This program is supported by the Elizabeth Huth Coates Charitable Foundation.

We're on the outskirts of Spring Ranch, Texas.

This is the area where the land turns into rolling hills.

Now going down this long country road through oaks and mesquite, we come upon a structure that was built by the German settlers back in 1879.

The beginnings of this was a meeting hall for the Germania farmers Baron or the German Farmers Association.

Now the association began as a protection against cattle rustlers and Indians.

But things have calmed down quite a bit since then.

But Anhalt Hall is still going strong.

Come on.

Anhalt It still looks great, doesn't it?

But you might wonder why a dance hall out in the middle of nowhere.

But you have to remember the history, the beginnings of a place.

And you need a horse, that's for sure.

Like my good buddy stormy.

But.

Anhalt was on the trail between Boerne and New Braunfels.

So the travelers would come and they'd stop.

They'd stock up on their goods at the general store.

They'd probably water their horses and they'd rest.

Now there's a whole bunch more history about Art Hall.

So let's go inside and talk to a gentleman that will tell us a lot more.

About.

This is Max Engle.

And Max is the active president of the Germania farmers Brewery.

And, before we get into that, tell me about the meaning of Anhalt.

The meaning of Anhalt.

The German word Anholt means a stop in place.

And back in the 1840s and 1950s, it was a German migrated into the hill country.

One of the stops they would, stop at is on hop, where they would water the horses and feed.

The family would eat and they would spend a night, and then move on the next morning on their, on their trail to and hold a stopover and.

Yeah, literally was absolutely not very good.

Now the early settlers, the German settlers, it was the Crosby Crosby community.

Tell me about that.

They've arrived here in the late 1840s.

It was a family.

And so as a community grow, grew.

It was they were the first founders in that area.

So that's how they got the name Crosby Settlement.

Here.

That was kind of a dangerous area back then.

Problems with what?

Cattle rustlers and Indians.

It could be a little while.

Yes.

And one of the problems was cattle rustling, especially in the 1840s.

So the, membership, would brand their cattle with a the letter G for for the Germania farm of Rhine.

It was a community.

Yes, absolutely.

Their first meeting, they had 35 people and 50 at their second meeting.

So it was a community effort to really help out the pioneers as they were settling this part of the country.

Now, the Germania farm riverine, it's still active, right?

Oh, yes.

From the first meeting in, September of 1875, it was resolved that they would meet monthly on the first Sunday of the month.

And that resolution is still active today.

This wall right here that you see was a, 26 by 34 clubhouse.

So it was for the rain.

It was for the rain.

Just a member.

Yes.

And, the the members would come together for different events, as a matter of fact.

And, 1880, they had their first manifest in that hall with the members.

Now, though, the rain is still active.

Yes.

And you're a president?

Yes.

And, I guess you've had family that have been presidents from the past.

Yes.

There's been ten presidents and 150 years.

Two of the presidents were my great grandfather, Andre Engel and my grandfather, Rudolph Engel.

I am the third Engel of the team president.

I was interviewing one time for a radio show, and they asked me what my favorite part of being part of this.

And I told them my favorite part is walking through the same doors on to the same floors and dancing in the same dance hall that my, ancestors danced on.

Welcome to the Hall of the Germania Farmer Barre.

This hall was built in 1879.

Originally it was 26ft wide and 34ft long, and 1880.

They decided to have a Mae fest here, and apparently the hall was too small.

So in 1881, for the May Fest they built this stands for here.

It's 60ft long and 26ft wide.

And it had a gallery to the west.

Where the where there was a deck built that people could sit on there and watch them dance.

In 1879, they decided to close the hall.

And so they built the siding for the walls on both sides, and they installed the roof over here to close the hall up.

So at that time, the front doors became 60ft.

That way.

This here is the original facade to the original 1879 Hall.

So these were the front doors, the names up there and, that's that's the original part.

We're now in the Great Hall, the big dance hall.

It was built in 1908.

What?

This dance floor is known for is its size.

It is 60ft by 80ft, a 40 800 square foot dance hall, and are 60ft semi arch trusses that were built here on site.

