On the outskirts of Berlin, in a Spandau retail park between a Rewe, a Burger King and a Gold’s Gym, sits a Wild West-themed complex with a whopping 22 buildings, including a jail, a chapel, a military museum, a cantina, a ‘Bank of Texas’ and a saloon. An entire Western town, recreated thousands of miles from the source of its inspiration, available for Berliners who want to get a little dust under their boots.
But after 57 years in operation, its days now appear to be numbered; their rental contract, established in 2008 for a 15-year term followed by yearly extensions, has not been renewed. The current landlords, Berlin-based company Dr. Aldinger & Fischer Grundbesitz, have issued notice for the site to be vacated.
We have one woman who has visited more than 150 times.
“We found out last Friday, after being [a club] for 75 years, that we have to leave by August,” says the current Burgermeister of the town, Jack Hunter. (The members often go by Westernified pseudonyms; his real name is Ralf Keber.) Hunter stumbled on the site in 2001, when he came to measure a broken water pipe for his day job.
Two years later he became sheriff, and took over as the club’s chairman in 2006. It’s not entirely clear why their lease wasn’t renewed, but rumour has it that the land is being cleared for construction of a data centre, Hunter told Berliner Zeitung.
Closing Cowboy Club Old Texas Berlin 1950 eV – to use its full name – is a startling thought for the hundreds of people who visit the replica Americana town (where, their website says, “you feel as if you’ve been transported back to 1865”) each year, some of whom have been coming for decades.
The Berlin Cowboy Club was originally formed in 1939 by cowboy aficionados PFH Überdieck and Robert Driest. During World War II the club was forced underground before reemerging two years later as Cowboy Club Berlin in 1941 (albeit under Nazi supervision).
When the war ended, the group was able to reform in the American sector of occupied Berlin, which was when the phrase ‘Old Texas’ was added to its name. In the early 1950s, the cowboy collective would gather on a strip of land along the banks of the Spree, where songs could be sung around campfires.
A man named Fritz Walter, known as Ben Destry to club members, was elected as chairman, and later the first mayor. In 1968, they secured the lease to 15,000 square metres of industrial wasteland, and the construction of Town Old Texas began.
Club member JW Hasse remembers the 1970s as a period of expansion. “All these houses were built by the members, no firms or nothing. Everything was made by hand. We worked here everyday for two or three hours. We’d come after work and build together,” he says.
The first building to be completed was Mary’s Saloon, named after Destry’s wife and finished in 1973. “West Berlin was made up of individual forces, and surrounded by enemies. This place brought a warmth, a kind of safety feeling.”
Today, Cowboy Club Old Texas is used as a set for television, films and music videos, or booked out for weddings and other functions – but at its heart it’s a community space, running on the dedication of its members. On the first Saturday of the month, from March to December, it opens its doors to the public, throwing an event that blends period-costume party, line dance, country wedding and student bar.
If you’re happy to stand in the saloon, it’s €10 entry – three extra for a seat that gives you the best view of the baton-twirling demonstrations. The beers are astonishingly cheap, and the food is no-frills: Wurst, Brot, Schinkenbrot. “To make this party happen, I need 25 people. From this party, we earn nothing,” says Hunter. “We have one woman who has visited more than 150 times.”
The club has somewhat of a cult existence, popularised by word of mouth and immortalised in the 1980 song ‘Old Texas Town, die Westernstadt’ by the German country band Truck Stop. On the night of their June open evening, it’s clear that the mythology was a draw.
“We always wondered if this place was real, and we were searching for it, and now we’re here,” said one attendee, Paddi, who mourned the loss of an institution he had only just discovered. “This place, surrounded by urban industrial shit – nobody knows it’s here. Nobody knows it exists. I can imagine it’s dying with this sad news.”
Jan has been a punter for 35 years. He was dressed like many of the regulars, who sported drapery, feathers, bustles, colourful gowns – in full Western regalia. Jan’s version was ‘smart cowboy’, in a black suit, black hat and bolo tie. “It’s my hobby, and I’m very interested in country music and line dance. I have been in Berlin for 25 years, but I started to come here even before I moved to the city.”
Berlin photographer Michelle Mantel had brought along friends to celebrate her birthday. “I just googled ‘cowboy Berlin’ – it’s totally random, and I was super excited about it because I’ve never seen anything like [this],” she said.
“There’s not a lot of things where you can dress up like this in Berlin.” Around her, guests had donned a mix of sartorial garb: plaid shirts and neckerchiefs, rented early-1900s-style postman uniforms, fringed jackets, denim. Dolly Parton, Shania Twain and Johnny Cash played as everyone danced.
As the threat of eviction looms, Town Old Texas stands not just as a quirky oddity but as a defiant Berlin subculture, a love for an era long past. More than 5,000 people have now signed a petition to save the town, hoping to preserve it for Berliners who haven’t yet spun their way around the dusty dancefloor. Or, as tattoo artist Blandine Diotima puts it, because “in Berlin you’ve seen everything twice, but you’ve never been to fucking Old Texas Town!”
- Town Old Texas, Paulsternstr. 18, Spandau. Final opening evening on Jul 5, starts 18:30, details.
