Name: Spring Branch, Texas
Address: Spring Branch, TX

The Great Flood of 2002 RoadyGoat

The Guadalupe River may look peaceful today, but it has a history of terrifying power. In the summer of 2002 that power got loose. More than thirty-four inches of rain fell over the upper watershed in about a week, and a torrent came down the river. Right here at the Spring Branch gauge, upstream of Canyon Lake, the Guadalupe peaked at just over forty-one and a half feet on July 5th — short of the forty-five-foot record set in August 1978, but plenty. It scoured the riverbed, ripped out hundred-year-old cypress, washed out crossings and took houses off their slabs. And all of that water kept going, into Canyon Lake, until on July 4th the lake began pouring over its spillway for the first time since the dam was finished in 1964. That overflow cut a brand-new canyon out of solid limestone below the dam and uncovered dinosaur tracks in the floor of it. In the Hill Country, the beautiful, life-giving rivers are also a force of unimaginable destruction.

RoadyGoat → · 3.6 mi away

The Knibbe Ranch: A Living Legacy RoadyGoat

As you travel through this area of new subdivisions, it's hard to imagine a ranch surviving here for more than 170 years, but that's the story of the Knibbe Ranch. It was founded in 1852 by Hans Heinrich Dietrich Knibbe, a German immigrant out of Bissendorf who had landed in Texas in 1848, and it has been owned and worked by his direct descendants ever since -- the fifth generation runs it now, with the seventh generation living on the place. The state recognizes it as a Century Heritage Ranch for that unbroken line of cattle work. This isn't a museum; it's a working ranch. The Knibbes were the first settlers here, and Spring Branch's original post office ran out of their store. For generations the family has weathered droughts, floods, market swings and now urban sprawl, moving between cattle, sheep and goats as the land and the market demanded. Today the ranch hosts visitors and shares that history.

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Taming the Guadalupe: The Engineering of Canyon Dam RoadyGoat

People assume the Guadalupe you see at Spring Branch is a managed river. It isn't. Canyon Dam -- the Army Corps of Engineers' rolled-earthfill wall, built between 1958 and 1964, a carefully compacted mound of soil and rock standing 224 feet high -- sits DOWNSTREAM of here, not above. The stream gage at Spring Branch is in fact one of the main measures of what's flowing INTO Canyon Lake: the water under you is running about forty feet higher than the lake's surface and is still headed for it. So the dam's three jobs -- catching floods and letting them out slowly, storing a water supply for downstream towns, and creating a lake for recreation -- all start below this point. Everything the Corps did reshaped the river from Canyon Dam down to New Braunfels. Up here, the Guadalupe still runs the way it always has: spring-fed, clear, and capable of rising fast and hard in a Hill Country storm. Which is exactly why the dam got built.

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Spring Branch, TX (Harris County)

1848

Spring Branch is in the Memorial Villages area of the western edge of Houston in west central Harris County. It began as a religious community settled by German farmers in the mid-to-late 1840s, many of whom owned dairies. Some of the earliest settlers included August Bauer and his wife Emilie from Wiesa, Germany, and Carl Julius Kolbe from Gotha, Germany. Kolbe settled along a spring-fed creek which flowed into Buffalo Bayou, nine miles from Houston. According to local legend, a stranger stopped by Kolbe’s place, and they walked along the creek until they reached the spot where the creek emptied into the bayou. The stranger inquired as to the name of the creek, and Kolbe replied that it did not have one. The stranger then christened it “Spring Branch.” In 1848 farmers cleared the surrounding forestland for farms and built St. Peter's United (Lutheran) Church with lumber set aside from one of three local sawmills on a site donated by the Bauer family, who owned the mill. The Spring Branch school district began with the Spring Branch School Society, sponsored by St. Peter's Church in 1856. The first public school was opened in 1889, and in 1905 the local white school had forty-nine pupils and one teacher and the local black school twenty pupils and one teacher. In the mid-1950s, when efforts to form a corporation known as Spring Branch failed, a group of affluent communities known as the Villages, including Hedwig Village, Bunker Hill, Piney Point, Hunter's Creek, Spring Valley, and Hillshire Village, were formed from the town and its surrounding region. Any remaining area was annexed by the city of Houston in 1957. In 1973 the Spring Branch Independent School District, which represented the six communities, had 40,200 students and 2,276 teachers. By the 1980s more than 80 percent of Spring Branch graduates continued their education at the university level. The 1980s and 1990s saw a large influx of immigrants from Central America as well as the emergence of a Korean population. Spring Branch was still a named neighborhood in the early twenty-first century and contained a mix of older subdivisions and newer developments. Less expensive property rates attracted new buyers and the resulting urbanization and gentrification of some areas.

