The Founding of Spring Branch, Texas
The Texas Story Project.
While on the search to find someone to interview with an interesting Texas story, I asked my friends if they had any Texas stories about their families or know anyone that has a compelling story of their history in Texas. One of my graduate assistant coaches, Johany Rivera, thought about it and told me that she’s friends with the founders of Spring Branch, Texas. I was fascinated because we were on the way back from a tournament in Glen Rose so we actually passed it and she pointed out the land and how big the area was that they owned.
In Comal County, the area of land called Spring Branch was founded by the pioneer Hans Heinrich Dietrich Knibbe in 1852. Named after a spring that pours into the Guadalupe river, Spring Branch has about 250 people who reside there and is a part of the San Antonio-New Braunfels metropolitan area. The community did not have a name until a post office was established and then they decided to use the name Spring Branch.
Spring Branch was originally founded by 4 brothers but two of them decided to sell their share to the city and the other two kept theirs. Those two brothers never sold their land and it has been kept in the family ever since. Among the family, Travis Knibbe is one of its members to still own land in Spring Branch. The land is about 400 acres and covers about 2 miles.
There was a mail post established before the civil war in 1858 which was a home to Peter Horne. G. Elbel, who was known as the postmaster after the war recorded in his studies that the post office between Fredricksburg and New Braunfels resumed in Spring Branch on November 27, 1867. The population had remained at about 25 people for the majority of the nineteenth century but then after the Canyon Dam was made and the filling of Canyon lake, some 200 people had moved to Spring Branch by 1990.
The Knibbe ranch is one of a couple of “century heritage ranches” left in the state of Texas. This ranch is full of German heritage and culture from the early pioneer Knibbe. Hans Heinrich Dietrich Knibbe came over to America from German on the George Dillus and the vessel ran into a reef and all the people had to throw all their farming equipment overboard so the ship wouldn’t sink.
Estelle Beck is a freshman at St. Mary’s University pursuing a major in marketing. She is currently on the Women’s golf team. She was born in Bellevue, Washington but currently resides in Austin. She has been playing golf for about 6 years now. Golf is one of the things that make her the happiest. She has mostly a Hungarian background from her mother.
Posted September 17, 2019
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