Helotes, Texas

Everything Helotes is known for

8 songs mention this city 2 artists from here

Music in Helotes

Songs About Helotes

Do You Love Texas?
Shooter Jennings
97%
"to Floore's Country Store"
Screw You, We’re From Texas
Josh Abbott Band
96%
"And John T's Country Store"
Hill Country Boogaloo
Stoney LaRue
96%
"With your John T. Floore's tamales"
Here I Come
John Baumann
93%
"Looking up at pictures of John T's and Gruene Hall"
Screw You, We’re From Texas
Ray Wylie Hubbard
92%
"And John T's Country Store"
All Nighter
Cody Canada & The Departed
40%
all my ex's live in texas
george strait
10%
Shotgun Willie
Willie Nelson
2%
"Now, John T. Floores was a-working for the Ku Klux Klan"

Artists From Helotes

M
Mario Flores
country Pop: 22
M
Mario Flores & the Sodacreek Band
country Pop: 18

Rivers & Roads in Song near Helotes

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Helotes.

Interstate 10 32 songs US Route 90 8 songs Interstate 35 42 songs Chisholm Trail 7 songs Guadalupe River 17 songs

Musical Heritage

Willie Nelson's Once-a-Month Home Stage RoadyGoat

The low white dance hall at 14492 Old Bandera Road is one of the most storied music rooms in Texas, and Willie Nelson is the reason its name travels far past Helotes. John T. Floore, a former manager of San Antonio's Majestic Theatre, opened the place in 1946 and used his theater connections to book country stars, drawing Bob Wills, Ray Price, Johnny Cash, Ernest Tubb, and later Merle Haggard, George Jones, and Tammy Wynette to a patio in the Hill Country brush. In the 1960s Floore took up with a young Willie Nelson and struck a deal through the Willie Nelson Music Company that had Nelson playing Floore's roughly once a month, while agreeing not to perform anywhere else nearby. The friendship ran deep enough that Nelson name-checks Floore in his classic "Shotgun Willie," written as a nod to the old man's hustle. Floore died in 1975, but the hall he built never stopped booking bands, and Floore's still bills itself, with some justification, as Willie's musical home turf. (Source: Handbook of Texas; John T. Floore Country Store.)

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John T. Floore Country Store RoadyGoat

1942

There's a sign out front of Floore's Country Store that reads, "Willie Nelson. Every Saturday Night." John T. Floore opened the place as a grocery store back in 1946 — Helotes wasn't even a town yet, wouldn't incorporate for another forty years. But grocery money never keeps the lights on the way music does, and before long Hank Williams, Elvis, even Bob Dylan had stood on that floor. When Willie moved home from Nashville in 1971, he made Floore's his own. It's where Asleep at the Wheel played their very first show with Willie, in 1973. Sunday afternoons, they still "Dine and Dance" — pulled pork and hand-cut fries, same as it ever was. ---

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History of Helotes

World-Famous Tamales and the Biggest Patio in the Southwest RoadyGoat

Floore's isn't just a stage, it's a kitchen, and it has been feeding people since John T. Floore opened it in 1946 to catch the traffic rolling between San Antonio and Bandera. The Honky Tonk Cafe here is known for brisket sold by the pound, homemade bread, and tamales the place happily calls world-famous, the kind of plate you eat at a long table before the music starts. Floore built the dance hall around what he billed as the largest patio in the Southwest, an outdoor floor that can hold around 2,000 people, with another 400 fitting inside, all of it strung with lights under the live oaks. Most nights run 18-and-up, but the Sunday family night and free dance opens the gates to all ages, a Helotes tradition of its own. The building earned a Texas Historical Marker and a 2006 listing on the National Register of Historic Places, which means you can fill up on tamales inside a certified piece of Texas music history. Pull in hungry. (Source: John T. Floore Country Store; Handbook of Texas.)

