Cypress may be losing a piece of its history: 126-year-old Tin Hall, Harris County’s oldest and largest country dancehall (and perennial first listing among area attractions on the Cypress community’s Wikipedia page). The venue is slated to close its doors on New Year’s Day.
The 24,000-sq.-ft. facility sports a 4,400-sq.-ft. dance floor on the second story, and sits on 40 ac. of wooded land surrounded by suburbs on two sides and the Longwood Golf Club on another. The property was sold last December to an entity that shares a Woodway address with McGuyer Homebuilders.
A New Year’s Eve bash is billed as Tin Hall’s last public gathering — at least in its current locale. A spokesperson for the dancehall said on Facebook that they hope the hall can be moved in pieces and rebuilt:
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“We’re hoping to find a location that we can relocate to for the next 100 years,” reads a statement posted to the Tin Hall Facebook page. The post goes on to suggest that someone else might consider purchasing all of Tin Hall and moving it to their own land.
Tin Hall was built as a gathering spot for the mostly-German dairy farmers who settled northwestern Harris County in the 19th Century. The institution’s expansive grounds were also home to a rifle range, until encroaching suburbia rendered gunplay unwise. From the 1970s to the early 2000s it hosted a country-and-western music scene. The building has continued to serve as a dance venue and hall-for-hire, with some Cypress-area families claiming to have celebrated as many as five generations of weddings on the grounds.
- HISTORIC TIN HALL’S LAST CURTAIN CALL [Tin Hall]
- What Is Happening To Texas’s Dance Halls? The Historic Tin Hall Closes Its Doors At The End Of The Year [Texas Monthly]
Photo: Tin Hall
History, even a soulless suburb’s only history, shall not stand in the way of more tract homes. Dollah wills it. Dollah is the greatest.
My great grandpa told me about him and my grandma would go to tin hall by horse and buggy from decker Prarie courting to dance. Me and my brother’s went dancing every weekend, lots of good time and lots of friends, times not forgotten, tell my kids story’s of tin hall, and outcast band.
Such a shame. My father was a bouncer there in the late 40‘s &50‘s . I have so many memories of Tin Hall back in the days of Baldwin Zahn & Mr Wilke.
Spent my young years there, a place to go, have fun and meet a lot of lovely women, and have good clean fun, we’ll never be replaced
Why sell the history if your moving history? Sounds like he is trying to appease us. I don’t buy this deal.