The Silver Dollar, Lumberyard and Courthouse Blues: Austin's Urban Cowboy Epicenter.

The Lumberyard in 1978

 

 

Note: This article is based on one originally written for the Northwest Hills Civic Association.

In 1947, C.J. Stark opened the original Skyline Club, an old “honky-tonk”, at 11306 North Lamar Blvd. Out of the city limits at the time that stretch of Lamar was also known as the old Dallas Highway. It hosted big names like Patsy Cline, even Elvis. Hank Williams Sr. and Johnny Horton played their last public concerts there. Later, in 1964, the Broken Spoke opened: another honky-tonk on what was then the southwest edge of Austin. And a decade after that a new genre of clubs was emerging on the northwest edge of Austin: dance halls like Gilley's made famous by the movie Urban Cowboy. Austin's urban cowboy epicenter was three clubs near the intersection of 183 and Burnet road: the Silver Dollar, Lumberyard and Courthouse Blues.

The Silver Dollar (9102 Burnet) and Lumberyard (9200 Burnet) started ca. 1975-1976. The Lumberyard was the former site of a lumber yard, hence the name. Courthouse Blues (9063 Research) started ca. 1978.

Unlike the roadhouse feel of the Broken Spoke with low ceilings and jukebox music, the Lumberyard and even bigger Silver Dollar were cavernous by comparison with large dance floors and high tech amenities; e.g. the Silver Dollar employed a sound man, and the Lumberyard had a mechanical bull. The Silver Dollar in particular drew big name national shows.

The clientele of the three clubs varied, although bar hopping took place. The Silver Dollar attracted a younger crowd including U.T. students; the Lumberyard was more a blue collar crowd that included loyal regulars seated around a bar a la the TV show Cheers; and Courthouse Blues was .. well .. yeah, the name says it all.

Those categories of clientele were reflected in their advertisements: the Silver Dollar advertised free admission to college students with an I.D. (fake or otherwise) whereas the Lumberyard and Courthouse Blues advertised “stag ladies free” (to disambiguate from other interpretations, that meant no cover charge for solo ladies).

These were the days of cheap pitchers of beer and 25 cent Lone Star longnecks. Like the movie Urban Cowboy a night at any of the three might include drama: fights (almost a given at Courthouse Blues) or returning to the parking lot to find your pickup truck on cinder blocks sans the wheels (true story). And sometimes worse: the Lumberyard was the scene of a fatal shooting inside in 1979.

Also like Urban Cowboy, after a night of dancing it was great to have an all-night diner nearby, in this case Jim’s Restaurant (9091 Research). While so many of Austin's classic eating places have closed, we are fortunate Jim's has managed to survive and maintain that old diner feel. Jim’s 9091 Research location began life as Jim’s Coffee Shop ca. 1976. After “last call” club patrons could walk to Jim’s next door from any of the three nearby dance halls for a breakfast of steak and eggs where you’d likely see members of some band, bar staff, or someone you’d two-stepped with earlier that night.

Both the Lumberyard and Silver Dollar buildings are gone. The Courthouse Blues, southern most upstairs suite of 9063 Research, is now appropriately a lawyer’s office. Jim’s remains serving good food in a diner atmosphere, and is mostly known only to locals. Thank goodness for small miracles.

On a Facebook page reminiscing about the country scene of that time one person summed it up: "Lots of great times: Silver Dollar, Lumberyard, Courthouse Blues and Jim's after dancing… [Burnet at 183] rocked it 1978-80s!!!".

Ad from 1978

 

Grand opening of Silver Dollar. click to enlarge.

Silver Dollar stage Christmas ca.1978. The band Cactus Jack was a regular at all three clubs

“No Place Better Come Five O’clock”: Dry Creek Café & Boat Dock

This article is by Mary Closmann Kahle, board member of Preservation Austin and the Texas Oral History Association, and a History Steward with the Texas Historical Commission; it is adapted from an earlier piece written by the author for Preservation Austin and with research conducted by her colleague Marta Stefaniuk.

Dry Creek Café & Boat Dock

 

Dry Creek Café & Boat Dock ca. 1970s

In his 1997 song about Dry Creek Café, Owen Temple salutes the beer joint at 4812 Mt. Bonnell Road, with its live oaks, dramatic sunsets, and legendary proprietor Sarah Boyd Ransom. But those days are over. Closed in 2021, the property is now the subject of a zoning change request, scheduled for a hearing on October 17, related to lot size and other factors. Rumors abound over its future use, from a facility for orphaned children to possible office space.

