In the predominantly African American East Texas community of Double Bayou, named for twin waterways and originally settled by rancher John Jackson around 1847, a local general store became the community center as sugar cane, cotton, and oil drew farmers and workers to this commercial link to Galveston. After work, African American and Anglo laborers gathered at a small one-room dance hall known as Double Bayou Dance Hall, which at first was little more than cedar logs laid out as a dance floor. During Juneteenth in the late 1920s and early 1930s, many celebrants traveled from Galveston to Double Bayou. A 1941 storm destroyed the structure, and after World War II Manuel Rivers, Jr. rebuilt it nearby using the original materials. Though modest in appearance, the hall filled the surrounding woods with Texas Blues, and Floyd "Pete" Mayes, a Double Bayou resident, debuted there in 1954 with his band, the Texas Houserockers. Over the following decades, many Blues legends performed there as it became a popular stop on the Chitlin' Circuit, where African Americans could perform safely, and people set aside cultural and economic differences in a shared love of music and Texas Blues.