And who knows how they got them up that high to put them up in.

We're now entering into our bar area.

The bar area was put in in the 1950s and before the bar area was put in, this was a courtyard and we had a saloon that was back here in the back that where that wall is.

In the 1950s, they tore down this saloon and bar and built this part of the hall, which is considered the bar area.

Interesting.

Thing of this hall is this is a original, system that was built onto the original hall, which caught water off or the roof.

The water went into the ground, and that's where the water source here was for the hall.

And so this is a stage at on Hall Dance Hall.

It was installed in 1924 as 100 years old.

It took the band off of the floor and put them on this stage.

People come out and dance on our dance floor.

So it's above it.

And, we have wonderful, monthly dances out here.

We had an October fest out here, if you would believe it.

They had groups of 16 couples on this side and 616 it on that side.

At the end of the Grand March, there's a wonderful time.

Of the.

Change.

Yes, sir.

How are you doing?

Just fine, sir.

And you?

Anybody sitting here?

Oh, no.

Help yourself.

Thank you sir.

Now, James probably has the most experience, the most history with this place.

Tell me about, I guess, your first time out here.

Oh, I was probably out here when I was about 5 or 6 years old because my father would work in the bar, and my mother was working in the dining room, so I'd come out here and just run around, run around on the dance floor during intermission, only because they would not allow kids out there while they were dancing was going on.

But then when I got to be about nine, I started parking cars, made a whole $15 a day for doing that back in the 60s.

For a kid, that was pretty good money.

Now this place has got a lot of history, but, with modern day history as well, there's there's been some pretty famous people play here.

Well.

Yes, sir.

Have, one of the earliest ones before he became really famous was George Drake.

He played for the, FFA banquet they had out here one time for major, Fishing Valley FFA.

He was he was fairly young at that, you know, at that point.

Who else also.

Who else?

Well, of course, compared Johnny Bush.

We've had, Gary Brennan, George Walker.

Yes, yes, he's been here.

You know, a movie was made here.

Yes.

We've had a movie made here.

All the Pretty Horses with, from, Billy Bob Thornton.

And we've had, a Dodge commercial filmed here that I was part of.

You know, the dance hall doesn't just have old costumes, but there's new folks, young folks coming in all the time.

How does that make you feel that this is an ongoing.

Well, that really gives you a good feeling that we get younger.

People out here, we've been trying to get them to sign up to be members to help keep this historic place going.

It takes a lot to keep the, ambiance of the property and keep it in maintenance.

I'm a fifth generation member of the organization.

Oh, okay.

My great great grandfather was a charter member, and there has been direct lineage all the way through our great grandfather, my grandfather, my father, myself and my sons are both members now, too.

So we've got six generations of permit.

Well, James, thank you very much.

You're a great historian.

Thank you sir.

This is Leroy Hardy.

What have you got here?

When the Germans came over in the 1840s, late 1840, my great great grandfather's name, Valentin Forman, he was the first master blacksmith that came over from Germany to this area.

These are his original tools, his original toolbox that could fit on his little compartment on the on the ship that came over.

And, he settled up here in Spring Branch, and, he was the blacksmith for when, Arnold farm that form the Germania Farm River Rhine in 1875.

They asked him to come up with a brand.

There was a lot of cattle rustling, so he came up with the G, which stood for Germania.

And all the families that were members of the Germania.

Farmer very put a G above their family brand.

They let all the cattle auction houses in the area know if a g comes through that livestock.

It's been stolen.

It's a real honor to be the curator of his tools.

I mean, let's look at feel this for this is this is amazing.

The quality of these tools all these years later.

And, so I'm, I'm, I'm just extremely proud of of my heritage.

And he had him and his, my great great grandmother had one living child.

Her name was Mina.

She raised here, married a fella named Herman Foy for Herman Foy for it turned out to be the third president of Von Hall.

And he was president for many, many years.

But he had the sawmill up here on Cutter Creek, and he is the 1 in 1907, 1908, donated all the wood for the dance halls.

It is gorgeous.

It's it's it's incredible.

