Landa Park
New Braunfels, Comal County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Joseph Landa purchased the land that now encompasses this park in 1859. The Comal Springs, the largest group of springs in the American Southwest, are the focus of the park. Landa used the Comal River to power gristmills, cotton and woolen factories, an ice plant and a brewery. During the Civil War, a saltpeter processing plant was also located on the site. Joseph's son Harry Landa opened Landa's Park as a tourist site in 1898, when the International and Great Northern Railroad built a spur to the site. By 1900, both the I&GN and the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy) railroads ran weekend excursion trains to the park, where visitors enjoyed picnics, dancing and steamboat excursions on Landa Lake. Landa later sold the park to a San Antonio investment group, who operated it until financial problems caused the park's closure in 1933. In 1936, concerned citizens led by Erhard P. Nowotny petitioned the City of New Braunfels to purchase the park, and city residents voted three to one in favor of the move. The park has remained open to the public since that time. Throughout the years the park has grown in acreage, and many improvements have been made. In the 1930s, Works Progress Adminstration (WPA) employees built concession stands, restrooms, parking areas, and retaining walls. Later improvements have included a miniature golf course, playgrounds and nature trails. Wurstfest, an annual celebration of food and music, has been held in the park each November since the early 1960s. Today, Landa Park continues to serve the public as a leisure destination both for the citizens of New Braunfels and for area travelers. (2009)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Joseph Landa bought this land around the Comal Springs—the largest springs in the American Southwest—in 1859 and harnessed the Comal River to power gristmills, textile factories, an ice plant, and a brewery, even a Civil War saltpeter works. His son Harry opened Landa's Park as a tourist resort in 1898, and excursion trains soon brought crowds for picnics, dancing, and steamboat rides. After financial troubles closed it, New Braunfels citizens voted overwhelmingly to buy the park in 1936, and WPA crews added lasting improvements.
Why it matters
Landa Park charts a Texas landscape's journey from industrial mill site to beloved public park, and it remains home to the annual Wurstfest celebration of the region's German heritage.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Landa Park sits atop one of the natural wonders of the region: the Comal Springs, described as the largest group of springs in the American Southwest. Long before any of the industry or the excursion trains, this abundance of clear, cool water made the spot extraordinary — the kind of place where water gushes from the ground in volumes that shaped everything humans chose to do here.
When the land was acquired in the years just before the Civil War, the American economy still ran on water power. A reliable, fast-flowing river was the equivalent of an engine, and an entrepreneur who controlled one could grind grain, spin cotton and wool, and manufacture goods. New Braunfels itself had been founded by German immigrants, and this stretch of the Comal River became an industrial heart for the growing town.
Across the decades that followed — through the Gilded Age and into the modern era — the site passed through a remarkable series of identities: waterpowered mill complex, wartime works, railroad resort, and finally a beloved public park. Each layer was made possible by the same steady springs.
People & events
The story runs through a single family before it becomes the story of a town. The elder Landa purchased the land around the springs in the years just before the Civil War and put the river to work, harnessing it to power gristmills, cotton and woolen factories, an ice plant, and a brewery. During the Civil War the site even hosted a saltpeter processing plant — saltpeter being an essential ingredient of gunpowder — a reminder of how a place of leisure was once a place of wartime necessity.
The next generation turned the water from a source of industry into a source of delight. The younger Landa, Harry, opened the grounds as a tourist attraction at the close of the nineteenth century, just as a railroad built a spur out to the site. Within a couple of years, weekend excursion trains were rolling in from more than one rail line, unloading visitors who came to picnic, to dance, and to ride steamboats on the lake. It was a Gilded Age resort in full flower.
The resort's fortunes eventually turned. The park was sold to an outside investment group and, amid financial troubles, it closed in the depths of the Great Depression. What saved it was the community. Led by a determined local citizen, Erhard P. Nowotny, residents petitioned the city to buy the park, and the townspeople voted overwhelmingly — three to one — to make it public. It has stayed open to the public ever since, its Depression-era rescue soon followed by Works Progress Administration crews who built concession stands, restrooms, parking areas, and retaining walls that visitors still use.
Its place in the American story
Landa Park tells, in one landscape, a story that played out across America. It begins with water-powered industry — the mills and factories that drove the nineteenth-century economy before steam and electricity — and then moves into the age of the railroad resort, when rail lines built spurs to scenic spots and city dwellers rode excursion trains out for a day of picnicking, dancing, and boating. That pattern of rail-borne leisure shaped how Americans first learned to take a holiday.
The park's rescue belongs to another great national chapter: the Great Depression and the New Deal. A private pleasure ground failed, and a community chose to make it common property — and then federal WPA labor left its lasting mark in stone and mortar, exactly as it did in parks, trails, and public buildings all over the country. The improvements you walk past were part of a nationwide effort to put people to work building things that would outlast the crisis.
And through it all runs the German heritage of New Braunfels, still celebrated each autumn in the park with a festival of food and music. That thread ties this single Texas park to the broader American story of immigrant communities keeping their traditions alive across the generations.
If you visit
Landa Park is, above all, a place to feel water. Seek out the Comal Springs and the lake they feed, and let the sheer volume of the spring flow register — this is the largest group of springs in the American Southwest, and standing beside that much moving water is the heart of the visit. It is easy to see why people built mills here, and just as easy to see why they later came simply to play.
Look for the layers of history folded into a day at the park. The stonework — retaining walls, older structures — carries the fingerprints of the Depression-era WPA crews who built to last. Picture the site's earlier lives too: the mills and factories the river once powered, and the excursion trains that once brought crowds of day-trippers to this very spot. The park's variety, from nature trails to family attractions added over the years, reflects a place that has been reinventing itself for well over a century.
For road-trippers, this is a natural anchor in New Braunfels, a town proud of its German roots. If your travels bring you here in the fall, you may catch the long-running annual celebration of German food and music held in the park — a lively way to taste the heritage that still animates the community around these ancient springs.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Joseph Landa
- · Harry Landa
- · Erhard P. Nowotny
Themes & tags
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