration of Main Plaza’s profound link to local social gathering and recreation is the relationship between park construction and anniversary celebrations. Most of the park’s construction and improvements were either funded for or spurred by town festivities. Construction and decoration included permanent structures, as well as temporary props or ephemera for specific events. Two examples of ephemera in this era are the 1881 decorated archway for Sängerfest (or Saengerfest, a musical festival) and the 1895 temporary triumphal arch for the town’s 50th anniversary (figs. 6 and 9). These grand arches may have given New Braunfels residents a taste of what a more-developed Main Plaza could look like.68 After the 50th anniversary celebration, a festival committee decided that the best use of surplus event funds was for the permanent improvement of the plaza, leading to the installation of the fountain. The decision to use these funds on the plaza speaks to the plaza’s importance to the town and perhaps to the success of the festivities that had just taken place there. Once the fountain was in place, park development gained momentum, and the curbs and bandstand followed shortly thereafter.
After the installation of the fountain and curbing, Main Plaza’s commercial activity continued to grow, while its status as a place of leisure and point of local pride augmented. Sanborn maps and newspaper advertisements from the early 1900s to 1930 indicate increased commercial and religious functions—an optometrist, Christian Science Church, jewelers, banks, an ice cream parlor, and beer garden—all either around or directly adjacent to Main Plaza. In this era, the new park area was a source of pride and cosmopolitanism, indicating the plaza’s importance as a physical embodiment of the town’s goals and aspirations. An 1899 article in the Austin American-Statesman’s predecessor, the Democratic Statesman, commends the regal and luxurious atmosphere in the plaza, and illustrates its function as a space of social ritual: “It is no uncommon occurrence of evenings to see a party of ladies on elegant cantering horses as
63 “Main Plaza” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application. 64 As quoted in “Main Plaza” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application. 65 Rosemarie Gregory, “City’s July 4th Celebration Has Long History,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, 3B. 66 Myra Lee Adams Goff, “Historic Kindermaskenball Parade This Coming Saturday.” Sophienburg Museum and Archives Blog, April 6, 2014, accessed August 27, 2020, https://sophienburg.com/historic-kindermaskenball-parade-this-coming-saturday/. The discrepancy in potential first dates is likely due to a typo, as stated by Goff. If the first parade did in fact march to Seele’s Sängerhaus, 1856 would be a more likely first date as Seele built it in 1855. 67 Myra Lee Adams Goff, “Historic Kindermaskenball Parade This Coming Saturday.” Sophienburg Museum and Archives Blog, April 6, 2014, accessed August 27, 2020, https://sophienburg.com/historic-kindermaskenball-parade-this-coming-saturday/. 68 “Main Plaza” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft they circle the garden in the center of the main plaza for their evening’s ride.”69 A tribute to the park area’s beautification in the 1908 New Braunfels Herald indicates its success and value for leisure and gathering:
The improvement of this pretty plaza dates back about 12 years… The summer night concerts held here, have been the means of many an hour’s happy gathering and diversion by our people. Iron benches, placed under the shady evergreens, afford cozy resting places even during the hot noon-day sun of summer time. Gravel walks, grassy lawns, and the whole encased by a concrete curbing, makes the surrounding ideal in every way.70
This short article, celebrating the foresight of those who funded the fountain, which “…will be for generations to come a reminder of our forefathers’ celebration of the city’s 50th anniversary” speaks to the boosterism and local pride inherent in the beautification of the park as the town’s crowned jewel. Also in this era, visitors from out of town attended social calls in Main Plaza, attesting to its status as a place to see and be seen for locals and outsiders alike.71
New Braunfels’s Fourth of July celebration, with its beginnings in 1846, continued to gain momentum in the twentieth century, bringing visitors to Main Plaza en masse. The celebration took many guises, and various New Braunfels groups organized it throughout its history. While parts of the festivities have occurred at other locations such as Landa Park, Main Plaza has always been an important venue. As early as 1908, the fire department sponsored the event, which in the 1920s also doubled as a fundraiser for their department to offset the cost of recent equipment purchases. Main Plaza was important to the fire department in these early days for at least two reasons. A hook-and-ladder truck was stationed on the plaza until sometime around the turn of the twentieth century, and the Firemen’s Band played a crucial role in funding and performing on the bandstand.72 Because of the fire department’s involvement, Fourth of July festivities included not just concerts and dances but a variety of unique events such as water pressure displays, hose relay contests, and pumper connection contests, all of which took place on Main Plaza:
The shooting of salutes on Main Plaza will open the occasion at early dawn, accompanied by a band concert that will continue to ten o’clock. The morning parade in full uniform, headed by the band, will take place at the usual early hour.
