Texas Venue Directory
Devil’s Backbone Tavern & Dancehall
Historic tavern and dance hall · Fischer
Hill Country tavern with a historic dance hall, live music, and public programming.
About this room
The oldest part is a stone room from the late 1890s that worked as a blacksmith shop and a stagecoach stop at the top of a bad trail, the point where the mail wagon out of New Braunfels met the one from San Marcos and where you could catch a ride, see the doctor, or collect your mail. It also has a jail door, because prisoners were held there until somebody could haul them to a real jail. The tavern itself came later and for a specific reason: beer became legal again in 1933, Hays County voted to stay dry, and the tavern went up next to the old blacksmith shop just across the line in Comal County. A Sinclair service station and the dance hall were added in the 1940s. The gas station and hall closed to the public in the 1970s; musicians John and Robyn Ludwick reopened and restored them in 2018.
History sources checked August 29, 2026.
Things you may not know
- It exists because of a county line. Dry county on one side, licensed beer on the other, and a building sited to catch the traffic. Kids from Wimberley used to work the parking lot asking adults to buy for them. Source
- There is still a jail door in the oldest room. How much the room was used as a holding cell is not certain, but the door is there. Source
- It was a mail-wagon transfer point. Wagons from New Braunfels and San Marcos met at the top of the trail, and passengers could hitch a ride from there. Source
- There was a Sinclair filling station attached to the honky-tonk, added in the early 1940s along with the dance hall. Source
- The ridge it is named for is a fault scarp separating the Edwards Plateau from the Gulf Coastal Plains. Source
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