Built around 1950, Dry Creek Café is a quirky fusion of personality and utility. Reputedly constructed with “100% appropriated” materials, its architecture was described by famed Austin American-Statesman columnist John Kelso as “Early Hooverville.” Distinctive for its limestone walls and yellow wooden details, the structure’s hodgepodge charm befits Austin’s identity as a place where the fun-loving, the accepting, and the “weird” can gather. Not incidentally, Dry Creek Café also claims the longest-running beer license in the same family in Austin.

Dry Creek Café opened in 1953 under the ownership of “Bicken” Boyd and was known as the Triple B (“BBB”). Bicken sold the property to his sister Sarah in 1956, who renamed it the Dry Creek Café. Most of its early business came from the local cedar chopper communities.

As Ken Roberts writes in The Cedar Choppers: Life on the Edge of Nothing, the cedar choppers began settling along the Hill Country’s creeks and rivers after the Civil War. Hailing from Appalachia, they reflected a nomadic culture of Scottish-Irish origin that migrated west to the Ozarks before settling in the Hill Country, thriving on the area’s abundant fish, game, and water. Cedar choppers used sharp hand axes to harvest old growth mountain cedar for railroad ties, construction materials, and fence posts. When the demand for fence posts surged in the West and Plains states in the early half of the 1900s, cedar choppers were hauling cedar posts as far as Wyoming and South Dakota. The introduction of steel posts and chainsaws, along with the 1950s drought, the growing scarcity of old growth cedar, and population growth in Austin, contributed to their eventual decline.

From the get-go, Dry Creek Café hosted a vibrant cast of characters. A 1958 Statesman ad said, “LOST – OLD crooked tail Siamese cat from Dry Creek Cafe.…Reward. Kittens.” Sarah’s pet cockatiel “Hot Rod” flew off in 1966, and a six-foot alligator, “Old Bulger,” lived in a nearby slough of the Colorado River after Sarah’s brother brought it (at six inches) from New Orleans in 1949. In April 1960, fugitive killer Joseph Corbett Jr. of Los Angeles was spotted nearby, “said to be driving a 1959 or 1960 model Thunderbird car.” Known for its scenic switchbacks, Dry Creek Café kicked off the 1980 Mount Bonnell Hill Climb, a bicycling race to nearby Mt. Bonnell.

The clientele expanded in the 1960s and 1970s to the musician, hippie, and college crowds attracted by its remoteness and the 1973 lowering of the drinking age to eighteen. This included musician Marcia Ball and her band Freda and the Firedogs, who recorded a single penned by band member Bobby Earl Smith called “Dry Creek Inn,” in which “Sarah” hides a killer from the police. Later years featured in-house band Cactus Lee and other local musicians.

Underpinning Dry Creek’s success was Sarah’s gruff demeanor – she notoriously chastised patrons if they didn’t return their beer bottles – that belied a generous heart. Patrons also developed their own traditions, such as the “Roundtable of Reason,” whose members solved the world’s problems over television or while playing the fabled jukebox.

Business boomed until the Texas Legislature restored the drinking age to twenty-one in 1984, which coincided with expanded city limits that included Dry Creek Café. Eventually, Sarah’s son Jay “Buddy” Reynolds bought the property and gave Sarah free rein to run it. Sarah stepped back at the age of ninety in the early 2000s, handing over the reins to equally beloved barkeeps. Today, while in a declining state, the property is a time capsule of Austin’s transformation from small college town to mega-city, reflecting the stories of the people who loved it so well.

As Owen Temple's song says, there truly was “no place better come five o’clock.”

More Photos 

Click photos to enlarge

 

Upstairs concert room; facing parking lot from patio

Jukebox and pool served with atmosphere

Pool table facing front door

From the parking lot at night. Upstairs: concert room and outdoors patio; downstairs bar, pool and jukebox.

Read More

Texas Monthly. Dry Creek Cafe, an Old-school Dive Bar on Lake Austin, Is Closing After 68 Years,  September 17, 2021. https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/dry-creek-cafe-closing/

Texas Monthly. The Last Ballad at the Dry Creek Cafe, Michael Hall, November 9, 2021. https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/farewell-dry-creek-cafe/

Freda and the Firedogs' Facebook page includes a number of publicity photos shot at Dry Creek in the 1970s. https://www.fredafiredogs.com/