From the Texas State Historical Association 
January 27, 1945

Record-setting sharpshooter dies in San Antonio
On this day in 1945, Elizabeth Toepperwein died in her home in
San Antonio. She was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1882. At
eighteen, while working in a Winchester factory, she met Adolph (Ad)
Toepperwein, a member of a vaudeville-circuit shooting act who was
also employed as an exhibition shooter by the Winchester arms company.
After they married in 1903, Ad gave Elizabeth her first shooting
lessons and discovered she was a "natural." By 1904 the
Toepperweins were working as a team professionally; their first appearance
as a famous husband-and-wife team was at the St. Louis World's Fair.
Elizabeth acquired the nickname "Plinky" during her early
shooting lessons. After several tries, she shot a tin can, which
made a "plinking" sound. Elizabeth exclaimed, "I plinked
it"--perhaps the first use of this echoic verb now common in
shooting publications. She and Ad performed in a career that spanned
forty years. Their displays of expertise included shooting while
standing on their heads and while lying on their backs. She was the
first woman in the United States to qualify as a national marksman
with the military rifle and the first woman to break 100 straight
targets at trapshooting. She also held the world endurance trapshooting
record, hitting 1,952 of 2,000 targets in five hours and twenty minutes.
The celebrated shooter Annie Oakley once said to Plinky, "Mrs.
Top, you're the greatest shot I've ever seen." Memorabilia of
the Toepperweins' career is on display in San Antonio's Buckhorn
Saloon.
Related Links:
TOEPPERWEIN, ELIZABETH SERVATY (1882 - 1945)
TOEPPERWEIN, ADOLPH (1869 - 1962)

April 17, 1856

Historic academy building dedicated in New Braunfels
On this day in 1856, a stone building was dedicated at the newly established
New Braunfels Academy. A twenty-year charter granted in 1858 provided
that the school be governed by a board of six trustees, the mayor
of New Braunfels, and the Comal county judge. The academy was supported
by a city tax and tuition. New Braunfels is said to be the first city
in Texas in which the citizens voted unanimously for a school tax.
In 1876 the school received support from the Peabody Fund. When the
charter was about to expire in 1878, a legislative act to renew it
was vetoed by Governor O. M. Roberts, who thought the act establishing
the academy was not in harmony with Texas constitution. The original
long, one-story building of New Braunfels Academy was razed in 1913
to be replaced by a two-story school building on the same location,
at East Mill and Academy streets.

Links to related Handbook of Texas Online articles
NEW BRAUNFELS ACADEMY
ROBERTS, ORAN MILO
NEW BRAUNFELS, TX

July 3, 1964

Natural Bridge Caverns, largest in Texas, opens to public
On this day in 1964, Natural Bridge Caverns, the largest known cavern
in Texas, was opened to the public. The cavern was discovered on March
27, 1960, by four spelunkers who were students at St. Mary's University
in San Antonio. It is located off Farm Road 1863 in the hill country
of Comal County midway between New Braunfels and San Antonio. The
name was derived from a sixty-foot natural limestone slab bridge that
spanned the amphitheater setting of the cavern's entrance. The developed
portion of the cave, furnished with a half mile of paved trails and
illuminated by 35,000 watts of indirect lighting, extends to as much
as 260 feet below ground level. Natural Bridge Caverns became a registered
United States natural landmark in 1971.

Links to related Handbook of Texas Online articles
NATURAL BRIDGE CAVERNS
COMAL COUNTY

July 20, 1847

Meusebach resigns as Adelsverein commissioner
On this day in 1847, John O. Meusebach resigned as general commissioner
of the Adelsverein, the society formed by German nobles to encourage
the colonization of Texas. Meusebach, born Baron Ottfried Hans Freiherr
von Meusebach in Dillenburg, Germany, in 1812, succeeded Prince Carl
of Solms-Braunfels as commissioner and arrived in Texas in 1845. In
just over two years, and despite facing numerous obstacles, including
the Adelsverein's inept planning and management, Meusebach presided
over the initial growth of New Braunfels and also founded the settlements
of Fredericksburg, Castell, and Leiningen. He also successfully negotiated
the Meusebach-Comanche treaty. Meusebach died in 1897.

Links to related Handbook of Texas Online articles
MEUSEBACH, JOHN O.
ADELSVEREIN
SOLMS-BRAUNFELS, PRINCE CARL OF
MEUSEBACH-COMANCHE TREATY
GERMANS

October 24, 1845

Pioneer German authors killed by Indians
On this day in 1845, two pioneer German-Texans, Friedrich Wilhelm
von Wrede Sr. and Oscar von Claren, were killed and scalped by Indians
at a place referred to as Live Oak Spring, ten to twelve miles from
Austin, probably near Manchaca Springs. Wrede made an initial trip
to Texas in 1837 and traveled and made notes of his observations in
America. He returned to Germany in 1843 and compiled and published
Lebensbilder aus den vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika und Texas
(1844). Wrede's travel book is a generally realistic account of the
opportunities and difficulties of colonists on the American frontier,
especially in Texas. The book helped to influence prospective German
settlers to come to Texas, despite the negative effect of Wrede's
own violent death in Texas the following year. Wrede returned to Texas
in 1844 as an official of the Adelsverein. His companion in death,
Oscar von Claren, immigrated from Hannover to New Braunfels, Texas,
probably early in 1845. His family correspondence indicated his interest
in the botany and wildlife of the New Braunfels area, and he collected
turtles and snakes to sell to naturalists in Germany. He wrote Indianer
bei Neu Braunfels im Jahre 1845 (1845), a group of essays depicting
Texas Indians.The two authors were buried at the site of the massacre
by United States soldiers, who gave them military honors. Wrede's
son, Friedrich Wilhelm von Wrede Jr., settled in Fredericksburg but
returned to Germany after the Civil War.

Links to related Handbook of Texas Online articles
WREDE, FRIEDRICH WILHELM VON, SR.
CLAREN, OSCAR VON
ADELSVEREIN
NEW BRAUNFELS, TX
WREDE, FRIEDRICH WILHELM VON, JR.
GERMANS

December 22, 1839

First Texas-German church services held in Houston
On this day in 1839, in Houston, Louis Ervendberg held the first recorded
church services for Texas Germans. He had held a church post in Pomerania
before immigrating to America in 1836-37, and he established congregations
in southern Illinois before coming to Texas. Ervendberg was invited
by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels to minister to the Adelsverein immigrants,
whom he accompanied from Indianola to the site of present-day New
Braunfels. His later life was marked by scandal. In the mid-1850s
he began an affair with an orphan under his care, which ultimately
led to divorce from his wife and to his moving to Mexico. He was reportedly
shot to death by robbers in 1863, though some information places him
in Paris four years later.

Links to related Handbook of Texas Online articles
ERVENDBERG, LOUIS CACHAND
SOLMS-BRAUNFELS, PRINCE CARL OF
ADELSVEREIN
GERMANS
RELIGION