Mission Hill

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm telling it to you. There's a hill in New Braunfels, and it is not just any hill. It is the highest point in the whole city, which means on a clear day you are standing above everything, looking down at history stacked in layers going back further than any deed or survey can quite reach.

People call it Mission Hill, and that name was already attached to this place by the 1840s. Whether there was ever an actual mission sitting right on that spot, nobody knows for certain. The marker won't say it, and neither will I.

What it does say is that Native American and Spanish interests were long believed to be important here, and you can feel the weight of that when you let the silence settle. Some places just carry something older than the names we pin on them. Then came the German immigrants.

In 1856, Friedrich Ludwig Hermann Conring, known by his initials F.L.H., and his wife Georgine purchased this land. They put down roots at the top of the world, as far as New Braunfels was concerned. And then the Civil War came to Texas, the way it came everywhere, quietly at first and then all at once.

Up on that hill, Ernst Conring was operating a saltpeter kiln. Saltpeter. Think about what that means for a moment.

The hill that may have once drawn Spanish and Native American attention was now producing a key ingredient in the machinery of war. The years turned, the war ended, and in 1883 the Conrings sold Mission Hill to Franz and Minna Coreth. Now here is a detail that deserves to land slowly.

The Coreth family held that land for one hundred and forty years. One hundred and forty years of building homes, raising goats, raising sheep, running cattle on the highest ground in New Braunfels. Generations of a family looking out from the same hill where Native American presence was felt, where Spanish interests took root, where a saltpeter kiln once burned.

Mission Hill, the marker says, recalls early activity and settlement in the area. That is the official word. But standing up there, you might find the hill does its own recalling just fine.

What the marker says

The highest point in the city of New Braunfels, this site is long believed to be important to Native American and Spanish interests. It is unknown if there was a mission on the exact site, although the name was associated with this hill by the 1840s. In 1856, German immigrants Friedrich Ludwig Hermann (F.L.H.) and Georgine Conring purchased the land. During the Civil War, Ernst Conring operated a saltpeter kiln. In 1883, the Conrings sold the land to Franz and Minna Coreth. In the 140 years the Coreth family owned the property, they built significant homes on the property and engaged in goat, sheep and cattle ranching. Mission Hill recalls early activity and settlement in the area. (2023)