DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this corner of New Braunfels, and it's a story worth slowing down for. Now, the first portion of what would become the Schmitz Hotel went up about 1851, built by a man named Rudolph Nauendorf, and he built it the honest Texas German way: local cedar and local limestone, materials pulled right from the land around him. Solid stuff.
The kind of construction that says, I am not going anywhere. And sure enough, it didn't. A few years later, in 1858, an early German immigrant by the name of Jacob Schmitz came along and bought the building.
He had his own operation going, a place he called the Guadalupe Hotel, and he saw in Nauendorf's sturdy cedar-and-limestone structure the perfect new home for it. So in it moved. Now here's where the story picks up a little shine.
The inn also served as a stagestand, and it carried what the marker calls an Old World atmosphere, the kind of place that made a traveler feel like maybe the road hadn't worn them down quite so hard. And that atmosphere caught the attention of a noted writer named Frederick Olmsted, who praised it. When a writer of note takes the time to say something kind about your establishment, well, that tends to follow a place through history.
The hotel kept growing. By 1873, a third story had been added, and the hotel was renamed for its owner, Schmitz, the name it would carry forward. The original facade has since been much altered, as facades tend to be when the decades pile up.
And then in 1969, the New Braunfels Conservation Society bought it, making sure that whatever the years had changed on the outside, the story itself would not be lost. Cedar, limestone, and a writer's good word. Some foundations hold longer than others.
What the marker says
First portion--of local cedar and limestone--was built about 1851 by Rudolph Nauendorf. Early German immigrant Jacob Schmitz bought building in 1858 as new location of his "Guadalupe Hotel." Old World atmosphere of the inn-stagestand was praised by noted writer Frederick Olmsted.In 1873 third story was added and hotel was renamed for owner. Original facade has since been much altered. Bought (1969) by new Braunfels Conservation Society.