Near the Lahn River in Braunfels, Germany stands a picturesque castle…the ancestral home of Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, who was destined to be the founder of New Braunfels in the Republic of Texas.

In 1842 some of the more enterprising German leaders formed the Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas, called the Adelsverein and selected Prince Carl as Commissioner General, with pull authority over the Texas colonization. The first immigrants of the Adelsverein set sail for Texas in September 1844 on the Brig Johann Dethardt. Hundreds of immigrants landed in Galveston in November and made their way in one-mast vessels along the coast to Lavaca where they set up camp two miles west.

Here Pastor Ervendberg held Christmas Eve services under the open sky. Prince Carl provided a Christmas Tree in Texas. On the advice of a Texas Ranger, Prince Carl purchased land in an area near the springs known as Las Fontanas that formed a river called the Comal River that flowed into the Guadalupe. By the new year of 1845 other settlers arrived and all began their trek along the Guadalupe River until they arrived where the Comal River joins the Guadalupe. It would be there on Good Friday, March 21, 1845, that New Braunfels was founded.

On a bluff above Comal Creek, Prince Carl built a palisade where the settlers pitched their tents. Not far away a mission stood where, almost a century earlier, Spanish friars brought Christianity to the Indians. Later, Prince Carl set up headquarters for the Adelsverein on a nearby hilltop.

There, on April 28, he outlined a fort he named, “Sophienburg” for his fiancée, Sophie, and raised the flag of King Friedrich August, whom he once served. That same day, a large group of colonists assembled at the Main Plaza and raised the flag of the Republic of Texas, a block from there plans for an onion domed log church were underway.

New Braunfels was originally intended as simply a way station and supply base, but by the 1850s New Braunfels was an active center in commerce and the fourth-largest city in Texas after Houston, San Antonio, and Galveston.

German immigration would forever change Texas…adding to the diverse cultures already present.

By the 1880s downtown New Braunfels offered a unique contribution to Victorian-era architecture.

By the 1900s, fortunes from cotton and manufacturing allowed many building owners to experiment with new architectural styles.

Several owners of older Victorian buildings constructed new 1910s and 1920s style buildings with emphasis on display windows. It was during this period that most of the downtown buildings were constructed.