The History of Schlitterbahn New Braunfels

Narrative History

In 1966 along a stretch of a tree-lined, spring-fed river in the Texas Hill Country, Bob and Billye Henry and their three children took over a small resort. Over the next fifty years they would combine hard work with and incredible imagination to create the World’s Best Waterpark and Resort right in the heart of New Braunfels, Texas!

Originally intending to just add a few slides to attract more guests to the resort, the Henry family quickly saw that more than resort guests were interested in their water slides. They decided to expand their vision and started building a large slide complex. The only problem was they needed a name. Determined to pay homage to the cultural heritage of the New Braunfels, they wanted some sort of German name. After some brainstorming, they settled on Schlitterbahn, a made-up word combining the German word for slippery – Schlitter – with the German word for road – Bahn. The park opened in the summer of 1979.

Every year the Henry family reinvested in the resort, adding more rooms, more slides, and more fun. By the 1990s, Schlitterbahn Waterpark and Resort had grown to more than 65 acres, hundreds of rooms, dozens of slides and kids’ water playgrounds and miles of inner-tube chutes.

The family took great pride in developing new and innovative parks, rides and technologies while keeping the focus on family-friendly amenities and values. Schlitterbahn created several industry-firsts, such as the Boogie Bahn surf rides, Master Blaster uphill water slides, tidal wave rivers, Transportainment-based and convertible waterparks, and also continued to offer world-class guest amenities including free parking, free use of tubes and the option to bring in picnic meals for free into all of our parks.

Today, Schlitterbahn New Braunfels has been recognized as the World’s Best Waterpark, winning Amusement Today’s prestigious Golden Ticket Award every year since the award was started in 1997. Schlitterbahn has been featured in several Hollywood movies, dozens of national TV programs and countless publications around the world.

In 2006 Schlitterbahn Galveston Waterpark opened, expanding the Transportainment concept to cover the entire park. In our Galveston park, there are fully interconnecting large rivers that result in a one mile-long river system! In 2016 the park became home to the World’s Tallest Water Coaster, MASSIV. This epic ride is a must-not-miss experience!

In 2019, Cedar Fair purchased the New Braunfels and Galveston properties. This resulted in an increase of 1.1 million guests to the Cedar Fair fan club. Cedar Fair Entertainment Company (NYSE: FUN), one of the largest regional amusement-resort operators in the world, is a publicly traded partnership headquartered in Sandusky, Ohio. Focused on its mission to make people happy by providing fun, immersive and memorable experiences, Cedar Fair owns and operates 13 properties, consisting of 11 amusement parks, four separately gated outdoor water parks, and resort accommodations totaling more than 2,300 rooms and more than 600 luxury RV sites. Cedar Fair’s parks are located in Ohio, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan, Texas and Toronto, Ontario.

Under the new structure of Cedar Fair the commitment to fans remains the same: putting families first and providing them with unique water entertainment found nowhere else, keeping Schlitterbahn America’s First Family of Waterparks and Resorts, with world-class waterparks and a tremendous value for families and friends to build new memories every day.