A grand water display on Main Plaza will demonstrate the different forces of water supply relied on in firefighting. It will show the splendid pressure maintained in the general water mains of the city… This will be followed up this year by a ‘tag day,’ conducted by a bevy of young ladies for the purpose of raising additional funds for the fire department.73
In the 1930s the Fire Department had less involvement, but still hosted the Fourth of July parade which circled Main Plaza. Thousands of visitors flocked to New Braunfels in the 1930s, and in 1958, at least 1,000 overnight guests came to stay, joining the throngs of locals and day visitors.74 Starting in 1978, the Fourth of July parade became an “Old- Fashioned July 4 Celebration” hosted by the Sophienburg Museum, held in part at Main Plaza.75 The museum still organizes an annual Fourth of July parade and event at Main Plaza.
69 “The Cosmopolitan and Beautiful Town of New Braunfels,” Democratic Statesman (Austin), August 20, 1899, 7. 70 “Plaza, with Pavilion and Fountain,” New Braunfels Herald, March 20, 1908, 11. 71 “Personal and Local,” New Braunfels Herald, September 11, 1908, 11. See various dates of New Braunfels papers for more examples. 72 A “Hook and Ladder” truck is indicated on Sanborn maps in the late nineteenth century, no longer visible in 1907. 73 “Firemen’s Tag Day,” New Braunfels Herald, June 26, 1925, 1. 74 “New Braunfels Big Fourth of July Celebration Brings Hundreds to this City Today,” New Braunfels Herald, July 4, 1930, 1; “July 4th Weekend Expected to Top All Tourist Records,” New Braunfels Zeitung-Chronicle, July 4, 1958, 1. 75 Rosemarie Gregory, “City’s July 4th Celebration Has Long History,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, 3B.
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Parades of all sorts have passed through the roadway and park at Main Plaza (fig. 10). Some not previously mentioned include Mayfest (fig. 11) and the Comal County Fair parade. Wurstfest, which began in 1961 as “Sausage Week,” took place at Main Plaza from 1963 to 1967, at which point it outgrew the downtown location. All of these parades and celebrations continued the traditions of social celebrations and ushered Main Plaza, and New Braunfels overall, into the twentieth century as a popular tourist destination.
Throughout the twentieth century, park maintenance and repairs continued to coincide with anniversary festivities. For the 75th anniversary celebration, the town had ample programming, but it seems that no major repairs were needed (fig. 18). The next main refurbishment took place before the 1976 US Bicentennial celebration, which was combined with “Founders Day.” The park was rededicated in an event that included speeches, sermons, and the arrival of a bicentennial flag by way of a group riding in on horseback from Indianola. Leading up to the 1995 sesquicentennial celebrations, the memorials and other commemorative plaques were once again given major attention and rededicated during an event at Main Plaza. Other sesquicentennial events that took place on Main Plaza were an Easter service as well as sesquicentennial and Kindermasken parades, both of which crossed the plaza. The City restored the bandstand in 2005, on the 100-year anniversary of its construction. A major fundraising push, led by a nonprofit called Main Street Partners, made the bandstand’s renovation possible.76 Many present-day celebrations embrace the town’s German heritage and traditions with a nostalgic eye, boosting local tourism and continuing a tradition of local pride and celebration.