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The Naturalist, the Postmaster, and a Box of Turtles RoadyGoat

The same Gabriel Marnoch who lent his name to a frog was also at the center of one of frontier Helotes' darkest episodes. Marnoch and postmaster Carl "Charles" Mueller, who ran the Helotes Stagecoach Inn, had been feuding, and one root of the bad blood was strange even by frontier standards: a mailed package of turtle specimens, part of Marnoch's naturalist work, that he claimed Mueller had mishandled, on top of a running dispute over the boundary between their properties. The grudge turned deadly in March 1878 when Marnoch shot and killed Mueller. He was indicted for murder on April 4, 1878. His first trial that November ended in a hung jury and a mistrial, but at a second trial in May 1879 a jury convicted him of second-degree murder and sentenced him to twenty years in the penitentiary. The case, reconstructed in Cynthia Leal Massey's "Death of a Texas Ranger," is a reminder that the man whose specimens reached the Smithsonian also left Helotes with a killing on the record. (Source: "Death of a Texas Ranger," Cynthia Leal Massey; Handbook of Texas.)

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The Helotes Frog That Got Its Name in the Mail RoadyGoat

Listen on a damp night near these limestone bluffs and you may hear a sharp, cricket-like chirp coming out of the rock itself. That's the cliff chirping frog, a thumbnail-sized amphibian that lives almost its whole life flattened into the cracks of limestone faces, and it carries a Helotes name. Gabriel Wilson Marnoch, son of the Scottish surgeon who built the homestead here, was a self-taught frontier naturalist who worked the Helotes hills collecting reptiles and amphibians. He served as a field correspondent for the famous Philadelphia paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope, mailing him specimens, and in 1878 Cope formally described this frog in the journal American Naturalist, naming it marnockii in his collector's honor. The little frog is nocturnal, greenish-brown, flattened to wedge into crevices, and ranges across the Hill Country and into northern Mexico, but its scientific identity was born on these slopes. Marnoch was a founding member of the Scientific Society of San Antonio, and his collections still sit in major museums, including the Smithsonian. A whole species, scientifically catalogued, starting in the rocks above Helotes Creek. (Source: Texas Monthly; Eleutherodactylus marnockii, American Naturalist, Cope, 1878.)

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John T. Floore Country Store

1945

In 1945, as the Second World War drew to a close, John T. Floore, manager of San Antonio's Majestic Theatre, purchased land in this vicinity. He created the Floore Subdivision, planning it as a center for the community of Helotes, which had developed at the site of a centuries-old stream crossing for travelers. Floore and his wife originally operated a Red and White Store. Following the example of Bert Hileman, who owned an early dance hall in Helotes, Floore built a store and dance hall at this site circa 1946, offering "bar, café, dance, meats, groceries, real estate and every thing nearly at Floore Country Store." A noted promoter, Floore featured country music acts big and small; notables included Bob Wills, Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Kitty Wells and Elvis Presley. Residents came from nearby communities for the regular shows. Floore also promoted the Helotes community, helping establish the local volunteer fire department and Lions Club. In addition, he edited the Helotes Echo newspaper, and his articles were said to be instrumental in the creation of the Northside Independent School District for Helotes-area students. His business establishment served as a gathering place for several organizations and events, including the annual Helotes Cornyval Festival. Since Floore's death in 1975, his legacy has continued. Helotes incorporated in 1981 in order to preserve a separate identity from the ever-growing city of San Antonio. With the continuation of musical acts at Floore's County Store, and through the local organizations that grew out of Floore's ideas and civic efforts, the community of Helotes maintains a link to its early years as a stop for refreshment and entertainment at the edge of the Texas Hill Country. (2005)

