New Braunfels

New Braunfels, the county seat of Comal County, is at the confluence of the Guadalupe and Comal rivers and the intersection of Interstate Highway 35 and Farm Road 725, thirty miles northeast of San Antonio and forty-five miles southwest of Austin near the southeastern border of the county. It was founded on March 21, 1845, when, under the auspices of the Adelsverein, Nicolaus Zink led a German immigrant wagontrain up the Guadalupe River to the ford of the San Antonio-Nacogdoches road. They made camp at a site on Comal Creek (now Dry Comal Creek) chosen by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, the first commissioner general of the Adelsverein, and promptly organized to receive later arrivals. Zink platted preliminary town and farm lots and supervised construction of a primitive stockade, the Zinkenburg, to protect the immigrants against allegedly cannibalistic Indians. Within weeks Prince Solms had laid the cornerstone for a more permanent fort and headquarters for the immigrant association, the Sophienburg (now the Sophienburg Museum ), made provision for supplying the burgeoning settlement through its first summer on the frontier, and handed leadership of the colony over to John O. Meusebach. By summer the settlers numbered between 300 and 400, and the community had been incorporated under the name of Prince Solms's estate on the Lahn River in western Germany, Braunfels. From 1846 until the 1880s a number of Hispanics and Lipan Indians moved into New Braunfels each spring during sheep-shearing season.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.