Gruene Historic District

Gruene is a small Texas community on the east bluff above the Guadalupe River, about four miles northeast of New Braunfels. Henry D. Gruene built it up from the 1870s as a cotton town, drawing tenant farmers and providing a mercantile store, a water-powered cotton gin, a dance hall, a school site, a bank and a post office. The district includes his mansion, enlarged in 1886 by builder Christian Herry, modest employee and family cottages, a 1904 two-story brick store, Gruene Hall, a boiler house and a tall water tower. A few mid-nineteenth century German fachwerk houses carry later Victorian additions. The town sat on the road between San Antonio and Austin and gained two railroad depots. The boll weevil, the Depression and a rerouted highway ended its growth, and little was built after the 1920s. That lack of change preserved its late nineteenth century character, which led to the district's recognition.