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Camino Real Tour page 2
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Continuing on, this is a very nice drive. Lots of wildflowers in the spring. On the left is Dry Comal Creek which the Camino follows. It was spring fed and had flowing water in it back when the Spanish came up the trail. Most of the local springs have dried up since the region was settled in the mid 1800s. Look on the right along this stretch on the hill tops. There are a number of old German farms on the hilltops and many of those houses date back to the 1840 and 50s. Notice how some of them have the small one room first house with a larger second house built onto the first small one and an even larger house built onto the first two!
FM 482 crosses another set of railroad tracks near Solms. In Solms the road comes to an intersection with a stop sign. Turn left here.
You are still on FM 482. Look on the left for another pink granite 1918 DAR Camino Real marker. It is in front of some houses next to the fence.
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Keep on going northeast through Solms till you hit the feeder road on Interstate Highway 35.
Turn left and go about one short block to Loop 337. You are in New Braunfels.
You have choices here. You can turn right or left. Read on first.
Turn right for purists who must stay as close to the actual road as possible. The Camino Real is mostly under the interstate highway and modern development here. You could go up the feeder roads (the old road is actually on the southbound side feeder road), to Walnut street, turn left on Walnut street, go under the interstate, go to Elliot Knox street (the first big stoplight), turn right, go up a few blocks and then turn left onto Nacogdoches street. Nacogdoches street here is the old Camino all the way up to Seguin street. At Nacogdoches street and Seguin street there is another granite marker. This route is complicated and the history is under modern development. Not much to see. The other choice below meets up here.
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Turn left and go a short distance to San Antonio street on the right. Turn right on San Antonio street. This is the old stagecoach route and it has more surviving history and things to see. The Walter Feller's Criminal Justice Center should be on your right. Walter Fellers was Sheriff of Comal County for 30 years from the 1950s till he retired in 1985??. Look on the right for the Locke Nursery (now closed). Started in the 1850s, this was the oldest nursery in Texas till Otto Locke died just a few years ago. At one time it was huge extending over to Landa Park. Many of the hybrid pecan trees you see in this area were developed and sold by Locke Nursery.
Just a short way up on the right is a rustic old farm with a split rail fence and unpainted silvered siding. This farm was here before the neighborhood was.
A number of the houses along here are old German fatchwerk homes that date from the 1840-50s. You will soon come to a stop sign at a Y in the road. Turn left here and stay on San Antonio street.
Stay on San Antonio street till you come to downtown New Braunfels.
DOWNTOWN NEW BRAUNFELS
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There are tons of things you can do in downtown New Braunfels. Stop and shop the antique stores. Eat some lunch or dinner. Have some gourmet coffee. Try some German pastries at the bakery. Explore a historical small town downtown. Do like the locals and sit on a bench and watch the world go by. | |
| Down town New Braunfels looking down San Antonio street. -->
Check out the The New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce. web site for up to date travel info and all the local points of interest.
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A map of the Downtown Historical District. |
For more information on things to do and places to stay in New Braunfels check out these links.
www.NewBraunfels.com put up by realtors who want you to move to New Braunfels and buy or rent a home. It does have good tourist and local info though.
The Huisache Grill at the corner of San Antonio and the railroad tracks offers upscale dinning in a complex of old homes and buildings that date to the founding of New Braunfels in 1845. Ask to be seated in the old 1870s Tieteze workshop building. Tieteze was a cabinetmaker back in the 1850s. After dinner go out back and look at the old 1854 Tieteze home and the 1870 home. For a look at their upscale menu and more info go to their web site at. www.huisache.com
The links above are great examples of how potential tourists can use this e-tour to find things they are looking for. I can add links like this anywhere. They can take people to another web site or to a page on this web site.
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On the west side of the square is the old Schmitz Hotel
built in 1850, added to in 1873, the Schmitz Hotel is the old Stagecoach
stop on the square here. The original stage stop and "hotel" was a small log
cabin where the Cafe Fontana (with
awnings) is now located.
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| Now lets go up San Antonio street to the main square. The Gazebo is the local landmark and was built in ???. It has become the symbol of the city. | |
| This box would be a good place for a downtown New Braunfels business to advertise with a link. If your interested click here to send us an E-Mail. at Bigchief@TexasIndians.com <-- This could be your e-mail address here for your new customers to contact you! Want to guess what my other web site is about? |
The Camino turns right here at the square, but WAIT don't leave downtown yet. Try going a few blocks northeast on San Antonio street to the Prince Solmes Inn You can see pictures of every historic room on this web site!! . For a history buff this is the place to stay. It is a restored 1890s inn. The rooms are restored with period furnishings such as huge brass beds.
