Wurstfest
New Braunfels, Comal County, Texas
Marker Inscription
An annual “salute to sausage” celebration, Wurstfest is held every fall on the Wurstfest grounds adjacent to Landa Park. The notion of a sausage festival was conceived in 1961 by Dr. E. A. Grist, veterinarian and city meat inspector in New Braunfels. At the time, New Braunfels had nineteen commercial sausage-making businesses in the city. Sausage making had been a local German tradition passed down through generations since the founding of the city. Initially the festival was held at the National Guard Armory, Landa Park and on Main Plaza. In 1967, the festival was moved to this industrial site originally developed in 1850 by William H. Meriwether who diverted the Comal River for a millrace to operate his grain mills. In 1860, Joseph Landa started Landa Industries at this location that later became Dittlinger Mills. Several buildings from the industrial era are utilized for the festival. In 1968, the celebration expanded to ten days. The festival is hosted by the Wurstfest Association of New Braunfels, a non-profit corporation whose mission is to promote the economy through tourism and preserve the community’s rich German heritage. Leadership and manpower required to oversee operations is provided by the 150-plus Wurstfest Association members along with many volunteers and temporary employees. In addition to business vendors, local clubs and organizations operate food and merchandise concessions to raise funds that benefit their projects and programs. The festival is known for its variety of unique foods prepared and served by hometown folks, the best in Alpine and Bavarian style musical entertainment and its beautiful setting along the banks of the spring-fed Comal River. (2017)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Conceived in 1961 by city meat inspector Dr. E.A. Grist — in a town then boasting nineteen sausage-makers — Wurstfest grew into an annual autumn "salute to sausage" celebrating New Braunfels' German heritage. Since 1967 it has filled a riverside industrial site with deep roots: William Meriwether diverted the Comal River here for a grain millrace in 1850, and Joseph Landa's mills, later Dittlinger Mills, ran on the same water. Today the festival's Alpine music and hometown food carry a sausage-making tradition passed down since the city's founding.
Why it matters
Wurstfest shows how a nineteenth-century immigrant foodway became a living civic institution, preserving German-Texan identity on the very grounds where the community's industrial life began.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the 1960s, New Braunfels had been a German-Texan town for well over a century, and the sausage-making that arrived with its founders had never really left. It had been handed down through generations as an ordinary part of home and commercial life — so ordinary, in fact, that the town supported nineteen commercial sausage-makers at once, a remarkable concentration for a community its size.
The postwar decades were a moment when many American communities began to look at their own traditions with fresh eyes. Heritage that had simply been lived was increasingly celebrated, organized, and shared — often through festivals that turned local custom into something visitors could come and enjoy. Tourism was becoming a recognized way for a town to sustain itself, and cultural identity was part of the draw.
Set against that backdrop, the idea of a festival built around sausage was both playful and shrewd: it took the most everyday expression of the town's German heritage and made it the centerpiece of an annual celebration.
People & events
The spark came in 1961 from Dr. E.A. Grist, a veterinarian who served as the city's meat inspector — fittingly, a man whose daily work put him in close contact with the very tradition he proposed to celebrate. His notion of a "salute to sausage" took hold, and the festival was born, held at first across several familiar spots: the National Guard Armory, Landa Park, and Main Plaza.
In 1967 Wurstfest found a permanent home on an industrial site steeped in the town's older history. The land had been developed in 1850 by William H. Meriwether, who diverted the Comal River into a millrace to power his grain mills. A decade later, in 1860, Joseph Landa established Landa Industries at the same location, an operation that in time became Dittlinger Mills. Several buildings from that industrial era still stand and are used by the festival today.
Wurstfest kept growing. In 1968 it expanded to ten days, and it came to be organized by the Wurstfest Association of New Braunfels, a nonprofit devoted to boosting the local economy through tourism and preserving the community's German heritage. Its work is carried by scores of association members alongside volunteers and seasonal help, while local clubs and organizations run food and merchandise concessions to raise money for their own projects — so the celebration quietly funds the community that throws it.
Its place in the American story
Wurstfest is a clear example of how a living immigrant foodway becomes a durable civic institution. Across the country, ethnic heritage that might have faded into private family habit has instead been carried forward through public festivals — and here that heritage is not a costume put on for a weekend but a genuine tradition, rooted in a town that once counted nineteen sausage-makers.
What gives the festival unusual depth is where it's held. By settling onto ground first shaped by a nineteenth-century millrace and mills, Wurstfest layers one era of the community's economic life directly on top of another. The same riverside site that once ground grain now hosts the celebration of the town's identity — industry and heritage occupying the same footprint across more than a century.
It also models a very American kind of community-building, where a nonprofit, its members, and a crowd of volunteers turn cultural pride into both a shared party and a practical engine for the local economy. Preservation, tourism, and neighborly fundraising all run on the same grounds at once.
If you visit
You'll find the Wurstfest grounds beside Landa Park, along the banks of the spring-fed Comal River — a genuinely beautiful setting, cool and green, that gives the celebration its distinctive feel. Even outside festival season, the riverside site and its surviving industrial-era buildings are worth taking in for the way they tie the town's past to its present.
Come in the fall, when the festival fills the grounds, and you'll meet it at full tilt: Alpine and Bavarian-style music, and a spread of unique foods prepared and served by hometown folks rather than faceless vendors. Much of what you eat and hear is run by local clubs and families, which is exactly what gives the whole thing its warmth.
Look for the old mill buildings woven into the festival, and let yourself feel the double history underfoot — a place of grain mills and diverted river water that became a place of music and sausage. It's an easy, joyful anchor for a Hill Country road trip, and a rare chance to taste a town's heritage right where its industrial life began.
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
- · E.A. Grist
- · Joseph Landa
- · William H. Meriwether
Themes & tags
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