Old New Braunfels High School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Back in 1913, the town of New Braunfels decided it was time to do something right. The old New Braunfels Academy had run its course, and the community was ready to replace it with something that said, in brick and stone, that this place was serious about education.

So they brought in a pair of San Antonio architects, C.V. Seutter and Alister Shand, and handed the building work to a local contractor named Adolph F. Moeller.

Now, when you've got architects with a vision and a local builder who knows his craft, something worth looking at tends to come out the other end. What they put up reflected the influences of the Prairie School Style, and that's not a small thing. You can see it in the corbelled brick and stone detail, in the broad one-story entry porch that spreads out like it's welcoming every student who ever walked toward it, and in those windows with fine muntin detail worked into the upper sashes.

Somebody cared about those windows. Somebody cared about the whole thing. And the town rewarded that care by putting it to work as an educational facility for over fifty years.

Over fifty years of students, teachers, chalk dust, and the particular kind of noise a school building holds in its walls long after the last bell rings. That's the kind of building that earns a place in the record. And this one did.

What the marker says

Built in 1913 to replace the old New Braunfels Academy, this building was designed by San Antonio architects C.V. Seutter and Alister Shand, and built by local contractor Adolph F. Moeller. It served as an educational facility for over fifty years. Reflecting influences of the Prairie School Style, the building features corbelled brick and stone detail, a broad one-story entry porch, and some windows with fine muntin detail in the upper sashes.Recorded texas Historic Landmark-1986