Historical Marker →

Floore Country Store

1946

Floore Country Store (also called Floore's Country Store or John T. Floore Country Store), located at 14492 Old Bandera Road in Helotes, was opened in 1946 by entrepreneur John T. Floore. Floore left his job as manager of the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio and moved to Helotes where he bought land and started the Floore subdivision by the early 1940s. Soon after, Floore built a grocery store in order to cater to the heavy travel between San Antonio and Bandera. In addition to the store Floore constructed a dance hall which included what Floore billed as "the largest patio in the Southwest." The outdoor patio holds up to 2,000 people, and the indoor venue can accommodate 400. By the 1950s Floore's Store began to attract country music notables such as Ray Price, Bob Wills , Johnny Cash, and Ernest Tubb . Then in the 1960s Floore began his association with a young Willie Nelson, with whom he developed a personal and professional relationship that would last for decades. Floore, who established a partnership with the Willie Nelson Music Company, stipulated that Nelson play at the Store once a month without performing anywhere else in the immediate area. For years Nelson and Floore continued their close relationship, and Nelson even wrote one of his best-known songs, "Shotgun Willie," as a tribute to Floore's entrepreneurial skills. In 1973 Floore sold the Store to his cook, Joe Algueseva, just two years before John Floore died in 1975. Under the management of Algueseva and his wife, Estella, the Store continued to book a variety of live music acts, and it also developed a reputation for excellent homemade tamales and bread. The Alguesevas retired in 1990 and sold the Store to Steve Laughlin, a Helotes native who, like Floore, had worked at the Majestic Theatre. Laughlin ran the Store for twelve years before it was bought by a group of San Antonio investors under the direction of Mark McKinney. The new investors made some minor alterations to the Store but kept the essential look intact. They replaced the roof, repaired wiring, installed central air-conditioning and heat, and bought new outdoor furniture, although they did not change the inside décor. The autographed photos that line the walls, alongside cowboy hats, dusty boots, and farm tools, all were left in their original places. The San Antonio investors also expanded the weekday hours of the Store by opening the Honky Tonk Café which offered both lunch and dinner. Dances were still held on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, with Sundays remaining a free Family Night. Over the years a number of well-known musicians, including Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Lyle Lovett, Jerry Jeff Walker, Robert Earl Keen, Hal Ketchum, George Jones , and Tammy Wynette, have performed at Floore's. Such popular bands as Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, the Texas Tornados , and Asleep at the Wheel have played there as well. Other celebrities, including Patrick Swayze , Meg Ryan, and former President George Herbert Walker Bush, all have visited Floore's. In the 1990s part of the movie 8 Seconds (1994) starring Luke Perry was filmed at the Store's bar. In 2006 Floore Country Store received a Texas Historical Marker.

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La Quinta de las Piedras (Miguel Menchaca House)

1731

Home of Miguel Menchaca, descendant of prominent Canary Islanders who came to texas 1731. Stone villa built in 1850's. In its thick rock walls are "gun-slits" for observation, defense. Spring under house supplied water in times of siege. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1965.

Historical Marker →

Marnoch Homestead

1858

Scottish surgeon Dr. George Frederick Marnoch (1802-1870) purchased more than 1500 acres at this site in the fall of 1858. In January 1859, Marnoch commissioned famed San Antonio architect and builder John M. Fries to construct this house near Helotes Creek. Previously, Fries had designed the Menger Hotel and City Market House in San Antonio. Dr. Marnoch and his wife Elizabeth (Wilson) reared six children. Besides practicing medicine in the Helotes area, Dr. Marnoch also raised livestock. Upon his death, the Marnoch property passed to his children. George Marnoch’s eldest son, Gabriel Wilson Marnoch (1838-1920), was also closely associated with the homestead. Gabriel, like his father, practiced medicine, and was a noted naturalist and rancher. He was a founding member of the Scientific Society of San Antonio, an early observer of the Balcones Escarpment, and also discovered two amphibian and two reptile species in the Helotes Hills. Gabriel served as postmaster of Helotes from 1904 until 1919. The homestead remained in the Marnoch family until 1947. The two-story rectangular plan house is of rough coursed limestone construction, with blocks about eighteen inches thick, and a hipped roof with gabled dormers and stone chimneys. Unique features include two half-octagon bay towers on each side of the house. Both floors contain a central hall and stairwell flanked by single rooms. Additional details include keystone arches and stone lintels above doors and windows, and pine floors and interior woodwork. In 1914, an existing stone kitchen behind the house was dismantled and rebuilt as a rear addition with the original materials.

