Lowland Revelry
Cheatham Street Warehouse
From the time Kent Finlay and his business partner, Jim Cunningham, leased a creaky old warehouse along the railroad tracks in San Marcos, Texas, and opened Cheatham Street Warehouse in June 1974, the honky tonk seemed destined for fame in Texas music history. An Austin hippie country band, Freda (Marcia Ball) and the Firedogs played to an overflow crowd on an unbelievable opening night. As Kent’s brother, Steve, recalled, “At least five people behind the bar were selling beer as fast as we could open them. The beer box was soon depleted of cold beer and we kept icing down beer in an old bathtub behind the bar!”