Specht's Crossing
Spring Branch, Comal County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Area settlers in horse-drawn carriages used this gravel bed low water crossing of the San Antonio-Blanco Road to reach the German settlement of Spring Branch. Despite frequent floods, use of the crossing increased during the years (1875-1906). Spring Branch postmaster Hans (Von) Specht maintained the post office in his hilltop home overlooking the crossing. Thereafter known as Specht's Crossing, it was later used by automobile travelers until replaced by a low water bridge in 1920. In 1934 a new bridge was constructed by the Civil Works Administration. (1993)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This gravel-bed low-water ford carried horse-drawn carriages across the San Antonio–Blanco Road toward the German settlement of Spring Branch, and despite frequent flooding its use grew between 1875 and 1906. Postmaster Hans Von Specht ran the local post office from his hilltop home overlooking the crossing, which came to bear his name. Automobiles later used the ford until a low-water bridge replaced it in 1920, followed by a new Civil Works Administration bridge in 1934.
Why it matters
The crossing charts the evolution of rural Texas travel—from carriage ford to New Deal bridge—while marking the German communities that settled the Hill Country.
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Related people
- · Hans Von Specht
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Spring Branch Post Office
Spring Branch, TX
German immigrants Gottlieb Elbel and Christiane Zeh settled this farm after arriving in Texas in 1849 and were among the founders of Spring Branch. In the two-room log cabin Gottlieb built in 1852, the Spring Branch Post Office operated from 1867 to 1872 with Elbel as postmaster, its mail carried on horseback between New Braunfels and Fredericksburg. His surviving postal journal is a valuable record of the correspondence of area residents.
Esser's Crossing at Wesson
Spring Branch, TX
In the mid-1800s, Fredericksburg Road ran northwest of New Braunfels to one of the first safe crossings of the Guadalupe River, a shallow, solid-rock ford that carried ox-drawn wagons and carriages toward Johnson City and Fredericksburg. German immigrant Charles Esser settled here in 1858 and ran a way-station, and the site gained a postal station named Wesson. County officials chose the crossing for a wrought-iron Whipple truss bridge, completed in 1904 and later removed in 1979.
Sattler Post Office
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Wilhelm Sattler, a founding colonist of the German settlement at New Braunfels, later homesteaded in this part of Comal County and secured a federal mail contract. The Sattler post office opened in 1856 with his son Henry as first postmaster, soon moving into one of the family's juniper-log cabins — chinked with straw and caliche mud — where it served the community until 1880.
Staffel Family and the Staffel Store
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German immigrant August Staffel reached Texas in 1852 and settled at Boerne, buying this property in 1854 amid the wave of German colonists shaping the Hill Country. When Boerne won a postal station in 1856 he became its first postmaster, running the post office alongside his store, stagecoach office, saloon, and livery. After his death his widow Bertha kept the post office going out of the store until 1881.