Historical Marker →

Helotes, TX

1700

Helotes is located approximately twenty miles northwest of downtown San Antonio on State Highway 16 in northwestern Bexar County. The town was settled in the 1850s by immigrants primarily from Germany and Mexico. The pioneer whose land encompassed what is now known as Old Town Helotes was Scottish immigrant and surgeon Dr. George F. Marnoch, who purchased the property in 1858 and built a two-and-a-half-story limestone house in 1859; the house was awarded a Texas Historic Landmark designation in 2010. His eldest son, Gabriel Wilson Marnoch, was a well-known naturalist who discovered two reptilian and two amphibian species in the Helotes hills. The Spanish terms elotes and olotes , Americanized to Helotes, which means corn on the cob, has been used for the area since the early 1700s, when it was mentioned in a Spanish report to the governor of the region, describing the area where Apaches scalped a Spaniard who had been looking for stray horses. How the name was derived is unknown; however, it is believed that Lipans had cultivated corn along the creek for centuries before frequent raids of Comanche Indians made such agricultural activities impossible. By 1873 the town, a stage stop on the Bandera Road, was home to an official post office with German immigrant Carl Mueller as the town's first postmaster. He and wife Amalie Stolz Mueller, also ran the Helotes Stagecoach Inn. Mexican immigrant Francisco Menchaca worked as a ranch hand at the stagecoach inn until he was able to secure a Bexar preemption grant for 160 acres in 1875. Helotes remained a farming community for decades and was the frequent site of cattle drives between San Antonio and Bandera in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Arnold Gugger, the town's third postmaster, and wife Amalie "Mollie" Benke operated a general store, homestead, blacksmith shop, and saloon in 1881 in an area that became the focal point of downtown Helotes, displacing Mueller's stagecoach stop to the southwest of town and making the Bandera Road-Helotes Creek intersection the new hub of commerce and activity. As the twentieth century commenced, new downtown landowner Wilbert "Bert" Hileman added a dance hall and boarding house. In 1919 the Helotes post office handled mail for sixty-four area families, sixty of them involved in farming. In 1920 and 1930, a majority of the farms in the Helotes area were dairy farms. The region was also part of a scenic loop—a popular drive for San Antonio area motorists that enjoyed touring the Texas Hill Country . In 1942 John T. Floore came to town and by 1946 he opened what would become the world-renowned John T. Floore Country Store, a Texas Historic Landmark listed in the National Register of Historic Places in the 2010s. In early May 1966 the first Helotes Cornyval was held in downtown Helotes. By the 2010s the four-day festival, an annual event whose proceeds fund local nonprofits, brought an average of 30,000 people to town to participate in a parade, pageant, carnival midway, rodeo, and dances. Helotes remained primarily rural until the late twentieth century, when the sale of farmland to developers created a housing boom. Incorporated in 1981 as a Type A, General Law City, the town elected Tom Beatty, a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel, as its first mayor and Bexar County's first African-American mayor. In 1990 the number of residents had increased to 1,535. The 2010 census population was 7, 341—a 71.3 percent increase from its 2000 population of 4,285. The town is home to two elementary schools and one high school, Sandra Day O'Connor, which opened in 1998.

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Madla, Frank Lloyd, Jr.

