more people.” In the early 70s, Bandera Highway was enlarged, and its location behind Floore Country Store did not affect attendance or its popularity, though it certainly sped up traffic. At about the same time the road issues were in play, so was talk of incorporation, and of course, Floore had on opinion on that: No way! Surprisingly, he touted annexation with San Antonio, which he believed would provide better services than a small town could afford. In a rant, Floore wrote to San Antonio Evening News columnist Paul Thompson in 1971: “And politically, Lord knows what a baby city might fall heir to—like maybe being taken over by voting 18-year-old hippies.” San Antonio’s denial of Helotes’ request for incorporation as a municipality, coupled with John T. Floore’s strident opposition, stifled plans to incorporate until 1981, six years after Floore died.
FlOORE COunTRY STORE After Floore Country Store dance hall opened, John T. began to promote it as “the place” for Country and Western singers and musicians to appear. Floore had a deep admiration for C&W music. In a Helotes Echo profile about Floore that appeared in August 1967, contributor Charlie Moss wrote, “He feels that country music is the ‘People’s music’ and that it will be heard long after ‘Rock and Roll’ is a memory of a once-popular fad.” John T. Floore founded the city’s first newspaper, the Helotes Herald, which he called “the poor people’s paper.” Courtesy of the Historical Society of Helotes.
the middle of things, rushing plans on a new dance hall. He [Floore] says, “We already have one dance hall, but there’s room for another. I want to catch some of the overflow crowd that comes here on Saturday nights for country style dancing.” According to a San Antonio Express article dated September 14, 1952, John T. Floore formally opened the doors of the Floore Country Store Dance Hall and Kitchen on Saturday, September 13, 1952. By that time, Floore and his second wife were divorced. In 1959, he married third wife, Elizabeth Josephson, in Johnson City. This marriage had ended by 1963, according to a November 22 article in the San Antonio Light that reported, “The oft-married John T. Floore is about ready again.” Whether he did marry again is unknown, but at the time of his death, his marital status was listed as “divorced.” In addition to building the country store/dance hall, Floore started the first newspaper, the Helotes Herald, and became a strong opponent of initial proposals of the highway department in 1946 to expand Bandera Road through downtown Helotes, which would have required removing at least half of the buildings, including his own. He was equally appalled at later efforts to expand the road to a multi-lane highway, which he thought would “speed up traffic and kill
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Floore’s respect for the C&W music genre and his showmanship lured the best-known name bands to Helotes. Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, and Merle Haggard were just a few stars that graced the Floore Country Store stage in the early years. But John T. also liked to promote musicians whom he considered gifted, but unknown. However, as Ray Price, who first played Floore’s in the mid-1950s recalled, sometimes such musicians were unknown only to Floore. In an interview with San Antonio Express-News reporter John Goodspeed in 2003, Price said, “John didn't know who I was, so he said, 'I won't pay you any guarantee. I'll just give you the door.’ So when I got there, there were about five state troopers directing traffic, so many people had showed up. Must have been at least 2,000. By 9 p.m., Floore was out of cold beer, tamales and everything else. When I came in I heard him coming out, and he said, 'I didn't know who Ray Price was before this, but, by god, I do now'." By the 1960s, Floore had befriended another rising star: Willie Nelson. Nelson was a successful songwriter, penning such tunes as “Crazy,” made famous by Patsy Cline, but his own singing career was in a slump. He moved to Nashville in 1965, but returned to Texas not long after, frustrated with music industry executives who wanted him to conform to the style and C&W look of the era. Nelson, who was from Abbot, Texas,
Helotes: Gateway to the Texas Hill Country – Summer 2018