PrintDance Hall Days
Gruene Hall has seen its share of â¨frontier history. Between San Antonio and Austin, only steps from the scenic Guadalupe River, the picturesque dance hall was built six years after German immigrants founded the town that gives the hall its name (pronounced green). But its historical marker tells only part of the story: “Built in 1878 as a saloon and social hall for area cotton farmers, this is believed to be one of the oldest dance halls in Texas. Christian Herry (1854 –1917) built the hall under the direction of town developer Henry D. Gruene, for whom many of the farmers worked. The center of the community’s social life for over a century, the large one-story structure features a ‘false front’ entry with asymmetrical window and door arrangements.”
Gruene Hall also features a rollicking dance floor that has hosted more boots than history can count and a stage that has hosted a country music who’s who: Willie Nelson, George Strait, Lyle Lovett, Asleep at the Wheel, Merle Haggard, the Dixie Chicks, Robert Earl Keen, Rodney Crowell — and that’s just a partial list of the cowboy hat crowd. Countless songwriters and musicians have honed and launched careers here.
One of the few dance halls that remain commercially successful out of the hundreds that once thrived throughout central Texas, Gruene Hall is all about energetic two-stepping and relaxed beer drinking. When Rodney Bursiel got into photography, the historic hall was high on his list of places to shoot. “I’ve been going there since my college days,” he says. “I’ve seen shows like Ray Wylie Hubbard and Joe Ely and lots of struggling artists who were no-names at the time but who went on to be bigger names. Usually the smaller shows were a lot more fun because it was less crowded, so you could kick back and enjoy the entertainment and an ice-cold Shiner.”
Off the dance floor, there’s more enjoyment in the town of Gruene — dining, antiques shopping, wine tasting, even rafting and tubing on the Guadalupe River. Described as “gently resisting change since 1872” and “a little behind the times,” Gruene looks much like it did when cotton was its life. The boll weevil and the Depression killed much of the town, but the dance hall survived. Bursiel still goes back to Gruene Hall for the music, the beer, and the boot-scootin’ — and for the Texas history just begging to be photographed.
• Info: To find out more about Gruene Hall and Gruene, Texas, visit www.gruenehall.com and www.gruenetexas.com. To learn more about the historic dance halls of Texas and the effort to preserve them, visit www.texasdancehall.org.
