Texas is home to many dance halls, but only 18 are known to have been built with
a “round” (non-orthogonal) plan. Their common design was first conceived by the Austin
County carpenter Joachim Hintz in 1897 for the twelve-sided Bellville Turnverein
Pavilion. For the next 40 years, variations on the building type were disseminated and
constructed exclusively in Central and South Texas farming communities settled by
German and Czech immigrants. These structures were probably based on the octagonal
barn plans promoted heavily in the agricultural press at the end of the nineteenth century,
yet they look nothing like the round barns of New York and New England or the domed
masonry dairy barns of the upper Midwest. This building type is unique to Texas. The
majority of the state’s six-, eight-, and 12-sided dance halls were built in a line along
State Highway 36 and the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad. This thesis explores the
architectural history and physical characteristics of these very special Texas dance halls. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/22540 |
| Date | 04 December 2013 |
| Creators | McDougal, Stephanie L. |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | electronic |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works., Restricted |
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