Site of New Braunfels Academy
New Braunfels, Comal County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site of New Braunfels Academy, the first tax-supported Texas school still existent. By act of the State Legislature (where it was called "a great question of law and public policy") the academy was incorporated in 1858 -- 18 years before the 1876 Texas Constitution provided for local taxation for school purposes. Erected 1900, this building of New Braunfels Academy now is tax office of the Independent School District. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1965.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Incorporated by the state legislature in 1858 as "a great question of law and public policy," the New Braunfels Academy holds the distinction of being the first tax-supported Texas school still in existence—eighteen years before the 1876 constitution provided for local school taxation. The building standing here was erected in 1900 and later served the local school district as its tax office.
Why it matters
The academy pioneered public, tax-funded education in Texas, a model that the state would only formally adopt decades later.
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Nearby & related markers
New Braunfels Academy
New Braunfels, TX
Promised schools by the society that sponsored their emigration, the German settlers of New Braunfels hired their first teacher in 1845, the year classes began. When the state retracted support for local school districts in 1856, the city persuaded the legislature to create the New Braunfels Academy in 1858, funding it through a local property tax and tuition—making it one of Texas's first tax-supported schools. It taught in both German and English until the state built a public system in 1871.
Carl Heinrich Guenther
New Braunfels, TX
Born in Prussia in 1821, Carl Heinrich Guenther immigrated to Texas in 1845 and became a pillar of New Braunfels — one of its first public school teachers and a leader of the German singing societies. In 1854 he presided over a statewide Saengerfest that adopted an anti-slavery platform, an unpopular stance in Texas; though he shared those leanings, he later joined the Confederacy as a captain. After his death his widow Margarethe carried on the family brewing business.
Mission Valley School
New Braunfels, TX
German settlers founded the Mission Valley community in the mid-1840s, naming it for an earlier Spanish mission, and at first taught their children at home. In 1870 two brothers donated land for the first community school, and in 1884 a sturdier limestone schoolhouse rose nearby. Long after the district was absorbed by New Braunfels in 1952, the site—with its frame and stone schoolhouses and stone cisterns—has served as a community center.
Altwein Family
McQueeney, TX
Grain-mill builder Johann Gotthülf Altwein and his wife Wilhelmine brought their family from Prussia to Texas in 1851, settling on the west bank of the Guadalupe River. Barely three months after buying the land, Johann died of heatstroke while clearing it, and the family cemetery established at his death holds at least fourteen burials over the following decades. The Altweins also donated land for the area's first community school, later moved and renamed Unionwein.