The Kenney Store: An 1887 General Store That Became Texas's Venue of the Year RoadyGoat

1887

The Kenney Store, on South Loop 497 in the tiny Austin County town of Kenney, has stood since 1887, when it opened as the town's general store. Its second life began in the mid-1900s, when it became a gathering place for local musicians. For years KARMA, the Kenney Area Rural Music Association, met there on Thursday nights for a pickin' circle, where players young and old brought their instruments and traded songs. In 2013, Tony and Rita Krueger were driving around weighing a change of pace, stopped into the old store, and Rita took one look and said, "This is it." They bought it on February 26, 2013, at ten in the morning and opened the doors that same afternoon. They turned a small-town beer joint into a full restaurant and concert hall with indoor and outdoor stages, made-from-scratch comfort food, and a full bar. In 2023 the Texas Country Music Association named it the Live Music Venue of the Year. Not bad for a general store in a town most maps forget. (Sources: thekenneystore.com; Town Square Publications; Texas Country Music Association 2023 winners.)

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How a Railroad Drew a Town on a Map RoadyGoat

Kenney, Texas, is a town born out of a 19th-century engineering project. In the late 1870s the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway made a strategic decision: build a line straight through the heart of cotton country, from Brenham down to Bellville. This was not just laying track. Surveyors had to find the flattest route they could, because steam locomotives were powerful but hated grades, and every foot of climb cost coal. Crews with mules, shovels and black powder threw up a raised, level bed across the rolling farmland. The railroad then needed depots spaced along the line, and this spot got one. When the line opened in 1880 a post office came with it, and the place was first called Thompson, after the first postmaster. In 1884 it was renamed Kenneyville for the pioneer Methodist evangelist John Wesley Kenney, and in 1892 that got shortened to Kenney. It was not an accident of settlement. It was a calculated piece of transportation infrastructure that happened to grow a town.

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The German Soul of the Ag Hall RoadyGoat

To understand the heart of old Kenney, you need to know about the Landwirtschaftlicher Verein - the agricultural society. German and Czech farmers who settled this part of Austin County brought the idea with them, and the oldest one in Texas was founded just down the road at Cat Spring in 1856: a club where farmers traded knowledge about seed, soil and stock, and then stayed for supper and a dance. Kenney built its own. In 1902 a German carpenter named Joachim Hintz raised the Kenney Agricultural Society Hall, and he did not build it square - he built it with twelve sides, a wooden polygon you can still find out on Hall Road. Hintz put up the Bellville Turnverein Pavilion and the Peters-Hacienda hall at Sealy too, so this corner of Texas is dotted with his near-round dance floors. A storm knocked the Kenney hall down in 1950 and the community put it straight back up. It has hosted meetings, dances and community suppers for well over a century.

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John Wesley Kenney

1833

(1799-1865) One of great pioneer Methodist ministers of Texas. Pennsylvania-born, he began preaching at age 19. In 1833 he came to Texas and soon settled in this county. Unkempt in appearance, Kenney redeemed his eccentricity with an eloquent style of preaching. In Texas -- then part of Mexico and Catholic by law -- he helped found Methodist societies and, in 1834, served a vast circuit covering all of present state west of Trinity River. In 1836 he took part in Texas War for Independence. His lifetime saw Methodism become one of the major denominations in state. (1972)

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Pier, James Bradford

1813

(Nov. 23, 1813-Feb. 5, 1888) A native of Circleville, Ohio, J. B. Pier came to Texas in 1835 with his wife, Lucy (Merry). The Piers settled in this area near the site of the early Texas town of Travis. Pier served as a member of the Texas Army during the War for Independence. He was detailed as a rear guard at the camp opposite Harrisburg during the Battle of San Jacinto. In later years, he was a farmer, stock raiser, teacher, and merchant. He served as Justice of the Peace of Austin County and was the first postmaster of the Travis community. Pier is buried in the nearby Travis Cemetery. (1985)

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Meinecke Cemetery

1858

Johann Friedrich and Sophie Koyn Meinecke established this burial ground in 1858, when two of their sons drowned in the Brazos River. The Meineckes came to Kenney after emigrating from Bremen, Germany in 1847. Johann Friedrich Meinecke purchased property from Evangelist John Wesley Kenney, the town’s namesake, and family members soon established themselves as noted area farmers, ranchers and educators. This family graveyard features vertical stones, curbing and German language inscriptions. Today, urban development has spread to the historic Kenney community, but this cemetery remains as a record of early settlement here and of the pioneering Meinecke family. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2009

