Blanco: Twin Sisters Dance Hall

Two hills gave this place its name, and a German storekeeper gave it a dance floor. Twin Sisters Dance Hall sits under live oaks on US 281, about six miles south of Blanco. For roughly 150 years, Blanco County families have driven here on Saturday nights. They still do. Its tin siding pretends to be stone blocks, though it fools nobody. That’s half the charm.

Max Krueger, a German immigrant, built a whole community here in the 1870s. He ran a ranch, a gristmill, a cotton gin, and a warehouse. Then he turned the warehouse into a dance hall and sold beer shipped from St. Louis. Soon the crowds got rowdy. Krueger himself wrote about brawls fueled by bad whiskey. So for a stretch, the shootouts won and the doors closed.

Five Dollars and a Handshake

Henry Bruemmer took over next. Then, in the 1910s, he sold the hall to the neighbors who loved it. The Twin Sisters Hall Club paid five dollars. That might still be the best real estate deal in Blanco County history. The wooden dance floor dates to 1911, and boots have polished it ever since.

The club stayed old-fashioned in some ways. Women couldn’t join as members until the late 1990s. Meanwhile, a bowling alley next door burned in 1967 and never came back. Yet Twin Sisters Dance Hall kept going, one dance at a time. Board president Jo Nell Haas states the mission plainly: “I feel we have to protect and restore these historic halls.”

In 2018, volunteers raised money for a new roof. When crews pulled off the old one, they found original cypress shingles from the 1800s. It was like opening a time capsule nailed to the rafters. Later, country singer Jon Pardi filmed his “Head Over Boots” video on this floor. And Texas fiddle festivals have filled the room for years.

Twin Sisters shares its German roots with Gruene Hall down in New Braunfels. But Gruene became famous, while Twin Sisters stayed a neighborhood secret. Still, the regulars like it that way. Texas Dance Hall Preservation tracks its dances and its restoration work. Come for the two-step. You’ll leave knowing the floor remembers every couple before you.