A few block further on is the Comal river. You should check this out too. Great tubing here!!! You can rent a tube and get in the river at the public Prince Solmes Park. Ride the river on cool crystal clear spring fed waters under shady pecan and cypress trees. The current is nice and fast, but not scary fast. It carries you around a horseshoe bend to where you can get out and have a short walk back to where you started. The whole thing takes about an hour. This is a grand outing on a hot day!!!
| The huge water park on your right as you go over the river is the Schlitterbahn, the largest water park in the nation. For more information on the Schlitterbahn go to their web site at, www.Schlitterbahn.com |
OK, now turn around and go back to the main square.
BACK TO THE TOUR!!
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Still in New Braunfels at the square. Check out the old Comal County Courthouse, built in 1893. |
Put map or link to map of downtown New Braunfels here.
There are so many historic buildings and places to see in New Braunfels we cannot list them all here. Try making a circle one block over in all directions from the square to see quite a lot of historical places. The better bet is to go to the New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce and get one of the tour guides for the town. AND, the Chamber is conveniently on our route!! So back to the tour. From San Antonio street at the square, go southeast on Seguin street (the opposite side of the square from the courthouse). The Chamber of Commerce is on the right about four blocks down.
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The New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce. |
But, before you get to the Chamber there are some other great things to see and/or do. Half a block from the square on the left is the Naegelin's Bakery, another local landmark and a favorite place to get donuts and strudle.
On the right about one block down is the Faust Hotel. The Faust Hotel was built in 1929. It has been restored and furnished with period furnishings. It has become a favorite with tourists who want an nostalgic night's stay with modern conveniences such a phones, air conditioning, elevators and all those other new fangled contraptions. They also have a microbrewery in their bar!! For more info go to here. WWW.FaustHotel.com
Need a picture of the Faust here.
On Down Seguin Street. Rejoin the purist's Camino route here.
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Continuing on down Seguin Street you will come to an underpass under the railroad. Just as you come up and out of the underpass is Nacogdoches street. No coincidence here, Nacogdoches street used to go to Nacogdoches, it is the old Camino Real. Look on your right at the intersection for another of those pink granite 1918 DAR Camino markers. |
You have several choices here.
You can turn left on Nacogdoches and follow it about three block till it dead ends at the Guadalupe river. You can park here and follow the road cut down to the river to where the old crossing used to be. This is a nice little exploration to take. Only the first block here is the old Camino. The rest of the streets here are a modern subdivision grid.
Better bet. Another option here is to follow Nacogdoches street down two blocks and turn right, go one block and turn left on Krause street. Go up Krause street to the closed and restored 1887 Krause street bridge. I highly recommend stopping here and walking out on the bridge. The view of the Guadalupe river is spectacular. The bridge is where it is because the Camino Real brought the roads to this point on the river. This is the major river crossing over the Guadalupe. On the bridge look upstream.
From the bridge, looking upstream you can see a limestone shelf just above the water. On part of this shelf there is a low dam built in the 1920s to power the first cotton mill. Under the water, behind that dam, is the old Camino Real crossing over the river. They built the damn here on top of that limestone shelf that was the crossing. Looking upstream, the Camino came down the left river bank and followed the river bank upstream to the crossing. The actual crossing was just a little farther past the railroad bridge and past the big cotton mill on the right side of the river is the other road cut to the crossing. Getting there is next on the tour. Look around some more from the bridge. The big plant is the Mission Valley cotton mill. It was built here in 1921. It gets it name from the fact that a Spanish mission, San Xavier, was located somewhere in the area. Some historians believe this crossing might have been a possible location. Others say it was near or in Landa park several miles away.
OK, you need to get to the other side of the river. So back track to Seguin street - go down Krause Street and turn left on Seguin street and go one or two blocks to the major intersection. The landmarks here are a Jack In The Box and the Hill Country Inn. By the way, this author likes to eat the lunch special at the Hill Country Inn, Thursday's lunch is homemade chicken and dumplings -- a favorite.
Turn left on Elliot Knox street- business hwy 35 - and go over the Guadalupe river. Take the first left after the river.
