San Marcos is home to one of Texas’ longest running songwriters circles. Cheatham Street Warehouse has helped establish many well-known singer songwriters since 1974. 

Kent Finlay leased the warehouse in 1974. Kent, who was also a songwriter, worked to preserve the songwriter’s tradition.  Missoula now manages the Wednesday night songwriter’s circle. 

“I say its magical every night because it is,” Finlay said. “I mean, there have been nights here where I have just  been moved to tears with some of these great writers. Some of them grow up to be bartenders and some of them grow up to be a, you know, songwriters and artists.”    

The songwriters circle evolved into a regular part of the culture of the bar. Every Wednesday at 8 p.m. songwriters from central Texas make their way into the dimly lit historic Cheatham Street Warehouse, most carrying guitars on their backs and lyrics in their minds.    

“You know that San Marcos is a very diverse music scene,” said Hank Weaver. He’s a songwriter and bartender. “You know there’s alot, especially with university in town, there’s a lot of people that do music from all different types of genres. But I think the songwriting aspect always revolves around Cheatham Street.”   

Big name songwriters have graced the stage at Cheatham Street Warehouse. Jamison Eddleman now plays in venues across central Texas. He comes back as often as he can.  

“Most of my personal process is finishing a song outside Cheatham Street,” Eddleman said. “It’s like coming and having a cool collaborative group think with all my friends. There’s a lot of really good resources at Cheatham Street. You get a lot of positive reinforcement and constructive criticism not only from peopl from here but also your friends.” 

Texas State Professors Gregg Andrew and Vikki Bynam purchased it in 2006 to prevent it from being bulldozed. The Cheatham Street Music Foundation was created and purchased the building from them in 2006. Sign up at 8, singing at 9, Cheatham Street is free and open to everyone in the community.