The bandstand’s relevance to the German cultural traditions of live music and dancing is another key aspect of Main Plaza. Throughout the nineteenth century, singing was a very popular cultural activity promoted by German Texans, and New Braunfels residents were active in this tradition. New Braunfels was home to the popular singing society, Germania, which was instrumental in organizing the first Saengerfest (singers’ festival) in New Braunfels in 1853 – a tradition that traveled throughout Texas and continues to this day. Main Plaza’s bandstand was part of a rich built tradition of local German music venues, including dancing and singing halls such as Herman Seele’s 1855 Sängerhaus (singing house) and Henry Gruene’s nearby 1878 Gruene Hall. The desire for an outdoor musical venue for summer evening concerts was so strong in New Braunfels that the citizens petitioned for a bandstand, and the local Firemen’s Band fundraised $180 for its construction in 1905.77
The bandstand’s completion was celebrated with a summer serenade of “Den Takt Angeben!” (or “Strike up the Band!”) from the Firemen’s Band, directed by Emil Waldschmidt (fig. 14). Their performances became a popular tradition.78 Shortly thereafter, Prof. Eberhard’s Military Band (a traveling band) came to play at the “pavilion,” and a reporter for the New Braunfels Herald was enthusiastic about the success of the concert and the bandstand’s potential for making New Braunfels a musical hub:
Now, as New Braunfels has on its neat public square park accommodations to seat very conveniently any musical organization in this part of the state, outside bands, apart from our splendid firemen’s band, can accept invitations to our hospitable city to give outdoor concerts and thereby add very much indeed toward making the city a musical center of considerable
76 Ian Pribanic, “Main Plaza Bandstand Project Planned in Downtown New Braunfels,” Community Impact Newspaper, September 30, 2019, accessed August 28, 2020, https://communityimpact.com/austin/new-braunfels/city-county/2019/09/30/main-plaza- bandstand-project-planned-in-downtown-new-braunfels/. 77 Texas Historical Commission, “Main Plaza Bandstand,” Official Texas Historical Marker, Subject BS (Atlas No. 13018), revised October 1, 2004; Katherine Duffield Hill and David Moore, “Central Fire Station,” National Register of Historic Places Register Form, Texas Historical Commission, submitted February 28, 2019. 78 “Main Plaza,” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application.
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magnitude. New Braunfels is the cradle of German vocal music in the state… All of our people in the city and country around are ardent lovers of music, both vocal and instrumental.79
The year after it was built, the bandstand played host to a theatrical performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado (fig. 13).80 Throughout its history, the bandstand hosted many New Braunfels band performances and evening dances, and though the bandstand fell out of use for concerts in the mid-twentieth century, it has seen a resurgence of musical activities beginning in the 1970s. These contemporary events include Fourth of July celebrations, Wassailfest (a holiday celebration with mulled cider and caroling) beginning in 1992, and the Wein and Saengerfest music festival beginning in 2003 (fig. 23).81
Commemoration and Identity
In the late-1930s, New Braunfels citizens dedicated two statues in Main Plaza that memorialized soldiers of the Civil War (1935) and World War I (1937), both funded and donated by Ernest Albert and Ella Lee Clausnitzer. The dedication ceremonies attracted large crowds to Main Plaza. Ernest Clausnitzer, a prominent local ice manufacturer, immigrated to Texas from Germany in 1887. Before moving to New Braunfels around 1930, Clausnitzer operated successful electric utility plants in small towns throughout the state. He bought the 7-foot-tall Civil War statue from city leaders in Jacksonville, Texas, who originally ordered the memorial but could not pay for it.82 In March 1935, he presented it to New Braunfels city leaders who accepted it on behalf of the community. During the November 1935 ceremony for the Civil War statue, the local chaplain praised Clausnitzer's decision to recognize soldiers who died serving both the Confederacy and Union armies.83 Nevertheless, the high school band played "Dixie" as it was unveiled before a crowd that included Civil War veterans and representatives of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Two years later, the couple gifted the city a second statue that memorialized soldiers who fought in World War I. The WWI doughboy was unveiled as part of New Braunfels' 1937 Armistice Day celebration, and the day-long festivities commemorated local participation in that war.
According to historian Marian Barber, German Texans "though always considered white, have not always been seen as Anglo,"84 In the 1930s, many German Texans made overt efforts to demonstrate their “Americanness” to Southern Protestant whites who long-regarded Texas’ European communities— including the Irish and Czech—as inferior. Anglo prejudice stemmed from cultural differences that underlaid German opposition to critical 19th century issues, including slaveholding, secession, and a statewide prohibition fight.85 World War I heightened distrust for German Texans who became targets of harsh disloyalty laws. In addition, the state went to great lengths to limit the use of German language in schools, churches, and newspapers. Gradually, traditional German identity assimilated into Anglo American society.86 To be sure, interest and pride in German culture and contributions to state history continued, but when Germany's fascist regime emerged in the 1930s, German Texans sought ways to distance themselves from association with "the Fatherland."
