DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Cotton Grove Dance Floor and Store out in Lavaca County. Now picture this. World War II is over.
Hundreds of soldiers are coming home — back to the rural stretches of Lavaca County — and they have survived something enormous. They need somewhere to go. Somewhere to move their feet and hear some music and just... breathe again.
Alfons and Martha Pavlicek had an answer for that. In 1946, they started the Cotton Grove dance floor, and what they built wasn't just a patch of wooden planks under the open sky. There was a white picket fence enclosing the whole thing.
A ticket booth. Restrooms. A wooden bandstand.
And strung up on tall poles all around — colored lights. Colored lights draped across the dance floor and along the roof lines of the nearby buildings. On a warm Texas night, you can imagine what that looked like.
The soldiers came, and they brought their dates, and they danced. Most of those young people were first- or second-generation descendants of German and Czech immigrants, and they hadn't forgotten where they came from. Local bands like the Hi Toppers would play polkas and waltzes and sing in their native languages.
This was Northwestern Lavaca County, and that music meant something here. For eight years, Cotton Grove flourished as a social, musical, and cultural center for the whole surrounding area. Then in 1948, Mr.
Pavlicek kept building — put up a small store right next to the dance floor, and erected an additional building to serve as a bar. The place kept growing because people kept coming. And some of them never really left — not in the way that matters.
Cotton Grove doubled as a major site for wedding receptions, because couples wanted to return to the very place they first met. On the dance floor. But things change, even for places that feel timeless.
The opening of a few air-conditioned indoor halls gave folks a cooler option. And then a widespread outbreak of polio hit the area. Attendance went down.
The dance floor was closed. Now Cotton Grove lives on as a pleasant memory for thousands of citizens — a unique symbol, the marker says, of a simpler and more innocent time. The colored lights are gone.
The Hi Toppers have played their last waltz. But for a stretch of post-World War II years, this little spot in Lavaca County was the social, musical, and cultural heart of Northwestern Lavaca County. That's not nothing.
That's everything, to the people who were there.
What the marker says
Following World War II, hundreds of soldiers came home from the battlefield to the rural areas of Lavaca County. The returning veterans needed a place to gather, socialize and enjoy their victory. Soldiers and their dates came to the Cotton Grove dance floor to dance and mingle. Most of the youth were first- or second-generation descendants of German and Czech immigrants. They were still attracted to their ancestors’ music and because of this, local bands such as the Hi Toppers would play polkas and waltzes and sing in their native languages. Cotton Grove dance floor was started by Alfons and Martha Pavlicek in 1946 and flourished for eight years as a social, musical and cultural center for the surrounding area. The dance floor had a white picket fence enclosing it as well as a ticket booth, restrooms and a wooden band stand. Colored lights were hung on tall poles and strung across the dance floor and roof lines of nearby buildings. In 1948, Mr. Pavlicek built a small store next to the dance floor and erected an additional building to serve as a bar. Cotton Grove also doubled as a major site for wedding receptions for couples who wished to return to the place they first met, on the dance floor. Because of the opening of a few air-conditioned indoor halls and a widespread outbreak of polio in the area, attendance went down, and the dance floor was closed. Cotton Grove still lives on as a pleasant memory for thousands of citizens and stands as a unique symbol of a simpler and more innocent time when it reigned as the social, musical and cultural heart of Northwestern Lavaca County in the post-World War II era.