Turner Hall

The Legion post that bought this hall in 1936 belonged to a statewide body of World War I veterans. They met in San Antonio on San Jacinto Day, April 21, 1919, under Col. Claude V. Birkhead, first as the Texas Division of World War Veterans, then renamed to match the national Legion constitution that December. Texas members raised more than $500,000 for a hospital at Legion, sold to the federal government in 1925. Posts of the 1920s sponsored baseball teams, oratorical contests and Scout troops. Black veterans were admitted in 1945, at first in a separate district.

What the plaque says

Turner Hall (American Legion McBride Post #143) This building was erected by the Schulenburg Turnverein, a German gymnastic club. Built in 1886 on the corner of Summit Street and Upton Avenue (presently U.S. Hwy. 90), Turner Hall, constructed by Henry Bohlman, was the primary community center. Through the years the hall was the site for theatrical performances, musical concerts, social events, and seasonal celebrations. The local American Legion post obtained the hall in 1936 and moved it to Wolters Park in 1937. Turner Hall continues to serve the Schulenburg community as it has for more than a century. (1996)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Nativity of Mary, Blessed Virgin Catholic Church (High Hill) — 3.0 mi
  A red brick Gothic Revival church of 1906 in a German farm settlement, where two San Antonio painters spent 1912 faking marble columns and stone vaults on wood.
• Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church (Dubina) — 6.0 mi
  The church of Texas's first Czech settlement, under a sky-blue painted ceiling that was whitewashed in the 1950s and brought back from faint traces by its own parishioners.
• St. John the Baptist Catholic Church (Ammannsville) — 8.3 mi
  A wooden Carpenter Gothic church built in 1919 after storm and fire took two before it, its dusty-rose interior painted by an artist whose name was lost for decades.
• St. Mary's Church of the Assumption (Praha) — 9.3 mi
  The mother parish of the Czech settlements around Flatonia, a stone-fronted church of 1895 whose ceiling Gottfried Flury turned into a turquoise garden, with an August 15 feast since 1855.

More markers nearby

• Schulenburg — 0.4 mi
• Lyons Family Cemetery — 0.7 mi
• Col. William F. Upton — 0.8 mi
• Bermuda Valley Farm — 0.9 mi