The monuments' placement in Main Plaza's park was fitting because the square had long been the venue for New Braunfels' public expression of its collective German identity and traditions. Robert Veselka's scholarship on
79 “Utility of the Music Pavilion,” New Braunfels Herald, August 18, 1905, 3. 80 “Main Plaza,” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application. 81 “Main Plaza,” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application. 82 “Clausnitzer Gives City Monument; Unveiling Slated,” New Braunfels Herald, March 15, 1935. 83 “Civil War Memorial Dedicated in Rites Sunday Afternoon,” New Braunfels Herald, March 29, 1935, 1. 84 See Marian Jean Barber, “How the Irish, Germans, and Czechs Became Anglo: Race and Identity in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands,” (PhD. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 2010). 85 Comal County was the only predominantly German county in Texas that voted to secede in 1861. 86 Barber, 23.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft courthouse squares found that varied land uses (transportation, cultural, political, economic), social activities, and symbols such as buildings and monuments cumulatively reinforce a square's dominance within its community.87 Like the courthouse and landscaped park, the addition of commemorative markers, monuments, and statues to Main Plaza's landscape reaffirmed its symbolic function as the heart of the community. Often viewed as permanent landscape fixtures, monuments are products of their time and imbued with the values and objectives of the individuals who erect them. Furthermore, while the process of "choosing, fundraising, building, and unveiling provide a select group with the opportunity to shape society's memory of an event,"88 succeeding generations are apt to challenge or reinforce the message(s) memorials carry.
Political Activism
Due to its significant role in the town as well as its governmental function as a courthouse square, Main Plaza also served as a venue for political campaigning and protests. One early documented protest was a rally against Prohibition in 1908, complete with a concert by the Firemen’s Band, and speeches by well-known orators arguing in German for “the cause of personal liberty” (fig. 15).89 Memorable speeches made at Main Plaza include one in 1942 by W. Lee “Pappy, Pass the Biscuits” O’Daniel, former governor of Texas and newly elected US Senator. Some also claim that Lyndon B. Johnson spoke at the plaza.90 Other rallies and demonstrations have included a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1996, followed by a “Unity Rally” the next day; youth rallies in support of and against troops in Saudi Arabia in 1991; and demonstrations for police reform following the death of George Floyd in 2020. The Civil War memorial has also been the subject of protests, as with many Jim Crow-era Confederate memorials. A 2020 petition to remove the monument states: “Currently in the center of downtown’s central plaza, stands a monument to those who fought for the confederacy and its aims of enslaving Black people.”91
Conclusion
Throughout its history, Main Plaza has reflected the ambitions, visions, fundraising, and labor of New Braunfels residents. It is highly emblematic of the urban ideals of its early settlers, who desired an open plaza for commercial and social use. The plaza’s form, organization, and relationship to the rest of the town reflect German Neoclassical town- planning influences, while the evolution of the park at the center of the plaza links it to American romantic and City Beautiful trends popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the intersection of two major axes, transportation development also impacted Main Plaza, beginning with its connection to the Camino Real, until the eventual arrival of the automobile. The social and cooperative nature of New Braunfels citizens was integral to Main Plaza’s formation, citizen groups often funding or contributing time and labor to the plaza’s improvement. Generations of residents hold memories of these social gatherings, as it has been a beloved space for travel, commerce, music, dancing, parades, and cultural events of all sorts. The plaza was a crucial place in the development of local German musical traditions of early settlers, and it hosted many commemorative and memorializing events, sometimes related to the two war memorials on the site. Main Plaza is eligible for listing under Criterion A in the areas of Community Planning and Development and Social History at the local level. The period of significance for Main Plaza begins in 1845-1971.
