A Treasure Among the Ruins

Pascale Payne first stumbled onto the old stone ruins of the Silver Spur Dance Hall while exploring the backroads of Bandera nearly three decades ago. Every time her family returned to the Hill Country on vacation from their Dallas home, she found herself again driving across the low-water bridge on the southwestern edge of town, where the Medina River flows past bald cypress trees. Then, down a narrow road that twists and turns as it ascends a rocky bluff. There, perched on the cliff’s edge of Rugh Hill, the magnificent walls of the dance hall stood like an ancient monument to more rollicking times.

“The ruins always fascinated me,” says Payne, who grew up in France. “It reminds