When researching this topic, I had no idea that would discover there were at least 38 halls in the area that had regular dances with live bands or orchestras.
The ethnic diversity of the Porcupine was a determining factor for 20 of these halls. The largest group by far, was the Finnish community who had no fewer than 10 halls between Barber’s Bay and Mountjoy Township.
The most eastern were on Finn Road at Barber’s Bay and one that was attached to the Co-op Store in Connaught. In Golden City there was a hall and athletic park on the back road behind Porcupine Lake at Wilson’s Creek. In Pottsville, on the corner of Young and Florence Streets was yet another Finn Hall. South Porcupine had two halls – one on the NW corner of O’Brien and Main streets, the other was located at Moore and Commercial Avenues. There was another Finn Hall on the NE shore of Pearl Lake in Schumacher.
Perhaps the best-known Finnish hall was the Harmony Hall on Algonquin Blvd. where the Cedar Street municipal parking lot is today. Close by on Balsam North, between Algonquin and Fifth, was yet another Finn Hall, on the site of the old Timmins Police Communications Building. The Idle Hour Park and hall was situated on Dalton Road.
The Ukrainians had three centres: the Prosvita Hall on the corner of Fifth and Elm, the Labour Temple on the east side of Mountjoy, just south of Second Avenue, and the third one was on Golden Avenue in South Porcupine, east of Crawford Street.
In Timmins, Croatians had a hall on Balsam, between Fifth and Sixth. Hrvatski Narodni Dom on First Avenue in Schumacher still serves the Croatian community there. Before 1950, there was a second Croatian Club across the street from the present hall.
There are two active Italian halls in Timmins, both on Cedar Street South. The largest is the Dante Club, and the other is known as the Moneta Recreation Club. The Romanians had a hall near the corner of Maple and Eighth, and the Polish community still has an active society at their hall, known as the Polish White Eagle Hall, on Sixth Avenue.
All of these ethnic halls held regular dances with talented local musicians. No dance orchestra had fewer than 4 live band members, and often the musicians would number ten or more, but these were the days before disk jockeys and taped music. According to sources, there were between 35 and 40 bands or orchestras in this area, some playing several nights every week, from the 1930′s through the 1950′s.
Because the local stores were either closed a full day or a half-day on Wednesday, many social clubs held dances on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Others held their dances on Friday nights, so as not to be in competition with the larger dance Pavilions in the area, which held theirs on Saturdays.
In order to raise money for the clubs, there were many inventive schemes. One of the more original was done by tying bags to a string, which was then strung high across the dance floor. The lady would select a bag, which her partner would be required to pay for. He’d jump for the bag and remove it from the string. Often the bags contained sandwiches, but more likely it was fruit. This modest fundraiser was practiced during the days of the Depression. I can’t see this custom being revived in today’s materialistic society, unless the bags contained jewellery, trips or the keys to a brand new car!
That’s my view from Over the Hill
