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Median Priced Homes. Strong economy. Attractive downtown. Summer heat. Crime rates. Growth and sprawl. Best Places for Military Retirees. Most Congested Cities. Cibolo Creek, which empties into the San Antonio River, forms the southwestern boundary of the county and is the primary drainage channel for that area.
Spanish explorers were familiar with the Comal Springs area but evinced little interest in settling the region. Denis , commonly passed through what later became southeastern Comal County. In Comal Springs became the site of the short-lived Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe Mission, but, rather than fortify the mission against anticipated Comanche depredations, Spanish authorities closed it in Nearly a century passed before settlement became permanent, although a Mexican land grant of gave title of the area around the springs to Juan M.
During the eighteenth century the springs and river which had been called Las Fontanas and the Little Guadalupe respectively took the name Comal, Spanish for "flat dish. The inhabitants of the region on the eve of settlement were primarily Tonkawa and Waco Indians, although Lipan Apaches and Karankawas also roamed the area. Early settlers' contacts with these peoples were generally uneventful.
Nomadic Wacos who were camped at springs north of New Braunfels moved their camp west within a year of the founding of the settlement, and a village of some Tonkawas on the Guadalupe River above New Braunfels initially welcomed German visitors. Notwithstanding the rapid influx of settlers in the s and s and isolated incidents of violence, county fathers and Indian leaders generally maintained peaceful relations.
Permanent settlement of the county began in , when Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels secured title to 1, acres of the Veramendi grant, including the Comal springs and river, for the Adelsverein. In succeeding years thousands of Germans and Americans were attracted to the rich farm and ranch land around New Braunfels. The final boundary determination was made in with the separation of part of western Comal County to Blanco and Kendall counties. The first county elections were held on July 13, It is estimated that in New Braunfels was the fourth largest city in Texas.
In the county commissioners divided the county into eight public school districts, and in , long before they were required by law to do so, New Braunfels citizens voted to collect a tax for support of public schools. The population of the county grew percent between and , and numbered more than 4, on the eve of the Civil War.
Comal County was exceptional among the largely German counties of south and west central Texas in the strength of its vote in favor of secession. The county contributed three all-German volunteer companies-two cavalry and one infantry-to the Confederate cause. There is little to suggest that the county's support for the Confederacy reflected enthusiasm for slavery.
Free labor predominated over slave in all counties with large German populations; a survey of German farms in Comal and two other counties in revealed no slave laborers. By , as Anglo-Americans settled alongside the German pioneers, Blacks still made up less than 5 percent of county residents, and the family remained the primary source of labor. Comal County residents seem to have embraced the Southern cause because of their support of the larger cause of states' rights.
But there is no record in the county of the violence between Unionists and Confederates that broke out in German counties to the northwest.
From the early years of its settlement Comal County supported diversified farming and ranching industries. Corn was almost universally cultivated by pioneers and quickly became a staple both of the German diet and of the local economy as a cash crop. It declined in importance relative to other crops and to livestock, however, during and after the Civil War as county ranchers and farmers began to produce commercially important amounts of cotton, wheat, oats, wool, dairy products , and beef.
As farming and ranching spread beyond the environs of New Braunfels into the Hill Country, the county seat developed as an important supply and processing center for products of the expanding agricultural frontier. Many immigrants brought manufacturing experience and commercial acumen to their new home and applied these skills to the products of local agriculture.
Comal County never developed as a major cotton-producing area, but the crop played an important role in the local economy. Production rose from 1, bales in to a peak of more than 16, bales in Perhaps more significant, however, was early interest in cotton processing. The first cotton gin in the county was built in the mids, and by there were twenty. During the Civil War John F. Torrey imported machinery and looms to manufacture cotton textiles and laid the foundation of the Comal County cotton industry of the twentieth century.
At almost the same time, another New Braunfels industrialist, George Weber, established the first cottonseed press in the state. Local businessmen also moved rapidly from sheep herding to woolen textiles.
Production of raw wool expanded from pounds in to 72, pounds in , and in a company for the manufacture of woolen products was organized in New Braunfels. County population growth slowed after the rapid expansion of the s; from 4, in it reached 8, in In these years cotton and wheat peaked and were supplanted in importance by oats and dairy products.
Oat cultivation surpassed , bushels annually; production of milk approached a million gallons and that of butter neared , pounds before Corn culture and livestock remained important sources of income.
Production of corn reached as much as , bushels annually in the years after World War I , while the number of cattle, though fluctuating widely, grew to an annual average of about 20, head in the twentieth century. Near the end of the nineteenth century goat ranching also became a significant part of the county economy; in the agricultural census goats outnumbered sheep 22, to 15, As county agricultural production expanded, so too did the scale of industry.
Improvements in transportation and in power generation allowed a shift toward larger industrial concerns and the expansion of production. By the turn of the century the International-Great Northern and Missouri, Kansas and Texas railroads had replaced the stagecoach and oxcart in the passenger and freight-hauling business and linked the county with state and national markets.
At the same time electricity began to replace water and steam power in New Braunfels industry. By the s Comal County had established itself as a manufacturing and shipping center for textiles, garments, flour, and construction materials. Though the number of livestock, particularly cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, and poultry, remained relatively constant until , production of the primary commercial crops of the nineteenth century, corn, cotton, and oats, fell in most decades after The agricultural censuses indicate that cotton cultivation ceased altogether in the s.
From a peak in of , bushels, corn production fell to slightly more than 60, bushels by The oat harvest in the same period dropped from , bushels to 40, bushels, while the number of cattle, goats and sheep, and poultry increased in most censuses through That year county ranchers raised 20, cattle, almost 60, sheep and goats, and 62, chickens, turkeys, and other barnyard fowl.
By the end of the decade the number of goats alone surpassed 50, By mid-century mixed stock raising and the production of hay and feed grains, particularly sorghum, supplanted the commercially important crops of the nineteenth century as the basis of Comal County's agricultural economy. After hybrid seeds became widely available in the s, the yield from sorghum culture leapt from 3, bushels in to almost , bushels in Except during the decade of the Great Depression , the value of county farms and ranches rose steadily in the twentieth century, but the variety and number of agricultural enterprises in the area declined just as consistently.
From a high of in , the number of Comal County farms dropped to in the early s; the bulk of agricultural income was increasingly concentrated in livestock and its products. As the diversified farms and ranches of the original Comal County agriculturalists gave way to the livestock economy of the twentieth century, local industrialists were increasing the scope and the scale of county manufactures.
The production of such construction materials as gravel, sand, limestone, crushed stone, and concrete, in addition to the manufacture of textiles and clothing and the milling of wheat and corn were still the mainstays of the industrial sector and accounted for much of its expansion. Metal and wood work and food processing also became important industries. The county grew rapidly after World War II and boomed after From 16, residents in , the population expanded by 21 percent in the subsequent decade and by the same amount in the s, reaching 24, by In the figure was 36,a 50 percent increase from the previous census.
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