87 Veselka, iv and 315. 88 Kelly McMichaels, “‘Memories are Short but Monuments Lengthen Remembrance:’ The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Power of Civil War Memory,” in Lone Star Pasts: History and Memory in Texas (Bryan: Texas A&M University Press, 2007): 96. 89 “Great Anti-Prohibition Rally at New Braunfels,” New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, July 10, 1908, 1. 90 “Main Plaza,” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application. 91 Change.org petition, “New Braunfels Against the Statue,” accessed October 1, 2020, https://www.change.org/p/mayor- brockman-racist-confederate-statue-out-of-new-braunfels.
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Bibliography
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Breitenkamp, Edward C. “Seele, Freidrich Hermann, 1823–1902.” Handbook of Texas Online. Accessed September 22, 2020. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/seele-friedrich-hermann.
Brister, Louis E. “Adelsverein.” Handbook of Texas Online. Accessed September 22, 2020. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/adelsverein.
Change.org. “New Braunfels Against the Statue.” Accessed October 1, 2020. https://www.change.org/p/mayor- brockman-racist-confederate-statue-out-of-new-braunfels.
Brown, Warren. “The History of New Braunfels’ Black Community.” Community Impact Newspaper, July 17, 2020. Accessed September 22, 2020. https://communityimpact.com/austin/new-braunfels/history/2020/07/17/the- history-of-new-braunfels-black-community/.
Coers, John B. “New Braunfels Market Plaza.” Unpublished manuscript, Texas Historical Commission, no date. Adobe PDF file.
Dicke, Stacey. “Main Plaza.” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application, submitted to the City of New Braunfels, 2015.
Goff, Myra Lee Adams. “Historic Kindermaskenball Parade This Coming Saturday.” Sophienburg Museum and Archives Blog, April 6, 2014. Accessed August 27, 2020. https://sophienburg.com/historic-kindermaskenball- parade-this-coming-saturday/.
Greene, Daniel P. “New Braunfels, TX.” Handbook of Texas Online. Accessed August 25, 2020. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/HEN02.
Haas, Oscar. History of New Braunfels and Comal County, Texas 1844–1946. Austin: The Steck Company, 1968.
Hardy∙Heck∙Moore, Inc. “New Braunfels Historic Resources Survey.” Submitted to the City of New Braunfels, New Braunfels, Texas, Comal County, 2009.
Hill, Katherine Duffield, and David W. Moore, Jr. “Central Fire Station.” National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. Texas Historical Commission, February 28, 2019.
Kohlenberg, Tara Voigt. “Hidden in Plain Sight,” Sophienburg Museum and Archives Blog, April 28, 2019. Accessed October 1, 2020. https://sophienburg.com/hidden-in-plain-sight/.
New Braunfels Herald. Various dates.
New Braunfels Herald and Zeitung. Various dates.
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Olmsted, Frederick Law. A Journey Through Texas; Or, A Saddle-Trip on the Southwestern Frontier: With a Statistical Appendix. New York: Dix, Edwards & Co, 1857.
Pribanic, Ian. “Main Plaza Bandstand Project Planned in Downtown New Braunfels,” Community Impact Newspaper, September 30, 2019. Accessed August 28, 2020. https://communityimpact.com/austin/new-braunfels/city- county/2019/09/30/main-plaza-bandstand-project-planned-in-downtown-new-braunfels/.
Program Building Committee. “Comal County Long Range County Program.” September 1967. Accessed October 2, 2020. https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth636942/m2/1/high_res_d/TXPUB_00145.pdf.
Ragsdale, Crystal Sasse. “Zink, Nicolaus (1812–1887).” Handbook of Texas Online. Accessed August 20, 2020. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/zink-nicolaus.
Texas Genealogy Trails. “Comal County, Texas, World War 1 Casualties Honor Roll.” Accessed October 1, 2020. http://genealogytrails.com/tex/hillcountry/comal/mil_ww1honor.html. From Standard Blue Book of Texas, 1921, transcribed by Veneta McKinney, published by A. J. Peeler, San Antonio, Texas, 1921.
Texas Historical Commission. “Comal County Courthouse.” Texas Historic Sites Atlas. Accessed August 26, 2020. https://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/.
Texas Historical Commission. “Comal County Courthouse.” Recorded Texas Historic Landmark Marker Application, 1993. From the Portal to Texas History, accessed August 26, 2020, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth488977/m1/1/?q=comal%20county%20courthouse.