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Blue Bell Creameries

1907

Blue Bell Creameries, a limited partnership with headquarters in the rural town of Brenham, Texas, and more than twenty branch offices, is a manufacturer of ice cream and frozen dessert products that distributes to southwestern states including Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and New Mexico. The company began in 1907 as a Washington County dairy-farmers' cooperative called the Brenham Creamery Company, when the founders converted a nearby abandoned cotton gin into a creamery and made butter from their excess supplies of cream. Ice cream production began in 1911, and the firm took its name from a native Texas wildflower in 1930. E. F. Kruse, who took over as general manager in 1919, is credited with reversing the creamery's declining fortunes after two early managers failed to expand the business. Chairman and chief executive officer Ed Kruse and President Howard Kruse, both sons of E. F. Kruse, succeeded their father in heading the firm. Initially, Blue Bell produced ice cream at the rate of two gallons a day in wooden tubs filled with ice. Refrigerated trucks for distribution to retail food outlets replaced horse-drawn delivery wagons in 1936, and in 1958 the company discontinued making butter in order to specialize in ice cream production. Its most popular ice cream flavor, Homemade Vanilla, was introduced in 1969 and, with a new continuous freezer, production increased to 15,000 gallons an hour by 1993. In 1977 the company adopted its familiar logo depicting a young girl leading a cow. By 1992 Blue Bell was the nation's number-two ice cream, behind Breyer's. Blue Bell dominated the regional ice cream market with sales of $170 million-a 57 percent market share in Texas and a 32 percent share in Oklahoma and Louisiana. With its 300,000-square-foot plant, the firm is Brenham's largest private employer. At tours of its Brenham production facility and new corporate headquarters and visitor center, completed in 1988, Bluebell hosted roughly 117,000 people each year. Over the years, Blue Bell has diversified its products with the development of frozen dietary desserts, nonfat frozen yogurt, and frozen snacks, including Blue Bell Ice Cream Sandwiches, Snickers, Nestle's Crunch, and Eskimo Pie. Responding to demands for lower calorie confections, the company began using NutraSweet, and holds the distinction of being the first major United States ice cream manufacturer to make a "lite" product in 1986. Bluebell continues to obtain its raw materials, including milk and cream, from large cooperatives of dairy farmers, primarily in Texas. Company expansion began with the construction of temporary production facilities in Houston in 1960. A branch was opened in Austin in 1965, at Beaumont in 1973, and at Dallas in 1978. Between 1980 and 1986 manufacturing plants were opened in Alvin, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Longview, and Waco, and in 1989 Blue Bell opened out-of-state distribution branches in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Though it controls all shipping and handling of its products, Blue Bell, unlike Baskin-Robbins and other ice cream chains, does not maintain its own sales outlets, but sells its products through retail grocery chains. Since it is located in the heart of dairy country, the company has never needed to own its sources of raw materials, but continues to depend on farmers in the surrounding area. In 1990 it began distributing products in Mexico through Manhattan Paletas, and in 1992 it opened a production facility in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Blue Bell grew from 650 employees in 1955 to 1,300 workers in 1987. In the latter year the company established Blue Bell Advertising Associates, an in-house advertising agency, to produce seasonal radio and television spots to air between February and October. With well-placed media advertising, Blue Bell effectively reinforced its image as the "little creamery in Brenham" that makes "the best ice cream in the country." In 1990

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Brenham, Richard Fox

1841

Richard Fox Brenham, physician and member of the Texan Santa Fe expedition and the Mier expedition , was born to Robert and Mary M. (Fox) Brenham about 1810 in Woodford County, Kentucky. He attended Transylvania College, then moved to Texas before the revolution. He served in the Texas army from June 15 to September 15, 1836, and received a 320-acre tract in Cooke County for his services. He may have never taken possession of this land, however. He lived part of the time between the revolution and 1841 in Austin, where he practiced medicine. In 1841 President Mirabeau B. Lamar selected Brenham to serve as one of the civil commissioners of the Texan Santa Fe expedition, which sought to bring the city of Santa Fe and at least a portion of the trade along the Santa Fe Trail under the control of the Republic of Texas . Upon the failure of this mission in September and October 1841 Brenham and his fellow "Santa Fe Pioneers" were arrested by Mexican authorities and imprisoned in Mexico City. Brenham was released in April 1842 and returned to Austin, where he joined the Somervell expedition against Mexico. When William Somervell ordered his volunteers to disband and return to Texas despite their success in capturing Laredo, Texas, and Guerrero, Tamaulipas, Brenham joined with others who were unwilling to return home and set out on the Mier expedition. On December 26, 1842, Brenham took part in a rebellion and escape attempt at Salado, on the route from Matamoros toward Mexico City. Though many of the Texans temporarily escaped, Brenham was killed in the fighting, on February 11, 1843. In 1844 the town of Brenham in Washington County was named in his honor.

