Sometimes it’s easier to say what a dancehall ain’t than what it is.

For one thing, a dancehall — and we are talking about the historic community structures that dot small towns all over Texas — are not honky-tonks. Yes, there are dancing and drinking and neon beer signs in your basic dancehall, but the dancehall is about a lot more than a shot-and-a-beer and a one-night stand. A dancehall is about community.

That is the ethic and the history that the Texas Dance Hall Preservation non-profit group is seeking to preserve and illuminate. As a way of doing so, and to raise money for future efforts, the group is hosting a fund-raiser Friday at the Rattle Inn. The new venue is, appropriately enough, owned by Asleep At the Wheel bandleader Ray Benson, who has taken the stage at many a dancehall in his day. Musical entertainment will be provided by the cute-as-the-dickens (and formidably talented) Western Swing/jazz/bluegrass trio, the Quebe Sisters.

Most Austin music fans are aware of two of the most famous dancehalls in the region, Gruene Hall and the Luckenbach Dance Hall. But most small towns had their own version of the dancehall, which was often erected alongside (or even before) the local school, cotton gin or church.

“They’ve nurtured Texas music for generations, and so many of them are so beautiful that they need to be kept alive,” says historian/journalist/curator Steve Dean, who co-founded the TDHP in 2007. In that time, he and his colleagues have managed to catalog about 700 dancehalls around the state.

In Central Texas, dancehalls were part of the immigrant culture. German, Polish and Central European brought their native traditions, including the sangervereine, or singing societies, tradition to their harsh New World landscape (Saengerrunde Hall, behind Scholz Beer Garten on San Jacinto St., still houses Austin’s local version of the venerable ensemble).

Over the generations, traditional polkas, waltzes and schottisches gradually melded with country music, Western Swing, blues, Tex-Mex conjunto and even rock and roll in the cauldrons of the dancehalls.

But the dancehalls, many of them quite beautiful in their plainspoken rural way, also served as anchors to their local communities. “A traditional dancehall is a place that’s generally a multi-functional community hall,” says Dean. Dancehalls were the gathering point for holiday events, political rallies, weddings and anniversaries, potluck suppers and more.

“If someone got sick, you could go to those halls and have a catfish dinner and raise some money,” Dean says. “They are vital places where people can get together and take pride in their communities.”

But they are also an endangered species. Urban sprawl and a generation gap are two prime culprits, Dean explains. Too often, an isolated dancehall will get bulldozed for a subdivision (as almost happed to Gruene Hall) because there is no community constituency to protect it. In 2008, Preservation Texas, a private non-profit dedicated to historic preservation, put Texas dancehalls atop its annual “Most Endangered Places” list.

Additionally, younger audiences often flock to more modern venues, sometimes leaving 70-year-old dancehall owners booking the same bands the kids’ parents danced to. Stars like George Strait, Willie Nelson and Bob Wills all got their start in dancehalls, and younger country-rockers like Gary P. Nunn, Kevin Fowler and Robert Earl Keen can fill any dancehall in the state, but, says Dean, “it’s rough for (traditionalists) like Billy Mata and Bobby Flores.”

Natural disasters like storms and fires pose additional peril. The 117-year-old Club 21 in Uhland, with its gorgeous, unique arched wooden beams, burned to the ground last October when someone crashed a car into it and set it ablaze. A similar fate befell Dessau Hall, whose most charming feature was a tree growing up through the roof of the joint.

One of TDHP’s primary missions is to work with clubowners to bring their structures into modern code compliance and to educate the local communities to the value of the rough diamonds in their midst.

“Young people need to take over these halls and keep them vital to the communities,” says Dean. “There’s enthusiasm and money for preserving the historic courthouses and lighthouses and churches in Texas. But these dancehalls were often some of the first buildings ever built in these small towns, and some of the most important institutions in terms of keeping the culture alive in these communities.”

The message the Texas Dance Hall Preservation wants to send is simple: Dancehalls are a repository of a community’s history, culture and values; Communities need to recognize and protect them. And dance a two-step and sip a cold beer in the process.

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Join the party at 7 p.m. Friday at the Rattle Inn, 610 Nueces Street.