Founders' Oak - New Braunfels, TX
N 29° 42.699 W 098° 08.162
14R E 583569 N 3287146
A Texas Live Oak tree grows immense as a centuries-old tree growing by Comal Springs in New Braunfels, TX.
Waymark Code: WMZMMV
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 12/02/2018
Views: 3
This grand oak is aptly named as Founders' Oak because it certainly was here first as the early explorers and settlers began to discover the opportunities of the Texas hill country in what is now Comal County. A Spanish mission here in the mid-1700s, from 1756-1758, but closed and moved because of native Indian depredations. I suspect that even then this tree has some solid size and was pushing a few centuries already ringing its trunk's girth. Another century passed before Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels negotiated ownership of this land. It has been another century since then, so this truly old oak is easily half of a millennium in age. Typical of this and the Church Oak elsewhere within New Braunfels, this tree's branches and shade were used to school pioneer children, hold sacred services of Catholic Mass, and meet for social, business and political events. If we knew how to hear this Founders' Oak tales, we would be amazed at what it has witnessed and survived.
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