Fischer Dance Hall

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About The Hall

The Agricultural Society of Fischer’s Store formed in 1875, intended as a cooperative and a social organization. Otto Fischer donated land to the society in 1897, where they built a dance hall and a nine-pin bowling alley. Fischer Hall was built with a vaulted ceiling that didn’t need support posts, to maximize the open space for dancing. Pine boards were soaked in water until they were pliable, and then bent into arches that would support the metal roof. There are several old dance halls in this part of Texas that were built with similar construction. Today, Fischer Hall is a popular venue for dances, weddings and reunions.

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Fischer Hall 1897: The Agricultural Society built a dance hall or Fischer Hall for various social functions. It is unfortunate that no minutes for the society can be located prior to July of 1897. The minutes were written in German and the meetings were also conducted in German. The first entry on page seven of the existing minutes state, “The cleanup of the hall by us was given to B. (Bruno) Burkhardt,” as recorded just prior to the July 11, 1897 meeting. In 1908, a new hall was built and is the current hall still standing. Unfortunately, the minutes or other firsthand sources do not exist pertaining to the builder’s identity regarding the hall. The traditional story attributes the building of the hall to a handicapped carpenter named Kloepper from New Braunfels with the help of the society members. The current photos to the left and below show the dance hall exterior and interior. The lumber was purchased at Henne Lumber Company in New Braunfels and the company name stamped on the siding can be seen from inside the hall. A saw mill existed on the Guadalupe River to the south and some lumber may have been also found locally. The posts for the large cedar foundation came from the area. The hall was built utilizing a lamination of pine curved into arches to vault the ceiling, similar to other dance halls in Comal and neighborin g counties. The arches had periodic wood stringers that ran perpendicular to the arches to which the metal roofing material was attached. The lamination of two flat boards required soaking them in water to make them pliable and easy to bend into an arch. The unique arches were fabricated on the ground having pre-built blocks placed between the two laminated courses. The blocks required precise angles and the curvature required that each were matched up to the laminations. Otto Fischer’s younger sons Waldemar and Rudolf were asked to climb on top of the walls to pin the arch in position as they were raised into place to support the roof of the hall.

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