What do you do with a crowd that rolls into town at two in the afternoon for a show that starts at eight?
Saint Jo has been answering that question since 1873. That year, Tennessean I.H. Boggess built the Stonewall Saloon, the first permanent structure in town, to serve the trail drovers who came through on the Chisholm Trail. Accounts of the saloon describe it as one of the last rest stops before a herd crossed the Red River at Red River Station, northwest of town. The saloon gave drovers a bar and a place to sit before the next leg of the drive.
The building with the longest claim on that role now belongs to a museum. The building doing a version of that work today sits one block east of the square.
Two repurposed buildings, one block apart
The Stonewall Saloon stopped pouring when the county went dry in 1897. After that the building had a run as a restaurant, then a bank, and it reopened in 1958 as the Stonewall Saloon Museum. It became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2011. Today the staff are volunteers who give guided tours, and the hitching rails are still outside the doors.
Red River Station at 221 E Howell Street took a different route to the same block. It rose out of the overgrown remains of a 1930s lumberyard. The owners, Curtis and Kathryn Goff, bought the property in 2014 and opened the gates in May 2018. The venue books Texas Red Dirt and Americana acts. It has hosted Cody Jinks, Robert Earl Keen, Pat Green, Ricky Skaggs, Molly Tuttle and Hayes Carll, among others, and its capacity is just over 1,000.
That capacity has a baseline in the town's own history. The Handbook of Texas records 977 people in Saint Jo in 2000. A sold-out night at Red River Station can hold about as many people as the town counted a generation ago, all arriving with a few hours to fill before the music.
The afternoon is the part that needs a plan
Nobody has to plan the show. It starts on a ticket and a printed time. The hours before it are unstructured, and most of the square's daytime attractions keep their own schedules.
Recent listings show most Red River Station dates falling on Saturday nights at 8 p.m. That includes Robert Earl Keen on October 10 and the Randy Rogers Band on November 7. Those dates come from ticket listings, so check the official calendar at redriverstation.com before you build a day around them. The venue also says that tickets bought anywhere other than its official vendor may not be honored or refunded, so buy there.
The rest of the local calendar leans toward weekends too. The Saint Jo Wine Walk ran on Saturday, April 11, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Chamber of Commerce held the 16th annual Head of Elm Chili Cook-Off on September 5 and 6. Rednecks With Paychecks marked its 15th anniversary with a four-day Fall Mudcrawl that ended September 20. The Artillery Museum says its own hours are mainly on the weekend.
A show night is a day when the square's attractions are most likely to be open at once. The exact hours still vary from place to place, and small-town schedules shift with volunteers, seasons and owners. The plan below is a way to sequence the afternoon and know who to call.
One block, five stops
Stop | What to know | Confirm before you go |
|---|---|---|
Stonewall Saloon Museum | On the square. Built in 1873, run by volunteers, with guided tours. | Hours that day. It closes Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Day, and New Year's Eve and Day. |
Artillery Museum | A 22,000-square-foot building. The museum says it holds the largest private collection of artillery and crew-served weapons in the country. Everything on display is de-milled. | Hours are mainly weekends. Text or call 940-395-9309 for availability or an appointment. |
Davis & Blevins Main Street Gallery | A fine art gallery founded in April 2010 by artist Donna Howell-Sickles and her husband, John Sickles. Howell-Sickles is a Cowgirl Hall of Fame inductee. | Hours that day. |
C.T. Chappell Boot Shop | An award-winning bootmaker who also teaches bootmaking on site. | Custom boots come with a waiting list, so treat this as a place to look and talk, not to pick up a pair. |
Red River Station | One block east of the square, at 221 E Howell Street. Phone 940-995-2294. | Doors time and any bag or outside-item rules. |
Order matters more than it looks. The two museums are the stops most likely to have limited hours, so I would start with a phone call to the Artillery Museum and set the rest of the afternoon around whatever it says. The boot shop and the gallery are browsing stops with no ticket or tour, so they fit in the gaps. Save the Stonewall Saloon for late afternoon, when a guided tour can end with a walk down Howell Street toward the gates.
Where the food question gets tricky
Restaurant lists for the 76265 ZIP code name Windmill Grill & Saloon, Red River Station BBQ, Jessie Chisholm's Chuckwagon, Prime Cut Steakhouse, Bear's Den Diner and Doc's Bar & Grill, among others. Some listings for that ZIP code may sit outside the town limits, so confirm an address before you promise a guest dinner within walking distance. Evening hours at small-town kitchens vary, so call the place you're leaning toward the day before.
If your guests have time and a car, the drive north of town runs past Head of Elm Cemetery to a handful of wineries. Blue Ostrich Winery & Vineyard, Arché and 4R Ranch Vineyards & Winery all turn up in the Saint Jo listings. That is a separate afternoon's worth of stops, and it fits better on a day without an 8 p.m. curtain.
The phone calls that make the day work
Four calls cover almost everything.
- The Artillery Museum. Ask whether it is open that Saturday, or whether it can open for a small group by appointment.
- The Stonewall Saloon Museum. Ask about the guided tour time and how long it runs, so you can plan the walk to the venue.
- Red River Station. Ask when the doors open and what you can bring in.
- Your dinner spot. Confirm the hours and whether it takes reservations.
Each call is short, and together they settle the middle of the day.
If I missed a favorite stop between the square and the gates, McKinley Corbin would like to hear about it. Let's Connect.
