How a Tiny Group of Believers Turned a Dying Cotton Town Into a Storybook Refuge

It was the July Fourth parade that sold Ryan and Katie Grametbaur on Martindale. There were people on horses and lawnmowers and tractors. Kids on bicycles with streamers. A Model T Ford. The route consisted of two passes down a single block because that is the entirety of downtown Martindale—but what a block. On both sides of Main Street, a half dozen restored redbrick buildings made for a picture-perfect time warp to late-nineteenth-century Texas, and people came in from all around Caldwell County to watch “the cutest thing ever,” as Katie puts it.  Four years later, Ryan and Katie are the heavily tattooed owners of Duett’s, a Martindale bar, restaurant, and music venue named after their young daughter, Duetta. The Grametbaurs had both grown up…

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