|
History |
 |
The Spring Cafe was our friend. Once inside, she
stripped us of all pretensions and allowed us to be
ourselves. That hometown nostalgia had us waiting for
hours for the best hamburgers around. Just short of
total dilapidation, the property was sold to us in 1982
after 121 years of Wunsche family title. The stories
told by 94-year Willie Wunsche, who helped his father
build the original saloon in 1902, took us back to times
earlier than the Spring Cafe of 1949. |
|
Willie's grandparents, Jane and Carl Wunsche, were
immigrant children of German families that settled in
Spring in 1846. Two of their sons, Dell and Charlie,
acquired this property and solicited help from brother
William to build this building in 1902. William's son,
Willie was 13 that year; his specialty was carrying
lunch pails and nail buckets. Dell and Charlie selected
heart lumber from old stand long leaf pine cut at their
own sawmill. These trees, typical in this area, were
four to six feet in diameter. |
 |
| |
|
|
Spring
was a Houston and Great Northern Railroad boom town by 1902. Before
long hotels, saloons, residences and general stores cropped up in
this switchyard and stop on the Galveston-Houston-Palestine line.
The Wunsche Brothers, railroad men themselves, built the Wunsche
Bros. Hotel and Saloon to accomodate railroad employees overnight.
In 1923, Houston and Great Northern (now called Missouri Pacific)
moved the Spring railyard to Houston. By 1926 most of the town's
wood |
 |
|
buildings were salvaged for barn construction and
firewood. The Wunsche Bros. Cafe and Saloon was the
first two-story building erected in Spring and remains
today the oldest survivor of the past. |
|
 |
Some of the old-timers claim thay had their first drink
and what-have-you here. The Saloon was the last to close
in Harris County by law of Prohibition. Rumor has it
that patrons from Houston to Palestine rallied in the
dirt streets of Spring with song and dance to drink the
bottles dry one long night before the law arrived.
We are proud to reclaim this old house for the sake of
its colorful memories and its continued heritage. In an
era where newness surrounds us, it is deeply reassuring
to know this day in the cafe, hamburgers are being
freshly grilled, as they have been for years. |
|
|
