Spring Branch Post Office

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Spring Branch Post Office out in Comal County. Now, some stories start with a land rush or a gunfight. This one starts with a log cabin and a man who kept very good records, and somehow that turns out to be just as remarkable.

In 1849, two people made the long crossing from Germany to Texas. Gottlieb Elbel and Christiane Zeh. They married, they settled a farm, and they became among the founders of Spring Branch Creek.

Three years after they arrived, in 1852, Gottlieb built a two-room log cabin on that homestead. Two rooms. Think about that for a moment.

Everything the family had and needed fit inside two rooms. Then 1858 rolls around, and suddenly that modest cabin becomes something more. The Spring Branch Post Office opens, right there on Spring Branch Creek, connecting this stretch of Texas hill country to the wider world.

But then the Civil War comes through, as it came through everything, and the post office closes. Now here's where Gottlieb Elbel shows you who he is. When the post office reopens in 1867, it reopens right there in that homestead cabin, with Gottlieb himself serving as postmaster.

He holds that role until 1872. And the whole time, he keeps a postal journal. Every piece of correspondence, every subscription, every name of every area resident who depended on that station between New Braunfels and Fredericksburg.

The mail came in on horseback. No rails, no roads to speak of. Just a rider and a saddlebag, and a two-room cabin waiting at the end of the route.

That journal Gottlieb kept is described as an invaluable record of the community. A man builds a cabin, raises a family, runs the mail, and writes it all down. Turns out, in a rural community still finding its footing, that's exactly the kind of person who makes a place real.

What the marker says

Gottlieb Elbel and Christiane Zeh immigrated to Texas from Germany in 1849. They married and settled this farm and were among the founders of Spring Branch Creek. Gottlieb built this two-room log cabin in 1852 where the family lived. The Spring Branch Post Office originally opened on Spring Branch Creek in 1858, closed during the Civil War, and reopened in this homestead cabin from 1867 to 1872 with Gottlieb Elbel as postmaster. He kept a postal journal that is an invaluable record of the postal correspondence and subscriptions of the area residents. This postal station between New Braunfels and Fredericksburg, with the mail delivered on horseback, was significant in the rural community’s development.