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Show Down Memory Lane I BY JOHN J. CREEDON GOODBYE OLD SOCIETY HALL I Old Society Hall i gone. It ' seems the old hall was tired of being be-ing dismantled piecemeal, so up in moke it went about 2:30 a.m. June 30, making a spectacular pre-Fourth pre-Fourth of July display of fire and excitement. The firemen gave their best and prevented the blaze irom spreading ' to the few buildings still standing near the hall. The blaze had such a start that nothing could be saved and the roof of the No. I Fire Hall was partially destroyed as well as the abandoned hall upstairs. Last week I was showing some friends the charred rafters of a fire After the Gem Theater vacated the building and the furniture store closed, the old hall fell into a bad state of condition. It seemed doomed, doom-ed, until about 1945, when Father Daniel . Leahy, pastor of the Catholic Church made arrangements arrange-ments to purchase the hall for use of the parish. The hall was completely renovated reno-vated by men of the parish during the long strike in 1946 and from then on the old hall got its second wind and remained busy until it was sold to Kennecott Copper Corporation Cor-poration last year. It was renamed Bingham Catholic Organization f., " i that nearly destroyed de-stroyed the historic his-toric old hall over ov-er forty years ago. The north end of the roof was burned and only the heroic efforts of the firemen saved it that time. What memor- Hall or BCO for short. From 1946 it was used for church purposes, with the upstairs used for catechism classes and parish par-ish parties and dances. It was the scene of many happy wedding parties and childrens' programs pro-grams in the past ten or twelve years and for the parish Bingo games. During Galena Days the hall was a meeting place for the Old Timers and once or twice the upstairs was used for games during the celebrations. celebra-tions. Three years ago the Holy Rosary Church was moved from Carr Fork to the lower BCO Hall and served the needs of the town until this spring. For me, it was a sad day, as I surveyed the ruins of old Society Hall, for it was there I met my wife, many years ago, when I first joined the fire department next door to the Gem Theater in Society Hall, and where she was selling tickets for Chester and Brisk. Farewell, old friend you were so much a part of everything so dear to the citizens and friends of Bingham. Mr. Creedon ie that, "mouldering "mould-ering heap of ashes brought to mind the other morning as 1 surveyed the ruins of the fire. All that remained standing was one large I beam and a chimney. chim-ney. Society Hall was built about the turn of the century no one seems sure of the date, but 1899 or 1900 seems to be the probable date of construction. The hall was built by the combined com-bined resources of three lodges active ac-tive in Bingham at that time. The Macabees, Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. Some of the old timers say that the steel beams were placed after the original building build-ing was built to buoy up the dance floor upstairs. The meeting hall and dance floor upstairs was rented to other organizations org-anizations and nearly every lodge or group met at one time or another an-other in the hall. It was busy every night of the week. It was here that the Eagles, Elks, Italian Lodge and Slavonian Lodge had their meetings meet-ings and dances. The Carpenters and Joiners had a locker in the hall and held their meetings there. The Eagles had their Mother's Day programs there for many years with Bert Hocking in charge. It was an emergency hospital during the flu epidemic in 1918, with beds set up under the direction of H. N. Standish, health officer. Political rallies were held there and on one or two occasions, funerals fun-erals were held in the hall. The Lions Club held some of the Crab Sizzles there and the fire department de-partment had several of their parties par-ties and dances on the finest dance floor in the canyon. At various times there was a pool hall downstairs, Watson's Drug Store, United States Post Office, Jim West Furniture, Gem Theater and for the past three years it was the Catholic Church of Holy Rosary Ros-ary Parish. From pool hall to place of worship with a few odds and ends thrown in makes quite a re-cordT |