Krueger's Store

Twin Sisters is on the Little Blanco River and U.S. Highway 281, seven miles south of Blanco in southernmost Blanco County. It was named for a pair of prominent nearby hills, which form a landmark visible for miles around. Settlement of the area apparently began when Joel Cherry, a Tennessean, homesteaded on the Little Blanco in 1854. Cherry was quickly followed by many more English and German settlers. By the late 1850s Twin Sisters had become the center of German settlement in what is now Blanco County. In 1856 the homesteaders petitioned for and received a post office, the first post office in the boundaries of present Blanco County. Postal service was suspended during the Civil War but resumed thereafter as the area's population continued to grow. By 1890 Twin Sisters had three general merchandise stores, a gristmill, and a cotton gin. Max Krueger owned the mill, the gin, and one of the stores. Krueger had come to Twin Sisters in 1875 and, in addition to pursuing his business interests, had served the town as postmaster and justice of the peace. He built a dance hall and a bowling alley, for which he imported beer from St. Louis. When the transportation costs became too high, he opened a small brewery nearby but failed to produce any beer because the brewery lacked cooling facilities. After a series of drunken brawls and shoot-outs at the dance pavilion, however, Krueger discontinued operation of his entertainment ventures. A drought from 1894 to 1896 drove many local farmers and ranchers into bankruptcy. Krueger was also forced to sell out. His eldest son, Willy, later returned and bought back the combined post office and general store at Twin Sisters, where he stayed on as postmaster and merchant until the 1940s. The Twin Sisters post office was closed in 1951, and mail service was moved to Blanco. In recent decades the community's economy, like that of the rest of Blanco County, has been dominated by ranching and farming. The estimated population of Twin Sisters from 1970 through 2000 was seventy-eight.