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Show A6 The Salt Lake Tribune UTAH Sunday, January 31, 1999 Bill Van’s Was Legendary sold as Hollywood movie props. He only went through the eighth grade, but in [those] days the garage didn’t have a lot of business so he had a lot of time to work on his inventions,” Dance Hall says George Van de Vanter, a retired Delta jeweler and one ofBillie Van's sons. “Who knows what @ Continued From A-1 could have happened if he had with 2,000 small mirrors. moneybehind him?” Billie Van died suddenly in 1941, and most of his creations havebeen lost. The dancehall remains his most enduringlegacy. Atop theglobeis a small Mormon temple building, ringed by a model train and supporting a modelairplanethat tows a banner reading, “We dance next Sat At one end of thehall sits modelof the Salt Lake LI ple while at the other end are large statues of a lion anda smiling dog, flanking a small stage that once featured automated puppets. The dream world was the handiwork of Billie Van. an auto mechanic, builder and inventor who moved to Delta in 1907 as one of the town’s first residents and became, as his biography in the town museum explains, “Delta’s first Renaissance man. “Billie was a little fellow who was absolutely a genius,” says Delta City Councilman and Mil lard County Tourism Director ‘As a youngster, George Van checked coats at the dance hall. In brother Frank to close thehall. “My dad never allowed drinking in the dance hall, but the church started having dances up at the other end of town and some people started talking about all these bad things going on, which was just a bunch of hooey,” says George Van. “Plus, the young people wouldn't dance with other partners, only the one they came with. In myday, your gal always got the first and last dance, but danced with otherstoo. There was moresocializing then.” And morepeopledancing. During the heyday of Billie Van's, his late teens, he would work in about 800 folks would crowd onto then hitch a ride ona train to Del- the floor, which would sag and buckle from the weight. Once a Salt Lake City during the week ta and Billie Van's Saturday night We would have blizzards, with 3 and4 feet of snow, and figure no one would be coming,” says George Van,now 76. “But people from Kanosh and Meadow, they wouldpush theircars through the snowbanks toget hereto dance. He andother locals met their sweethearts and had their wedding receptions at Billie Van's But in the 1960s, town sentiment and changing courtship rituals prompted his now-deceased state fire marshal condemned the building. To show the floor could hold the load, Billie Van drove a fire engine into the garage below, then hoisted the huge truck on chains attached to thejoists of the Christopher imith/TheSalt Lake Tribune Delta residents hopeto preserve Van's Hall, a dance hall that closedits doors in the ‘60s. dancefloor above. Billie did things his way, but today we have a lot of building codes and safety concerns that come forwardbeforethere can be a decision onthelarger questions of renovation work,” says Hartley of the state Historical Society. pairit, but no one is sure yet what will happen then. Do youuse it for dances or just lock it up again?” To help raise moneyfor preser- sell the tons of old auto parts in the lower floor of the building, ley are helping Chidester try to ed to administer restoration vation work, Swalberg and Hart- “We have the technology to re- which was once a Studebaker dealership. A nonprofit foundation might eventually be creat- work. “We've gotten the roof fixed, got it on the national registry and we're trying to figure out where we go next,” says Swalberg. “But noneof us wantto see this lost.” Glen Swalberg, who has shep: herded the early efforts to pre serve Van's Hall andhave it listed on the National Register of Historic Places. “He was an artist, an inventor, always working on something unusual.” Although Billie Van was not a member of the Mormon nue he built an intricate, scale-siz replicaof the Salt Lake LDS ‘Tem. ple that sits in the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum today. Becoming enamored with the “Townsend Plan,” a 1930s pro posal that led to the creation of Social Security. he molded a bust of the plan’s author ==CLASSY LOSETS Any Closet w/appointment Scheduled by Feb. 5 “Put little class in your closet” Town- send, and sent replicas of the bust around the country. At his garage where Van's Hall now stands, Billie Van installed Before big silhouettesof thecartoonfig ures Mutt andJeff on the roof. He built a car that had twin V-6engines, refrigerators and his own We “Van's Fan.” Sort of a cross between Henry Ford and Walt Disney, Billie Van alsoran local zoo with monkeys. a pig and a badger. He startedthe town’s first baseball team and built an open-air theaterin Delta Chaosinto air-conditioning system called Change a Classy wherehe would frequently star in shows. Heconstructed two merry. go-rounds — one that had station: Close?! aryseats that tendedto leaverid ers dizzy, and another elaborate model that had moveable seats. The carousels were eventually HOW’S NCO)eT HEARING? 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