Now you go to a coffee pot there, right.

This is this coffee pot.

Oh, my God, you know how heavy that is.

He brought that over from Germany and the various shoe horses.

He made his nails.

These were all.

You know, I don't claim to know a whole lot about blacksmithing, J. But these were all the tools that he used.

These original tools.

Was he a dentist also?

Yeah, yeah.

For, Cyclops or something.

So he was the blacksmith in town.

He was the master blacksmith.

In fact, he kept all his money under the stump that his anvil set on.

And and the story is, no one was strong enough to move the stump to be able to steal his money because he was so muscled up, but, so he could move it to get his money a little bit.

But that's where.

Yeah, that's it was common knowledge that that's where he kept his money.

It was under a stump that his anvil was on.

This truly is his legacy.

And I'm just so proud to have it.

Well, Leroy, thank you for being a caretaker of this great history.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate you.

You know, if you just stop and listen, you can hear music from the 1880s or so.

George Strait.

Anyway, we got to get going.

I got to get stormy back to a stall at home, get in the car because we're driving to Hondo, Texas to see the Queen Dancehall and Gun Club.

If I could find my horse story.

Stormy, where did you go?

Stormy, where are you?

We gotta go.

Come on.

We got to go.

I got treats.

We have arrived in Hondo, Texas and take a look at this now.

It's not a treehouse.

This is the Queen Gun Club and dancehall.

It sits on the cedar posts and stilts to avoid flooding by the creaky creek.

Now this setup works.

It's known as the oldest continuously operated gun club and dancehall.

And by the way, have you ever thought about elevating your dancing?

You're at the right place.

This is Clyde Munieck.

How you doing?

All right.

How are you doing?

Great.

Clyde and his wife, Kathy have been operators here for 37 years now.

Clyde, in the very beginning, in 1890, it was a gun club and dancehall.

But why that combination?

The gun Club was, established to protect the early settlers that came here in 1846 from the Indians.

And they were marksmen, and they made this gun club to make them better marksmen.

And then the dancehall port was a social club for the people that settled here.

So for their wives and children to come and enjoy themselves.

I understand that membership until the 1960s was pretty strict.

That's correct.

You had to read and write the German language and speak the German language to to join.

It was a German community and since then it has changed, through the years.

Now you have to be a member of Medina County residents.

But for a year.

And then we'll vote on you to see if we want to let you live.

So and the membership helps from keep shooting keeps things up.

Well, the membership keeps things rolling around here.

And twice a year we have a membership shoot and that have to shoot.

We have two rifles.

We shoot a hundred yards targets with 22 long, long rifles, open sites at a and at a very unique target that graduated from the 20 on out.

And if you shoot a 60, well then you have to have had the opportunity to get a turkey.

Oh, anything less you will not get a turkey.

Most of that really happening place.

What kind of music do you play here?

We we tentatively only have country and western dance music.

We don't have a marsh situation.

We have no pool tables, we have no TV, just a dance situation.

Okay.

No, no, no, we don't do concerts.

We do the dances.

And, if you don't have a fiddle and still in your band, you don't play country music.

And we now as we're standing here and we're kind of moving a little bit, it's creaking a lot.

Now.

This floor is over, six feet.

It's on those stilts.

What's are going to be dancing out here?

Well, this is one of the few places you can dance all night and not get your legs and feet more out because it's springy.

We have a noble floor.

This old floor is over a pine for underneath.

It's unlike concrete and asphalt.

It's very comfortable, really.

And when you get a whole bunch of people out on the floor, we're going to get a whole bunch of people out on the floor and they all go one direction.

The building goes that direction.

Also not not drastically, but you can tell it.

Well, how old were you when you first came here?

I was a week old.

I had dances every second and fourth Saturday, which typically is two weeks in between, and I was born the week before the dance, so I couldn't come to the following week.

So you were baptized here?

Pretty much.

Yes, I, I grew up here.

We everything stopped on Saturday night to go to Queen.

We come to dance.

Well, speaking of, you know, this was a German shot or not queer.

He doesn't really sound like a German name.

No, it was, named after a bird.