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Short, Thomas H.

1849

Thomas H. Short, Texas Ranger, farmer, and Mexican War and Civil War veteran, was born on January 28, 1831, to John Short , a veteran of the battle of New Orleans, and Delphia Dicey (Stinson) Short in Dallas County, Alabama. John Short and his younger brother Michael left for Texas, arrived in early 1836, and joined the Revolutionary Army . Michael Short fought at the battle of San Jacinto . John Short, who had taken ill with measles and did not participate in the battle, later returned to Alabama and brought his family to Texas in 1838. The Short families settled in present-day Fayette County near La Grange, purchased land in 1842, and established themselves in agriculture, trade, and milling. During the Mexican War, Thomas Short at age fifteen joined the Texas Rangers at La Grange on May 14, 1846, and was mustered into service for six months on June 6, 1846, at Point Isabel. He was a private in Company C, commanded by Capt. Thomas Green of the First Regiment of Texas Mounted Rifle Volunteers but furloughed in July 1846 on account of a surgeon's certificate of disability. On May 24, 1847, Short joined Capt. Jacob Roberts's Company F of Col. John Coffee Hays 's First Regiment, Texas Mounted Volunteers. In this company Short participated in actions at Matamoros, where family tradition held that he had his horse shot out from under him, and Galaxara Pass. The Rangers were mustered out of service at Vera Cruz, Mexico, on May 1, 1848. Short, still a teenager, returned to LaGrange as an orphan; his mother had died in 1846, and his father died in 1847. Influenced by his older brother John, Thomas Short joined a secret organization whose criminal activities included cattle and horse stealing, forging land patents, counterfeiting coin, and the stealing and selling of enslaved persons. While attempting to sell a stolen enslaved person in Natchez, Mississippi, Short was captured in July 1849. He was taken to Brenham, Texas, and jailed. Short published a lengthy confession in the August 25, 1849, edition of the Texas State Gazette , in which he detailed many of the criminal activities, implicated others in the group (that included his brother-in-law William Greenbury Sansom), and begged for mercy. His brother William was dead (reportedly hanged). Thomas Short was sentenced to two years in the newly-built Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville. In the convict record William Sansom was registered as Prisoner No. 1, and Tom Short was Prisoner No. 3. Short was discharged in 1850. Sansom was pardoned by Governor Peter Hansborough Bell on September 14, 1850. Upon his release, Short returned to Alabama and was listed on the 1850 census in Baldwin County. On December 5, 1854, Thomas Short married Margaret Elenor Overton, daughter of John Jesse and Sophia (Henry) Overton, in Baldwin County, Alabama. The Shorts welcomed nine children to their union. The family stayed in Alabama until 1860, when they moved to Texas and settled in Blanco County (the region that became Kendall County in 1862). By July 1860 Short was listed on the agriculture schedule on Curry's Creek. During the Civil War Thomas Short enlisted as a private in Blanco County in February 1862 into Capt. Charles de Montel's Ranger Company G, Frontier Regiment , commanded by Col. J. M. Norris. He served until June 30, 1862. He then reenlisted on December 29, 1862, in Capt. John W. Lawhon's Company B, Mounted Frontier Regiment of Col. James E. McCord , who commanded the Texas State Troops at Camp Verde . After the company reorganized for transfer from state service to Confederate service, Short deserted on January 20, 1864. Justifying his desertion, he stated, "I did not swallow it [the Confederate oath] very far down, so it was no trouble to spit up." On February 8, 1864, Thomas enlisted in Company C, First Texas Cavalry , in the Union Army. He mustered out on October 31, 1865. As was the case for many families whose members fought on opposing sides, his brother, Alphonso, had served in t

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Kenney, Texas

Music in Kenney

Songs About Kenney

Artists From Kenney

Rivers & Roads in Song near Kenney

History of Kenney

The Kenney Store: An 1887 General Store That Became Texas's Venue of the Year RoadyGoat

How a Railroad Drew a Town on a Map RoadyGoat

The German Soul of the Ag Hall RoadyGoat

John Wesley Kenney

Pier, James Bradford

Meinecke Cemetery

Blue Bell Creameries

Brenham, Richard Fox

Short, Thomas H.

Things to Do in Kenney

Everything Near Kenney