Bead-Luckenbach Brown Stone TB

Please drop this item in rural or Premium Member Only caches.  Do not place it in an urban cache or leave it behind at a caching event.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; this prevents the chain and tag tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take this travel bug anywhere you wish.  No permission needed to leave the U.S.

This is one of a series of large beads obtained from different places and converted into travel bugs. They are named Texas towns with interesting names or histories.

Luckenbach is in the Texas Hill Country, thirteen miles from Fredericksburg in southeastern Gillespie County.  The oldest building is a combination general store and saloon reputedly opened in 1849 by Minna Engel, whose father was an itinerant minister from Germany.  The community, first named Grape Creek, was later named after Minna's husband, Carl Albert Luckenbach.  

Luckenbach was first established as a community trading post and was one of the few that never broke a peace treaty with the Comanche Indians, with whom they traded.  Citizens of the town claimed one of them (Jacob Brodbeck) had launched the first airplane years before the Wright Brothers.  The population increased to a high of 492 in 1904, but by the 1960s, Luckenbach was almost a ghost town.

An ad in the paper offering "town — pop. 3 — for sale" led Hondo Crouch, rancher and Texas folklorist, to buy Luckenbach for $30,000 in 1970, in partnership with Kathy Morgan and actor Guich Koock.   Crouch used the town's rights as a municipality to govern the dance hall as he saw fit.  The town maintains a ghost town feel with its small population and strong western roots.  One of its two main buildings houses the remnants of a post office, a working saloon, and a general store.  The other is the dance hall.  The post office was closed on April 30, 1971 and its zip code (78647) was retired. The general store remains active as a souvenir shop where visitors can purchase a variety of items, including merchandise featuring the town's iconic motto: "Everybody's Somebody in Luckenbach."

Luckenbach's association with country music began in the summer of 1973, when Jerry Jeff Walker, backed by the Lost Gonzo Band, recorded a live album at the Luckenbach Dancehall called Viva Terlingua.  Four years later (and a year after Crouch's death), Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson memorialized Luckenbach with the song “Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love).”  In his 2000 book Are You Ready for the Country?, author Peter Doggett recalls that Jennings later told audiences that "he hated the song and (had) admitted the guys that wrote the thing have never been to Luckenbach and neither have I.  Waylon eventually played one show in Luckenbach on July 4, 1997.  Other concert appearances in the town include Willie Nelson, Pat Green, Robert Earl Keen, and Lyle Lovett.  The little community is still an active home to country music as of 2013, where folks gather by the score to listen to area musicians and drink cold beer, particularly Shiner Bock, a local favorite brewed by the oldest brewer in Texas.