Tsha Handbook →

Esser's Crossing at Wesson

1850

IN THE MID-1800s, A WAGON TRAIL CALLED FREDERICKSBURG ROAD RAN 19 MILES NORTHWEST OF NEW BRAUNFELS TO ONE OF THE FIRST SAFE GUADALUPE RIVER ROAD CROSSINGS. ESSER’S CROSSING AT SPRING BRANCH SERVED ALMOST ONE HUNDRED FIFTY YEARS AS A PLACE DESIGNATED FOR SECURE PASSAGE INTO THE NORTHWEST PORTION OF THE STATE FROM NEW BRAUNFELS AND SAN ANTONIO TO JOHNSON CITY AND FREDERICKSBURG. THE CROSSING PROVIDED A SAFE, SHALLOW SOLID ROCK RIVER BOTTOM CROSSING FOR PIONEERS AND THEIR OX-DRAWN WAGONS AND HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGES. AS EARLY AS 1850, THIS CROSSING ON THE GUADALUPE RIVER WAS KNOWN AS HENDERSON CROSSING. A GERMAN IMMIGRANT, CHARLES ESSER, SR. (1827-1902), SETTLED IN THE AREA IN 1858 AND PROVIDED A PUBLIC WAY-STATION ALONG THE ROUTE. ESSER WAS A JUDGE, JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, AND SCHOOL TEACHER, AND WAS INSTRUMENTAL IN GETTING A POSTAL STATION, CALLED WESSON, IN THE AREA. CHARLES BEIERLE, SR. WAS THE POSTMASTER BETWEEN 1893 AND 1907. WHEN THE CROSSING WAS FLOODED, TEAMSTERS DROVE TO FISCHER’S STORE, DEVIL’S BACKBONE OR PURGATORY ROAD TO CROSS OVER THE 1887 FAUST STREET BRIDGE IN NEW BRAUNFELS. BY 1903, THE PUBLIC AND COMAL COUNTY OFFICIALS BEGAN DISCUSSIONS TO BUILD A SECOND BRIDGE TO PROVIDE HIGH WATER CROSSING OVER THE GUADALUPE RIVER. IN 1904, THE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT SELECTED ESSER’S CROSSING TO RECEIVE THE BRIDGE. AFTER ITS CONSTRUCTION, AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS WERE BROUGHT TO THE NEW BRAUNFELS AREA FROM AS FAR AWAY AS JOHNSON CITY. THE WROUGHT IRON WHIPPLE TRUSS BRIDGE, A POPULAR STYLE OF THE TIME, WAS COMPLETED IN 1904. THE BRIDGE DESIGNED FOR ONE-WAY TRAFFIC DISPLAYED A SIGN FORBIDDING FAST DRIVING OR RIDING OR DRIVING MORE THAN TEN HEAD OF LIVESTOCK ON THE BRIDGE AT ANY ONE TIME. ESSER’S CROSSING BRIDGE WAS DESIGNATED AN OFFICIAL UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL STATION IN 1923. AREA RESIDENTS SERVED AS GAUGE ATTENDANTS TO RECORD ANNUAL DATA. THE 1904 BRIDGE WAS LATER CONDEMNED AND REMOVED IN 1979. (2012)

Historical Marker → · 3.5 mi away

Julius Bremer Family and Rebecca Creek School

1845

Julius August Hermann Bremer (1848-1894) was an early settler on land that is now part of the Mystic Shores neighborhood. He was born in Comal County to German immigrants who, in 1845, were among the Adelsverein’s first founders of New Braunfels. In 1867, at age 19, Julius claimed his land grant of 160 acres near Cranes Mill. The following year, he married German immigrant Emma Amalie Foerster (1850-1923). Between 1869 and 1892, they had nine children; eight survived. The family built a two-story stone house, located at this site. They raised livestock, farmed and provided butcher and dairy services. The Bremers expanded their land holdings to 1,069 acres. Five family members were buried in a family cemetery near this site. 
 In 1882, Julius deeded 5.4 acres of land west of his home for a school and served as a school trustee. The one-room Rebecca Creek School, built of wood, opened that same year. Students walked or rode horses or mules from both sides of the Guadalupe River to attend first through eighth grades. Albert Wunderlich (1853-1889) served as the first teacher from 1882 to 1888, living in the log teacherage. His maternal grandfather, Joachim Pantermuehl, founded the Rebecca Creek settlement in 1854. 
 After nearly 60 years in operation, the school closed in 1941. In 2002, the Comal Independent School District honored the 1882 school’s contributions and heritage by naming a new Rebecca Creek Elementary School nearby. (2020)