Texas Historical Commission. “Details for Comal County, C.S.A. (Atlas Number 5091000988),” Texas Historic Sites Atlas. Accessed October 1, 2020. https://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/Details/5091000988.
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Maps Map 1. Map of Texas’s counties with Comal County in red. Source: HHM, 2020.
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Map 2. Current USGS topo map with Main Plaza Historic District boundaries in red. Source: HHM, 2020.
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Map 3. Site plan of Main Plaza with contributing and noncontributing resources and boundary vertices. Source: HHM.
Resource No. Resource Name Resource Type Year NRHP Status Built 1 Park Site 1897 Contributing 2 Fountain Structure 1896 Contributing 3 Bandstand Structure 1905 Contributing 4 Civil War memorial Object 1935 Contributing 5 World War I memorial Object 1937 Contributing 6 Bicentennial marker Object 1976 Noncontributing 7 Bicentennial marker Object 1976 Noncontributing
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Figures
Figure 1. Sanborn map from 1885, showing location of original 1860 Comal County courthouse (bottom left) and future location of 1898 courthouse (upper right). Source: Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, New Braunfels, 1885, sheet 1, from the University of Texas Libraries.
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Figure 2. Sanborn map from 1902 showing new 1898 courthouse location. Note that the plaza is drawn with no curbs although they were installed in 1897. Source: Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, New Braunfels, 1902, sheets 2 and 4, from the University of Texas Libraries.
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Figure 3. Sanborn map from 1907, showing change from open plaza to curbed park at center and surrounding roadway. Source: Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, New Braunfels, 1907, sheets 2,3,5 and 6, from the University of Texas Libraries.
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Figure 4. Sanborn map from 1912, showing slight increase in density from 1907. Source: Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, New Braunfels, 1902, sheets 2,3,5 and 6, from the University of Texas Libraries.
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Figure 5. Detail view of Augustus Koch’s Birds Eye View of New Braunfels, Comal County Texas 1881. Note the original courthouse seen from behind at the bottom left of the image. Source: Wikimedia Commons, https://com mons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_map-New_Braunfels-1881.jpg.
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Figure 6. Saengerfest arch on Main Plaza, 1881. Source: History in New Branfels, http://historyinnewbraunfels .com/history/music/.
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Figure 7. Original Zink town plan for New Braunfels from ca. 1845. Location of Market Plaza noted with blue arrow, labeled Markt, or “market.” Source: The University of Texas Libraries.
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Figure 8. Map of New Braunfels from 1850 reflecting current orientation of Main Plaza and reflecting the formally gridded town plan. Main Plaza is labeled “Marktplatz,” or “Market Plaza,” not to be confused with current-day Market Plaza, which is labeled “Fleischhalle,” or “meat market.” Source: https://texastimetravel.onc ell.com/en/new-braunfels-landa-park-155699.html crediting Texas State Library and Archives.
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Figure 9. Historic photo showing the temporary triumphal arch built in 1895 for New Braunfels’s 50th anniversary Founders Day celebration. Source: History in New Braunfels, http://historyinnewbraunfels.com/hist ory/festivals/.
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Figure 10. The 1895 Founders Day parade passing through Main Plaza in front of the Guadalupe-Schmitz Hotel. Source: https://since1845.com/event/parade/.
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Figure 11. Historic photo showing Main Plaza after the installation of the fountain in 1896. Note the lack of curbing or landscaping around the fountain. Source: The Sophienburg Museum.
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Figure 12. Historic photo from ca. 1897 showing Main Plaza after the installation of curbs and landscaping in 1897. Source: Stacey Dicke, “Main Plaza,” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application, page 10.
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Figure 13. Performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado at Main Plaza bandstand, ca. 1906. The original wood-base structure and shingles are visible. Note the fabric cover over the balustrade, presumably part of the set decorations for the performance. Under normal circumstances the turned wood-balustrade was visible. Source: Stacey Dicke, “Main Plaza,” Lone Star Legacy Parks Award Application, page 11.
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Figure 14. Historic photo from 1907 showing the New Braunfels Fire Department (including band members visible at rear) at the Main Plaza bandstand. Source: Comal County Historical Commission.
