Ullrich Home
New Braunfels, Comal County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Sand brick home built 1855, by Geo. Ullrich, who had driven first wagon of German emigration Co. settlers in 1845 across the Guadalupe River. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This sturdy sand-brick house was raised in 1855 by George Ullrich, one of the German colonists who poured into central Texas under the Adelsverein emigration company. A decade earlier, in 1845, Ullrich had driven the first wagon of those settlers across the Guadalupe River—a small but vivid moment in the founding of New Braunfels.
Why it matters
It commemorates the German immigrant wave that reshaped the settlement of the Texas frontier in the years just before statehood matured.
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Related people
- · George Ullrich
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sophienburg Hill
New Braunfels, TX
During the Republic of Texas era, a society of German noblemen known as the Adelsverein organized to sponsor emigration to Texas, and their first commissioner general, Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, founded New Braunfels in 1845. He chose this commanding hill for a protective fortress and named it the Sophienburg for his fiancee, Princess Sophia, though only a log headquarters and storehouses were ever built. Prince Carl soon returned to Germany, the venture faltered financially, and the site later became home to the Sophienburg Museum.
New Braunfels
New Braunfels, TX
New Braunfels was founded on March 21, 1845 by Carl, Prince of Solms-Braunfels, commissioner-general of the society organizing German immigration to Texas, and named for his estate on the Lahn River. His successor John O. Meusebach secured the colony's future, while officials, a pastor, and a teacher gave the new town its institutions. It became a cultural anchor of German Texas — home to Comal County, the New Braunfelser Zeitung (the state's oldest German newspaper, begun 1852), the first Staatssaengerfest, and, in 1856, the first special school tax collected in Texas.
The Moeller House
New Braunfels, TX
Working entirely alone from 1859 to 1866, John George Moeller built this sturdy home in the German settlement of New Braunfels using hand-cut limestone, eighteen-foot cedar beams, and random-width cypress floors. The Moeller family lived here into the 20th century, followed by the Nowotnys. Its craftsmanship reflects the traditions German immigrants carried to the Texas Hill Country.
Near River Crossing Used by New Braunfels' First Settlers
New Braunfels, TX
At an ancient river crossing on the San Antonio–Nacogdoches Road, once traveled by Texas's earliest trail-blazers, about 200 German colonists ended a six-month journey from Europe. On Good Friday in 1845 they founded New Braunfels, naming it for the estate of Prince Solms-Braunfels, commissioner-general of the German Emigration Society. They were part of a wave of German settlers between 1844 and 1847 whose language, food, and customs left a lasting imprint on Texas.