Luckenbach, Texas

I am a day behind with this story, but it is definitely worth telling.  Yesterday, on our way home from the LBJ stuff, we drove through Luckenbach.  I suppose at one time it was a thriving little settlement, but today you would be hard pressed to even consider it a village.  However, I think there were more visitors there than at the LBJ Ranch.  Perhaps we just all had the same idea—stop by Luckenbach on our way home.

Luckenbach was established in the 1850s by the Luckenbach’s and other German immigrants.  The Luckenbach’s later moved to Boerne to be near their children and are buried in the Historic Boerne Cemetery.   Around 1970, Hondo Crouch purchased the entire “town” and has preserved its “rustic” charm.  Made famous by the song by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, Luckenbach, Texas is the place to be for live music and dancing come weekends.

The “town” consists of 4 buildings, well 5 if you count the outhouse, on the banks of Grape Creek.  There is no creek this year, only the dry creek bed which now looks mostly like a ditch.  But I’m sure, in wetter years there would be a nice babbling brook there.  There is a deserted, dilapidated structure which was the fine home of the Engels in years past.  There is another structure which looks a lot like a barn which I suspect is now used for storage, if anything at all.

There is the dance hall which boasts standing room only on the weekends.  It was quiet yesterday, but the manager allowed us a look inside and solicited our opinion on a new type of bench for seating around the picnic tables.  The current bench is basically a picnic table bench with a back rest.  It seems those benches are heavy to move and take up more then their share of the space.  Just arrived yesterday afternoon was a custom made bench which looked for all the world like a standard picnic table bench with rounded ends so as not to snag clothing.  This bench fit snuggly against the legs of the table taking up much less room and was considerably lighter to move.  

The other building was a combination of General Store and saloon.  Everyone was in the saloon part, of course.  The General Store had some real buys, especially in armadillo fashions.  I suggested we get an armadillo purse for Ansley, but her dad thought perhaps the color wouldn’t go with anything she has.  The armadillo gun slinger was nice too, but I just couldn’t think of where I’d put it.  In days past this building also served as the Post Office and still has the sign out front, but those days are gone.

This is one of those great places you run across occasionally and we are glad we stopped by.