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Figure 15. Historic photo from 1908 showing preparations for a protest against Prohibition. Note the location of trees at the center of the park. Source: Comal County Historical Commission.
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Figure 16. Historic photo of Main Plaza. Note the historic pinnacle on the bandstand roof. Source: [Main Plaza Bandstand Photograph #2], photograph, date unknown, The Portal to Texas History, crediting Texas Historical Commission, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth496003/m1/1/?q=new%20braunfels%20main%20 plaza.
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Figure 17. Historic photograph from 1913 showing the southwestern corner of Main Plaza and the Plumeyer Bakery. Note the abundance of automobiles. Source: [Plumeyer Bakery Building Photograph #5], photograph, 1913, The Portal to Texas History, crediting Texas Historical Commission, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/675 31/metapth495897/?q=new%20braunfels%20plumeyer%20bakery.
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Figure 18. Bandstand at Main Plaza decorated for New Braunfels’s 75th anniversary celebration with posting of program for two days of festivities, including parades, dances, and concerts at Main Plaza. Source: http://history innewbraunfels.com/history/festivals/.
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Figure 19. Historic photo from ca. 1960. Note the location of the Civil War monument. Also note the removal of historic pinnacle on bandstand roof. Source: eBay, https://www.ebay.com/itm/Main-Plaza-New-Braunfels-Texas- TX-Postcard-PC-1968-Seidel-Studio-to-New-Jersey/133483850466?hash=item1f1441eae2:g:G6UAAOSwF0B fHEi1.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft
Figure 20. A 2004 basement/restroom-level floor plan of Main Plaza bandstand. Source: Texas Historical Commission, “Main Plaza Bandstand,” Recorded Texas Historic Landmark Marker Application, 2004. From the Portal to Texas History, page 7, accessed November 23, 2020, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/met apth488939/?q=historic%20marker%20application%20main%20plaza%20bandst and.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft
Figure 21. A 2004 schematic floor plan and elevation of Main Plaza bandstand. Source: Texas Historical Commission, “Main Plaza Bandstand,” Recorded Texas Historic Landmark Marker Application, 2004. From the Portal to Texas History, page 4, accessed November 23, 2020, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/me tapth488939/?q=historic%20marker%20application%20main%20plaza%20band stand.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft
Figure 22. A 2019 image from Google Streetview showing landscaped islands at the corners of the roadway in Main Plaza. Source: Google Streetview.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft
Figure 23. Contemporary photograph of the Wassailfest celebration at Main Plaza. Source: https://nbtexas.org/18 45/Wassailfest.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft
Photographs
Main Plaza New Braunfels, Comal County, Texas Number of Photographs: 13 Photographers: Katie Duffield Hill Dates photographed: June 2019
Photo 1. Contextual view of the central park area (Resource 1), showing the Civil War memorial (Resource 4) and World War I memorial (Resource 5) in the foreground, and the fountain (Resource 2) and bandstand (Resource 3) in the background. Camera facing southwest.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft
Photo 2. Contextual view of the central park area (Resource 1), showing the fountain (Resource 2) and bandstand (Resource 3), camera facing southwest.
Photo 3. Contextual view of the central park area (Resource 1) showing the bandstand (Resource 3), camera facing northeast.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft
Photo 4. Frontal view of fountain (Resource 2), camera facing southwest.
Photo 5. Frontal view of bandstand (Resource 3) facing stairs going up, camera facing east.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft
Photo 6. Oblique view of bandstand (Resource 3) showing both staircases and windows at base, camera facing northeast.
Photo 7. Frontal view of Civil War memorial (Resource 4), camera facing southwest.
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Main Plaza, New Braunfels,SBR Comal County, Texas Draft
Photo 8. Frontal view of World War I memorial (Resource 5), camera facing south.
Photo 9. Oblique view of 1976 Bicentennial marker with fountain in the background, camera facing southwest.
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Photo 10. Commemorative plaque at base of “Friendship Tree,” camera facing east.
Photo 11. View of sponsored brick pavers at ground level, camera facing east.
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Photo 12. View of sponsored commemorative granite marker, camera facing northwest.
Photo 13. Frontal view of 1976 US Bicentennial marker (Resource 6), facing southwest.
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