It's, it's a white, red, white ring necked eagle.

Some of them call it the Mexican eagle.

When the first settlers were here, they didn't know what they were going to call it.

And this bird kept going around doing his call.

Okay, okay.

Hey.

And that's the way it got its name, right?

Cool.

And that's the Queen Creek.

This is the Queen Creek, which was named after it also.

And it floods, which caused you to put it up on stilts.

Right.

Have you had any flooding around here after it's been put on the stilts in 97?

It got right up just to the floor.

But in 2010 we had about 18in in here.

Wow.

It was it was a mess.

I didn't float down the river.

No, it didn't, but it it was close.

It was close.

You've taken very good care of the place.

And especially after a flood like that.

I mean, wood buckles and things.

And this is the original floor.

This is the original floor, 1890 floor.

Some of it is 1890 from that division up there, but most of it is later on in the later years.

But some of it is original.

It's all the same.

Built the same.

This right over here was, added on to in the 60s.

I remember being here when the bandstand was over here versus where it is now.

They used to be also, there used to be a fence right here about that tall picket fence like that with a rail on top.

That was the bullpen for the boys.

Okay.

Back there.

And the girls were out here.

If you wanted to dance, you had to come out and get a girl.

When you were young, were you choosing the girl, or was the girls come to ask you to dance?

Well, I had to run away from some of them, but most of my had to catch up.

I have been dancing since I was a six, since I was about 11.

I learned to dance here with my mother and my brother's girlfriend when I was young.

Poker or Two-Step, or just play the music.

I'll dance.

I can dance just about anything, but I don't do rock and roll too well.

You know, I was sitting out here under these live oak trees.

They've got to be 2 or 304 hundred year old trees.

And Rudy Moss was sitting under the tree, and I wanted to bring him back here.

He's a historian about this place.

He's been here all his life.

So tell me about how you started out here.

Yeah, I was born and raised in Medina County in Hondo, and, I became a member when I was 21.

And I've been president two different times back in this 70s, 80s, 90s, couple with some of the older people they remember coming out here in my malaise and stuff like that.

This place has been around since 1890.

So during prohibition, we have a German community that probably always drank beer and prohibition, but you're way out in the middle of nowhere.

I'm guessing they were drinking beer during prohibition.

Well, I don't remember any of the older ones like that, but I'm pretty dang sure they were there when they first started.

If you can speak German, you didn't get in this.

This area here, from where the line is back to here, was added on after 61.

You can tell by floor.

Yeah, the bandstand was back over here.

That side was on here before 61.

This side wasn't it.

It just all kind of changed after that for a detour.

All the rest of them.

It's far from, Raphael Shaw building here at the first.

And he lived.

He lived back up south of here.

Great.

Really good to gather here.

The.

Oh, yeah.

Lots of stuff.

You almost had to have a mustache to get from here.

Well, it sure seems like it.

Oh, are you sure?

Let's let's see your.

Take a look.

Like anymore, you know, change too much.

Maybe these were some of the first member group with their their arrival and there's their membership.

But you're sure?

Yeah.

And their membership badge.

And all these others.

You can you can look at these some of the some of the first member met with some of them, but is sort of the Stanley you look at some of the, the desk here, these tables and that these are a bunch of them scattered out around here where, like this Herman Trump's cafe still operating.

They look at some of the chairs.

There's Emil Meckler, with which Mickey McCarter says he was a propane salesman over Castroville.

Rudy, you've been a wonderful resource for this place, but I'm still here.

This has been a real pleasure.

All right.

And I can sure.

Jay, what are you doing?

Well, when you and I were in there talking, the waters came up when I saw a huge catfish.

Oh, there he is.

This is not a pole.

I got him.

This is about all I got.

The catfish that looks more like a hat.

Fish to me.

Well, it's not a catfish, but it fits quite well if the hat fits here and clearly you wear it.

I tell you, Quihi is such a uniq place, such a magical place.

Y'all come on out here, okay?

And we'll be here.

Happy dancing.

This program is supported by the Elizabeth Huth Coates Charitable Foundation.