The Voigt House
New Braunfels, Comal County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On lot deeded in 1845 to New Braunfels schoolmaster Hermann Seele. Fine Mansard-roof house was built 1870 by Dr. John P. Lehde. It has been owned since 1893 by family of Gustav Voigt (1854-1927), and Frank B. Voigt (1892-1951), a state legislator. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1973
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This handsome Mansard-roofed house rose in 1870 on a lot first deeded in 1845 to Hermann Seele, a schoolmaster of the German colony at New Braunfels. Built by Dr. John P. Lehde, it has belonged since 1893 to the family of Gustav Voigt, including state legislator Frank B. Voigt. The home reflects the prosperity and permanence achieved by German immigrant families a generation after founding their Texas settlement.
Why it matters
New Braunfels was a flagship of German immigration to Texas, and homes like the Voigt House show how those settlers put down deep, enduring roots in the American landscape.
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Related people
- · Hermann Seele
- · John P. Lehde
- · Gustav Voigt
- · Frank B. Voigt
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Joseph Klein House
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Joseph Klein was among the German immigrants who founded New Braunfels in 1845 as part of the Adelsverein colonization of the Texas Hill Country. About 1852 he built this simple frame house, later sold to shoemaker William Kuse, who kept his shop inside it. When Kuse's daughter and her husband built the Eggeling Hotel in 1898, the little house was moved to the back of the lot.
Mill Street Telegraph Station
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In the decades after the telegraph reached the United States, small Texas towns wired themselves into the national grid one line at a time. New Braunfels opened its first station in the 1860s inside the Guadalupe Hotel, where German-speaking schoolteacher August Schmitz tapped out messages; in 1871 the office followed him to his fachwerk (half-timber) house on Mill Street, its mud bricks drawn from Comal Creek. The station shuttled back to the hotel and finally to the railroad depot by 1881, tracing how a frontier town's communications matured.
Eiband and Fischer General Mercantile
New Braunfels, TX
A general store opened at the corner of Castell and San Antonio Streets in 1846, just a year after New Braunfels was founded, and passed through a succession of German-connected owners over the next century. Growing into one of the region's most successful mercantiles, Eiband & Fischer sold everything from groceries and china to farm machinery, and also served as cotton buyers and short-term bankers. A 1947 fire finally consumed the store, though its surviving annex still stands.
New Braunfels: County Seat of Comal County
New Braunfels, TX
This land had long been home to Karankawa, Lipan Apache, Tonkawa, and Waco peoples when the Society for the Protection of German Immigrants sent thousands of colonists to Texas in the mid-1840s. Led by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, several hundred founded New Braunfels on Good Friday, 1845, on land bought from the Garza family and parceled out by lottery. By 1850 it ranked among the largest cities in Texas, humming with craftsmen, mills, breweries, and kilns.