1972

Frank Lloyd Madla, Jr., state legislator and teacher, was born on January 23, 1937, to Frank Madla, Sr., and Epigmenia (Alcala) Madla, in Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio, but he grew up in Helotes, Texas, a community on the outskirts of San Antonio. During his childhood, Madla worked on the family farm in the area and attended rural schools where, as he recalled in a 2003 interview, “Hispanics were not looked upon very well.” Drought during the 1950s forced his father to seek work in San Antonio, where he found employment at Kelly Air Force Base . Young Frank commuted from Helotes to San Antonio to attend Central Catholic High School. He graduated in 1955. Not wanting to spend his life as a farmer, Madla attended St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and majored in political science. Part of his studies required his work in area political campaigns, and the experience inspired his interest in politics. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1959, and in 1963 he was awarded a master’s degree in government. Driven by a desire to give back to his community, Madla began a teaching career in San Antonio soon after graduating from St. Mary’s University. He taught at Escobar Junior High School in the Edgewood Independent School District until 1962 and then taught in the Northside Independent School District for four years. He subsequently taught at St. Philip’s College. He taught civics and Texas history. In 1971 he ran for a position on the South San Antonio Independent District School Board and won. His political career took a major leap in 1972 when he was elected to the House of Representatives in the Texas legislature. As a Democrat, he represented Bexar County in the Sixty-third through Seventy-second legislatures. He tackled major issues concerning education, public health, and drug abuse and served on numerous related committees during his tenure. By 1993 Madla had been elected to the Texas Senate and represented not only Bexar County but a large number of counties in the southwestern and western part of the state in the Seventy-third through Seventy-ninth legislatures. He served as president pro tempore ad interim in the Seventy-ninth legislature. He was recognized as a very successful statesman who was able to pass more than 100 House bills and approximately 570 Senate bills. Madla helped establish programs for gifted and talented students in Texas public schools. He supported legislation to improve the Texas wine industry. He pushed for the regulation of emergency services and prenatal care for indigent women. He was especially productive in his work to improve San Antonio. He helped bring SeaWorld to the city and worked to bring the Toyota plant. Madla also secured millions of dollars to redevelop the former Kelly Air Force Base and was especially proud of authoring a bill that authorized the creation of the Texas A&M University-San Antonio campus for the city’s South Side. Madla received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Texas at San Antonio Hispanic Research Center and the Advocacy Leadership Award from the Texas Hospital Association . The Association of Rural Communities in Texas named him the Legislator of the Year, the Texas Police Chiefs Association selected him as the Outstanding Legislator, and Bexar County extended to him their highest honor—the Hidalgo—for his thirty-three years of outstanding service in the Texas legislature. On April 1, 2006, he was honored as “Governor for a Day,” He resigned from the Senate in May 2006 after his loss to Carlos Uresti in the Democratic primary. During his years as a legislator, Madla had also worked as a part-time instructor at Incarnate Word University as well as a real estate broker and insurance broker. He enjoyed photography as a hobby. He was a Catholic. During his life, Madla was twice married. He married Rosemary Segura in 1961; they had one son, Frank. They divorced in 1975, and Madla married Helen Cruz in 1977. They had a daughter, Marcie. On November 2

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Things to Do in Helotes

historical 4.2 mi away
The Alamo

Remember the Alamo. The 1836 last stand that became Texas' most sacred site.
historical 16.2 mi away
The Alamo

In the spring of 1836 about two hundred Texas defenders held this old Spanish mission for thirteen days against a Mexican army of two thousand led by Santa…
historical 0.4 mi away
John T. Floore's Country Store

John T Floore opened his country store dance hall on the old Bandera road in Helotes in 1942 and Willie Nelson played it so many times for so many years that…
quirky 19.0 mi away
The Frozen Dialect

For over a century visitors to Castroville were more likely to hear Alsatian than English in the homes stores and taverns. The remarkable thing is the dialect…
quirky 19.1 mi away
A 400-Year-Old House Crosses the Ocean

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historical 19.5 mi away
Mission San José

The queen of the missions -- San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo -- was founded in 1720 just south of San Antonio and quickly became the largest wealthiest and…
nature 22.1 mi away
Bracken Cave

The largest bat colony on earth lives in this single sinkhole outside San Antonio -- somewhere between fifteen and twenty million Mexican free-tailed bats…
historical 19.0 mi away
The Little Alsace of Texas

In 1844 a French-born empresario named Henri Castro led 700 Alsatian farmers across the Atlantic to settle 25 miles west of San Antonio. They built…
day trip
Day Trip to Helotes 🌽 (FULL EPISODE) S14 E12

Featured on The Daytripper — a full-episode local travel guide.

Sports in Helotes

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 6A · Softball · 2022

O'Connor Panthers — 2022 UIL 6A Softball State Champions

Most recent: 2022 6A

O'Connor High School, located in the scenic Texas Hill Country community of Helotes, has established itself as a notable competitor in Class 6A softball. The Panthers have consistently demonstrated strong play on the diamond, reflecting the dedication often seen in high school sports across the Lone Star State.

The school's softball program reached a significant milestone in 2022, securing the UIL Class 6A State Championship. This achievement stands as a highlight for the Panthers, bringing state-level recognition to Helotes.

State titles
2022
Most recent
2022
Class
6A
The moment

In 2022, O'Connor High School secured the Class 6A State Championship in softball.

Sources: Wikipedia · UIL State Championship Archives · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)

Everything Near Helotes

962 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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