Go on till the street ends at the mill. On your left is the Mill Outlet store and the other end of the old bridge.
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There is a historical marker here. It should really be behind the mill where we are going next. |
THE NEXT SECTION OF THE TOUR HAS A HIGH CENTER RR CROSSING AND A LOW AND NARROW UNDERPASS.
Big bus sized RVs cannot make it. Big bus sized vehicles should go back to Elliot Knox street and turn left and go up to loop 337. Turn left on 337 and go just past the convenience store on the right. Turn right here and follow the road as it parallels the loop about two blocks. The road ends at Churchhill drive. An elementary school should be right in front of you. Turn right and you are on the Camino again and on the tour.
Everyone else, from the Bridge on Wright street, at the cotton mill turn right onto Porter street. Go to the end of the mill factory and turn left on Rusk street. Go straight over the railroad tracks until the road dead ends on Broadway street. Broadway is almost the Camino Real. To your left is a short dead end road that goes down to the Guadalupe river ford. You can stop and walk down it if you want. The end of Broadway at the river is the Camino crossing, now flooded.
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This is the end of Broadway going down to the river crossing. The road is public property all the way to the river. The actual Camino is the fence line just north west of Broadway street. The Camino was the property boundary between two huge Spanish land grants and the modern property lines - the fence - still show where the Camino went. |
At Rusk street and Broadway there is an old farm. This is an old German farm that dates from before the civil war. Rusk street is part of the old road to Seguin and then to the Texas coast. This crossroads is where the German immigrants camped for several months after first arriving to found New Braunfels. This is where that historical marker shown above should really be placed.
This area was once known as Neighborsville and several more buildings and houses once were here. A Spanish mission may have been here too.
Turn right (away from the river) on Broadway and stay on it. Go on up around the turn and under the railroad crossing. Broadway used to go straight on under the new overpass that you see here. Now you have to go over to Churchhill Dr. At Churchhill turn left and go up and under the overpass. There should be a elementary school here.
OK the big RVers and the smaller cars are all on the same page again. From the school continue northeast around the corner. Do not go to fast cause there are a bunch of old houses and places right on this turn.
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On your right is the New Braunfels Conservation Society complex of historic houses and buildings. This is a museum of houses that have been moved here to preserve them. Many of the houses are open during the day and are furnished with period antiques. They also have collections of old farm machinery and outbuildings here. |
| On your left is the old Goodwin schoolhouse built in ??? |  |
Right beyond the Conservation Society complex is the entrance to the Handmade Furniture Museum. This is another very nice stop. It has old German houses furnished with a grand collection of furniture from the earliest settlers.
picture or links here
Back on Churchhill road going northeast, go around the curve to the right
and you are now on Old Post Road. This is another old name for the Camino.
The pony express postal service and stage coaches once used this part of the road and gave
it its current name.
You have a choice to make here.
There are two Camino Reals you can go on at this point. Read down and see which one you want to go on. I recommend the route that turns left on Gruene road to Gruene. This route will take you to San Marcos up the older Camino and I will bring you back on the other route down the newer branch of the Camino. OR you can go up Old Post Road. Read down about three paragraphs to see which route you want to take.
Purist's route. The Old Post Road is the Camino Real Arriba and continues up a short distance till it hits Hwy 35 where it ends. You can go to the end and turn back or you can turn left onto the feeder road, go northeast to the underpass, go right under Hwy 35, turn left on the feeder and go northwest about 5 or 6 miles to York Creek Road. The feeder road is just about on top of the old Camino. Turn right on York Creek road and go to Old Bastrop road, Turn left and you are on the Camino all the way to Louisiana via Hwy 21. Old Bastrop rd connects with Hwy 21 about 15 miles father on. The route below to Gruene will bring you back on this road from San Marcos. You will miss nothing by choosing the next option and wind up back in New Braunfels.
Or you can go up the Old Post Road a short distance and turn left on Gruene road. This is takes you to the older Camino Real de los Tejas, which is another branch of the Camino Real. This is the route I recommend.
OK, You have turned left on Gruene road. Just stay on it till you come to the old town of Gruene. Along the way they are several old German farmhouses and even a log cabin on the left.
Keep a lookout on the right for the Gruene Homestead Inn. This is a nice collection of old homes and buildings that have been saved and brought to this location. They are now available as B&Bs.
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For more information on the Gruene Homestead Inn call 830-606.0216 / 800-238.5534 |
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