Texas Venue Directory
Stagecoach Ballroom
Historic country ballroom · Fort Worth
Fort Worth ballroom with recurring country-and-western dancing, lessons, and live bands.
About this room
Ray Chaney opened the Stagecoach Inn in October 1961 in the old Stagecoach Hotel on North Main Street, with Al Dexter, who wrote 'Pistol Packin' Mama,' as the first act. The crowds outgrew it, and in 1963 he moved into the Crystal Springs building on White Settlement Road, booking Willie Nelson, Bob Wills, Porter Wagoner, Jim Reeves and Bobby Bare. Tommy Duncan played there on January 19, 1967; two days later a fire destroyed the building. That April, Chaney leased a former Safeway supermarket at 2516 East Belknap and reopened. That is where it still is. The Czajkowski-Desai family has owned it for close to fifty years, and in 2024 the Texas Historical Commission awarded it a historical marker.
History sources checked August 29, 2026.
Things you may not know
- It is a converted grocery store. The building on East Belknap was a Safeway. Source
- The fire came two days after the last show. Tommy Duncan, Bob Wills's longtime vocalist, played the White Settlement Road hall on January 19, 1967; an early-morning fire on January 21 gutted it. The suspected cause was a lit cigarette left behind the bandstand. Nobody was hurt. Source
- The reopening had 300 parking spaces and what was billed as Fort Worth's longest bar. Source
- The April 1967 grand reopening drew the biggest crowd the club had ever had, and by one contemporary account may have peaked that night. Source
- Three locations, two families, since 1961. Source
- The historical marker hangs on the outside wall between a mural and a display case, unveiled at a free public party in August 2024. Source
- It turns up in a 2024 Ella Langley music video, 'Choosin' Texas.' Source
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