Haunted honky tonk a spooky place in Texas
October 22, 2013
Today, we’re traveling southeast of Austin to the town of Coupland and the old Coupland Dance Hall. Many who have visited the area agree that, although it is only 30 minutes away from the busy city of Austin, it is a world away in time.
Built in 1910, the dance hall, restaurant and inn had several fronts, including as a mercantile store,
a dentist’s office and a drug store with a bootleg bar-and-bordella operation out of the back. There is a story that one of the ladies of the night working at the bordello committed suicide in the building after she witnessed her daughter being struck by a stagecoach. That horrifying event might be one of the reasons the Coupland Dance Hall is such a haunted place!
Several members of the staff have witnessed their fair share of odd happenings. In the dance hall, there is a fan hung on the wall near the
back of the hall on the right side of the dance floor that often comes on by itself. What makes this spooky? There is no motor in the fan. Another staff member has seen a little girl peeking around the curtain leading to the restaurant.
The old Coupland Dance Hall’s atmosphere, Texas-friendly staff and
live Texas swing, will take you back to the Old West. Most say it’s worth a visit for the barbecue, ribeyes and the coldest beer around. Some say the secret to the cold beer are the icy mugs; others say it might be cooled by the the frigid fingers of a phantom cowboy or the icy tears of a ghostly working girl, crying for her daughter.
Whatever the cause, folks don’t seem to mind sharing the dance floor with a few ghostly boots!