Round Top of Old

To the Editor:

Regarding the RTAH (Round Top Area Historical Society) article in the FCR – I don’t have a dog in this fight, but that building brings back some nostalgic memories. That is the only thing I am sharing with folks reading this, the memories. When I was a kid, I grew up knowing it as “Jessie Weyand’s Beer Joint & Gas Station.” This was the late 1940s, early 1950s. Jessie was a “good ol’ boy,” about as laidback as you can get. Each time we ginned a bale of cotton, Virgil Hackemack would hit every beer joint in Round Top.

So, much of my life involved being intimately familiar with every beer joint in this town. Besides beer, Jessie sold gas and a minute amount of canned goods. The gas pump had a 10-gallon, see-through, graduated container at the very top, thereby being gravity-fed. The container would then be refilled by an unlocked handpowered handle. When buying gas one would buy it by the gallon, and report to Jessie the amount of gallons. He would multiply that amount by 19¢ (it fluctuated). Then one day a farmer came in to fill up his ’39 Chevrolet. When his car was full, he looked up and still saw 10 gallons. It just so happened that someone’s kid on the opposite side of the pump was pumping as the car was being filled. Just one of many memories of Jessie – oh, he also had a beautiful daughter named Valerie. Other beer joints of that Era include Lester Etzel (also a grill), Reinhardt Georges, Birkelbach’s (also a cafe), Hilmer Schwartz – each one of these could fill chapters.

Lastly, when I stopped at the RTAH place (it may have been called ‘Farmloft’), a year or two ago, I related about how I spent lots of time in this building in the 1940s, 1950s. This person could not have cared less. So, I walked back out. Schluss, for now.

Gene Hackemack Brenham