Historical Marker →

Herman and Ada Knibbe Home

1910

IN 1910, HERMAN KNIBBE (1884–1954), GRANDSON OF THE FIRST SETTLER OF SPRING BRANCH, GERMAN IMMIGRANT DIETRICH KNIBBE (1817–1896), BUILT THIS HOUSE WITH HIS WIFE, ADA (OHLRICH) KNIBBE (1889–1980). THE HOUSE WAS ONE OF THREE RESIDENCES ON THE SAME ROAD OWNED BY HERMAN AND HIS TWO BROTHERS, ARNO KNIBBE (1889–1984) AND HARRY KNIBBE (1886–1974). THE KNIBBE FAMILY PLAYED AN INTEGRAL ROLE IN THE GROWTH OF SPRING BRANCH, OPERATING THE LOCAL GENERAL STORE AND SERVING AS POSTMASTERS. THE KNIBBES CONSTRUCTED THIS HOUSE USING LARGE QUARRIED ROCK, OBTAINED FROM THEIR RANCH ON A HILLSIDE EAST OF THE PROPERTY. THE OVERALL STRUCTURE OF THE HOUSE IS INTACT FROM ITS ORIGINAL 1910 CONSTRUCTION, INCLUDING ORIGINAL EXTERIOR WALLS, ALL EXTERIOR ENTRANCE DOORS WITH TRANSOMS AND FULL–LENGTH OVAL BEVELED GLASS PANES, AND SINGLE-PANE WINDOWS WITH WAVY GLASS. ALONG WITH THE MAIN HOUSE, THE KNIBBES BUILT A CHICKEN HOUSE, A PARTIALLY UNDERGROUND CISTERN WITH AN ATTACHED HAND PUMP, A WOODEN SMOKEHOUSE, AN ADDITIONAL CARETAKER’S HOUSE BUILT IN 1930, A TIN–COVERED OUTBUILDING WHICH ORIGINALLY SERVED AS A CARRIAGE HOUSE, AND A TWO–ROOM WOODWORK SHOP AND STORAGE AREA. UTILIZING ALL THE RESOURCES SPRING BRANCH HAD TO OFFER, THE KNIBBES MILLED WOOD, FARMED COTTON, RAISED CATTLE, CHICKENS, AND GOATS, QUARRIED ROCK AND PROVIDED WATER AND ELECTRICITY TO THE AREA. OVER A CENTURY OF KNIBBES LIVED IN THIS HOUSE, WHICH STANDS AS A TESTAMENT TO THE HARDSHIPS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE EARLIEST SETTLERS OF SPRING BRANCH AND THE LEGACY OF THEIR DESCENDANTS. RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK – 2018

Historical Marker →

Smithson Valley - 2025 Texas 5A Division I state football champion

2025

Smithson Valley defeated Frisco Lone Star 28-6 for the 2025 Texas 5A Division I state football championship.

Sports News → · 7.4 mi away

Gruene, TX

1878

Gruene was originally three miles north of New Braunfels at a crossing on the Guadalupe River in Comal County. In recent decades it has been brought within the city limits of New Braunfels. The community was once a prosperous commercial and supply center for blackland cotton farmers of eastern Comal County. German farmers settled the area in the 1850s, and the town took shape in subsequent years under the name Goodwin Community. In 1872 the Gruene family purchased 6,000 acres north of the Guadalupe River, and in 1878 Henry D. Gruene built a mercantile store to serve the several dozen families sharecropping his family's land. The profitable river-crossing store was also on the stage route between Austin and San Antonio. Gruene provided land for Thorn Hill School and soon added a cotton gin and dance hall to his business concerns. With completion of the International-Great Northern Railroad through Comal County in the 1880s, the community's commercial development accelerated, and it took the name of its leading citizen. In 1900 Gruene was the banking, ginning, and shipping center for area cotton growers. Its dance hall and saloon became the focus of social activities. By the early 1900s the town was served by the Goodwin post office and by passenger and freight depots for both the International-Great Northern and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas railroads. Gruene began a decline with the boll weevil blight of the 1920s. It is reported that late in that decade the Gruene family's 8,000-acre holdings failed to produce a single bale of cotton. The mercantile store and rail depots were closed with the onset of the Great Depression . As post- World War II highway construction bypassed the community, its decline was completed. An estimated population of seventy-five in the 1930s had dispersed by 1950, leaving the once thriving community a ghost town. Gruene began a revival in the 1970s with restoration of the nineteenth-century settlement as a center for arts, crafts, and tourism. Within a few years the Gruene Dance Hall-touted as the oldest operating in the state-once again attracted weekend crowds. A live theater company, craft and antique shops, restaurants, a hotel, and a winery occupied historic structures and served tourists attracted by the scenic Guadalupe River. The entire town is on the National Register of Historic Places. Since redevelopment the resident population is estimated at twenty.

Tsha Handbook → · 11.4 mi away

Spring Branch, Texas

Music in Spring Branch

Songs About Spring Branch

Artists From Spring Branch

Rivers & Roads in Song near Spring Branch

History of Spring Branch

The Great Flood of 2002 RoadyGoat

The Knibbe Ranch: A Living Legacy RoadyGoat

Taming the Guadalupe: The Engineering of Canyon Dam RoadyGoat

Spring Branch, TX (Harris County)

Esser's Crossing at Wesson

Julius Bremer Family and Rebecca Creek School

Herman and Ada Knibbe Home

Smithson Valley - 2025 Texas 5A Division I state football champion

Gruene, TX

Things to Do in Spring Branch

Everything Near Spring Branch