In 1935 there was misery a-plenty to go around. The Great Depression was in high gear, and blue-collar working folks and small farmers were hit the hardest. Small towns like Dodd City were not insulated from the pain; incomes shrank, businesses closed and banks locked their doors for good.
Folks came up with various ways to cope with the blues - church socials, family gatherings, sharing resources such as food from the garden, eating homemade ice cream on a front porch on a lazy afternoon, etc. However, one method of coping, the opening of a dance hall, rubbed most Dodd City citizens the wrong way. They called on the city council to close the hall. From there the whole matter went to court, and a judge became the final arbiter.
In addition to the legal battle, the dance hall gave birth to a rumor that has lived since the 1930s: That one of the musical acts that performed there was none other than Bob Wills and his western swing band. This article takes a stab at establishing whether that rumor is true or false, perhaps settling the old debate once and for all.
Exactly when the infamous dance hall got started is difficult to say. The only real clue is found in the fact that the Dodd City City Council was acting against it by early March 1935. Therefore, it's safe to assume that it got its start either late 1934 or early 1935. It is highly unlikely that the council would have acted against a dance hall that had been around for a long time.
The hall apparently hired western swing bands, which were quite popular at the time, to provide entertainment. If such bands were mixed with some light dancing, then all may have been just fine. However, court records show that some Dodd City citizens were offended by "indecent dancing" and the fact that "intoxicating liquors" were being sold as well.
The sale of liquor was especially offensive to a largely conservative, church-going crowd. Moreover, it was illegal.
In 1906 the citizens of Fannin County were asked to vote "to determine whether the sale of intoxicating liquor shall be prohibited in Fannin County." The voters of Dodd City favored the prohibition measure by a margin of 169 to 74. (The measure passed in other communities as well, making Fannin County dry.) Thirty years later, attitudes towards liquor had not changed. Therefore, the booze sold at the dance hall was of the bootleg, perhaps even homemade, variety.
Civic-minded citizens felt they had to act: They pressured the city council to pass an ordinance designed to close the dance hall permanently.
Once such an ordinance was passed on March 5, 1935 by a council made up of Mayor J. B. Cooper, Wheeler Cobb, John Kinkaid, Will Johnson, J.B. Fox and Charlie Yowell, that might have been the end of it. However, the owners and supporters of the hall, including E. P. Farr, Sam McGee Jr., E. F. Spelce and Charlie Taylor refused to go quietly. They immediately filed before the 6th judicial court for a temporary injunction that would block the ordinance from taking effect.
Such an injunction was granted, and dances continued into late March. An ad placed in the March 20 Bonham Daily Favorite states that Johnny Paulk and his 11-piece band from Springfield Ill. played on March 20; on March 27, Milton Brown and his Muscial Brownies, one of Texas's leading western swing bands at the time, took the stage.
At the hearing in which the temporary injunction was granted, a later hearing was scheduled to hear the entire case "on its merits".
At the subsequent hearing, known as Case # 12668, E.P. Farr et al vs. City of Dodd City et al, held before Judge George Blackburn of the 6th District Court, the plaintiffs (the dance hall supporters) and the defendants (city officials, joined by the City Marshall, W. C. Stewart) presented their cases and made arguments. Details are few inasmuch as the written record of the case is currently missing. The disposition minutes, however, are on file at the district clerk's office and show that Judge Blackburn ultimately ruled in favor of the city, stating that its ordinance was lawfully adopted and passed. However, his ruling was not final. "The cause," the court record reads, "is now continued upon its merits to the next term of the District Court of Fannin County, Texas . . . ."
At the next hearing, held in late July 1935, Judge Blackburn reaffirmed his earlier ruling in favor of the city and its ordinance. The dance hall had to close.
Dance hall owners and supporters stated that they would appeal the decision to the 6th District Court of Civil Appeals in Texarkana. The case does not appear on that court's dockets; it apparently never made it that far.
And so the dance hall died. What refused to die, however, was the rumor that Bob Wills and his band had played there. So how did such a rumor get started?
A possible and very plausible explanation, at least in this writer's opinion, comes from one of the bands that did play at the Dodd City Dance Hall. As noted earlier, on March 27, 1935 Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies played the little joint in Dodd City. How could this lead to a Bob Wills rumor? To understand that, you have to know a thing or two about Milton Brown's background.
In his book entitled San Antonio Rose: The Life and Music of Bob Wills, historian Charles R. Townsend writes that Wills began playing dance halls and night clubs in the Fort Worth area in late 1929. In 1930 he added Milton Brown as his lead vocalist.
The following year brought a great deal of attention to Wills and his band. Townsend writes:
In early January 1931, Bob Wills got a big break when he began a radio show on KFJZ for Burrus Mill and Elevator Company of Fort Worth. That firm manufactured Light Crust Flour; so Wills' band advertised the flour and called themselves the Light Crust Doughboys. W. Lee O'Daniel, President and General Manager of Burrus Mill and later Governor of Texas and United States Senator, became the announcer, manager, and greatest fan of the Light Crust Doughboy Radio Show. O'Daniel put the show on the 'prime time' of 12:30 noon on WBAP. Six months later, he broadcast the show over WOAI in San Antonio and KPRC in Houston and later over the Southwest Quality Network which included KTAT in Fort Worth and KOMA in Oklahoma City. The show became one of the most popular in all the Southwest and had many listeners as far away as Michigan.
In late 1932 O'Daniel barred the Doughboys from playing dance halls; he felt they were unseemly. While the decision angered Wills, he stayed around. Milton Brown, on the other hand, left and formed his own band, the Musical Brownies. (Townsend notes that Wills auditioned sixty-seven singers before finding a suitable replacement for Brown.)
Now, for the sake of argument, let's assume that more than once during his performance in Dodd City, Milton Brown casually mentioned that he used to be the lead vocalist for Bob Wills and the Light Crust Doughboys. Assuming this was heard by dance hall patrons who had drank a little too much of the "intoxicating liquors" being served, once sober they may have believed that Bob Wills was actually leading the band that night. Booze has caused stranger things to happen.
Couple this with the fact that Wills was quite busy at the time. By 1935 he was playing a lucrative and consistent schedule in Tulsa. Moreover, there is absolutely no paperwork linking Wills to the apparently short-lived Dodd City Dance Hall, at least not any that this writer could find.
The evidence leads one to conclude that Wills did not play the dance hall, but it doesn't totally eliminate the possibility that he did.
And so, though the Dodd City Dance Hall eventually succumbed to the will of the people and the courts, it nonetheless spawned a rumor that succumbs to no one: That the famous Bob Wills once played in Dodd City.
Tim Davis teaches for Bonham ISD.