Dozen Distinctive Destinations
New Braunfels, TX
Year Listed: 2005
The courthouse in New Braunfels, Texas.
Credit: City of New Braunfels
Founded in 1845 by German immigrants seeking a new life in the Texas Hill Country, New Braunfels balances Old World charm with modern amenities - and offers them up with genuine Lone Star hospitality. Although it is located between the big cities of San Antonio and Austin, New Braunfels maintains its small-town spirit, celebrating its unique heritage and cultural traditions through German-flavored music, food and festivals such as the Wurstfest, billed as a "10-day salute to sausage."
This active Main Street community boasts an expansive National Register Historic District and a historic downtown area dotted with interesting buildings that conceal comfortable B-and-Bs. The downtown area offers a variety of shops and galleries (plus a mouth-watering array of bakeries and restaurants), most of them housed in historic buildings. Beloved local landmarks include the Comal County Courthouse, a rugged Romanesque Revival masterpiece built in 1898; the c. 1846 Stephen Klein House, an example of stone-and-timber fachwerk construction; the Sophienburg Museum & Archives, with thousands of documents and artifacts in its collections; and Landa Park, a 196-acre oasis where visitors can swim, golf, picnic or ride on a miniature train. Kids of all ages will love exploring Natural Bridge Caverns, a few miles west of town, and cooling off on the banks of the Comal River at the famous Schlitterbahn, the top-rated water park in the nation.
For these reasons, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the country's largest private, nonprofit preservation organization, today named New Braunfels, Tex., to its 2005 list of America’s Dozen Distinctive Destinations, an annual list of unique and lovingly preserved communities in the United States. It was selected from nearly 80 destinations in 44 states that were nominated by individuals, preservation organizations and local communities.
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