Cortland - Bazetta Historical Society
Edgewood Dance Hall
The ticket says: "City Officials and Business Men are Invited with their families to attend the Greatest Dance Attraction ever held in this vicinity at the Edgewood Hall, Cortland on Monday, November 5. Charlie Straight and his Brunswick Recording Orchestra—from Chicago has been secured for the occasion—they are known as Brunswick's most popular recording band. Chicago's ballroom and radio favorites—one of the country's best orchestras. Free bus—dancing from 9-1— Popular price 75 cents a person."
None of the tickets or ads give a year, but Cortland resident Carol Harrison tells us that she thinks it was in the 1920's.
Carol's grandparents, Eva and Blaine West, owned in partnership with others the Edgewood Dance Hall.
The tickets and other memorabilia from the dance hall are from the scrapbook of Carol's mother, Isabelle Hunter, daughter of the Wests. Being a very impressionable sixteen in 1929, Isabelle told her family stories of prohibition and dancing in Cortland.
Another favorite ticket is "Election Dance, Saturday, Nov. 3, at Edgewood Hall, Cortland. Music by Leslie Daniels' Orchestra, favorites at Vermillion on the Lake. Hall decorated for Occasion-Novelties and Balloons. Vote for Hoover or Smith to win a Prize. Don't miss this — Free Bus — Gents $1 — Ladies Free."
We were able to determine that the Edgewood Dance Hall was located above Walnut Creek from Brookside Inn (now the Old Mill) and that you could reach it by a footbridge. There were plans at the time to develop the land (10 acres) into picnic grounds. A large meeting of the Klu Klux Klan was held at the Edgewood Dance Hall in 1924.
Shared by Carol Harrison.