"Back by Popular Demand!": Dancing in Small-Town South Dakota
Harl A. Dalstrom
Kay Caíame Dalstrom
South Dakota History, volume 32 number 4 (2002)
South Dakota History is the quarterly journal published by the South Dakota State Historical Society. Membership in the South Dakota State Historical Society includes a subscription to the journal. Members support the Society's important mission of interpreting, preserving and transmitting the unique heritage of South Dakota. Learn more here: https://history.sd.gov/Membership.aspx. Download PDFs of articles from the first 43 years and obtain recent issues of South Dakota History at sdhspress.com/journal.
"1000 beautiful girls to dance with—looking for 1000 nice boys to swing with," proclaimed an advertisement for the 1947 Annistice Day dance in Martin, South Dakota.' While the numbers may have been exaggerated, they indicate the popularity dancing enjoyed among South Dakotans and older Americans in the mid-twentieth century. Radios broadcast the tunes of big-name bands, jukeboxes and home phonographs played the records of popular groups, and ballrooms large and small attracted crowds to their dances. As a group, the people of the Upper Midwest and Northern Great Plains were probably unexcelled in their enthusiasm for dancing. Indeed, from the time European settlers arrived, the activity was central to the social lives of many South Dakotans, particularly in the era before television. In South Dakota along and west of the Missouri River, as in the western sections of North Dakota and
Nebraska, distance and sparse population limited entertainment options, thereby magnifying the importance of dancing to those living in small towns and hamlets.- While dancing in itself was a recreational outlet, the work of sponsoring dances, many of which raised funds for local or national causes, helped to solidify community bonds and fill individuals and organizations with a sense of purpose. Attending dances and their associated activities was an important part of the courtship process for many young people, and younger siblings often learned the social basics by attending dances as part of a family activity.
To meet the great popular demand for dance music, more than one hundred seventy bands or orchestras played in South Dakota during the 1940s and 1950s. Many of these groups were composed of local musicians who played in towns close to their homes and earned their primary incomes in other professions. Edith Nystrom, a Belle Fourche high-school student during the 1950s, recalled that bands in the tri-state area where South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana meet usually consisted of "locals," meaning "anyone ... who played an instrument!" Some orchestras, such as those led by Lawrence Welk, Tommy Dorsey, Jan Garbor, or Guy Lombardo were well-advertised "name" bands brought in from other parts of the country. 'Territory bands," such as Bob Calame and His Music, the Lee Williams Orchestra, and other groups booked through the National Orchestra Service in Omaha, Nebraska, made many South Dakota appearances. Between 1940 and 1952, Lee Williams and his group performed some 563 times in the state, while Bob Calame' had some 367 engagements from 1948 to 1957. Another well-known territory band was the Jimmy Barnett Orchestra of Sioux Falls. These bands were made up of full-time musicians who traveled almost constantly, playing engagements in several states.
Most territory bands traveling long distances used "sleeper buses," usually trailers with bunks for sleeping pulled by a semitractor. Some had running water, electricity, and separate quarters for female vocalists. Whether a band traveled by sleeper bus or car, the road system, much of it unpaved, could be problematic. As a high-school student in Pierre in the early 1940s, Tommy Matthews played with a local band that used a limousine and trailer to travel to performances. One of the band's frequent destinations was White River, where the gravel road leading south from Murdo could be difficult. "If we could get down...and back without ruining tires," Matthews recalled, "it was a miracle. Weather conditions combined with distance to complicate matters further. The schedules of the Calame and Williams bands show that moderate-to-long overnight journeys between performances were routine for territory bands. For those attending, however, the attraction of the dance easily overcame any challenges of distance. The unpaved roads of the 1950s did little to daunt Edith Nystrom, her mother, and friends. A typical weekend might find them driving from eighty to one hundred miles each way to attend a dance or other event at Buffalo, Redig, Harding, or Camp Crook.
Dances marked any variety of occasions, which, together with the type and popularity of the band, the dance hall, and the day of the week, helped to determine admission prices. Women were often charged less than men, probably in the hope of encouraging single females to attend, thus attracting single males. A 1943 dance at the Brookings Armory advertised Phil Levant and His Hotel Bismarck Orchestra, "A Great Name Band Direct from Chicago Coming to Play for the Easter Ball." Admission was seventy-live cents for "Gentlemen" and fifty cents for "Ladies." Prices increased for a nationally famous band. Performances of Lawrence Welk in 1944, for example, garnered "$1.22 tax incl. for advance tickets or $1.53 tax ind. at the door of the Corn Palace in Mitchell.
The integral part that dances played in community life is illustrated by the fact that they were held to commemorate nearly every holiday, large or small. Many towns celebrated New Year's Eve with dances, but it was also possible to attend a dance on the night of New Year's Day in Howard, Brookings, or Bristol. Saint Patricks Day presented dancing opportunities in Winner, Gregory, and Bison. There were Easter Day or "post-Easter" dances, and one could go to a May Day dance in Hot Springs. Fourth of July dances were common, but the armory in Brookings was the site of a pre-Independence Day dance in 1943. A Labor Day dance was scheduled at the Lake Madison Resort, as was a big post-Halloween dance at the Martin Pavilion. Armistice Day dances, often sponsored by the American Legion, were numerous. Holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas also provided ample opportunities for holding dances.
Personal occasions, as well, became reasons for holding dances and inviting one's friends or, indeed, the whole community. Anniversary or wedding dances honoring a married couple might be free to the public or have a small admission charge. Rest Haven at Lake Andes, the Hi-Way Ballroom at Webster, the Rosebud Ballroom at Gregory, and the ZCBJ Hall at Wagner, among many others, hosted such events. At the Burke Auditorium, a 1942 wedding dance charged admission of ten cents and twenty cents, with "Everybody Invited."
Dances often formed part of the festivities surrounding civic events, resulting in a diverse array and sometimes curious juxtaposition of activities. In 1950, Bonesteel celebrated its sixtieth anniversary with a dance featuring Fats Ciuison's Orchestra. The crowning of Miss Hot Springs was the centerpiece of the local Elks charity ball in 1948. The same year, at Madison, an election changing the structure of the city commission provided an occasion for "Nat (Lotsa Poppa) Towies [,] Direct from Appollo Theater, New York City" to play. Dances were scheduled in association with the bucking and saddle horse sale at Eagle Butte in 1950 and Dupree's 'Rip Roaring Roedo'" the following year. One of the more unusual combinations occurred in Murdo in 1949 when the town promoted "Gravel Days." A large advertisement in the local newspaper proclaimed: "We need men and trucks for the second go at graveling our streets. "All truck expenses paid. Free noon meal. Come on in and bring the hired man. Start from Texaco station, 7 a.m., Tuesday. June 7." To celebrate the project's completion, a "Free Show and Free Dance" were scheduled for that Friday.
The proceeds from dances also helped to fund many community projects, Among the most common and longest-running fundraisers was the "Firemen's Ball" or "Firemen's Dance" held to benefit volunteer fire departments. A story in the Armour Chronicle reported that the December 1948 firemen's dance had drawn the largest crowd in fifty-six years, with more than over seven hundred tickets sold. In Buffalo Gap, a "Fireman's Jeep dance" was slated for Armistice night in 1948 at which the proceeds from the raffle of five calves would be turned over to the fire department for the purchase of a jeep. At Hot Springs the following February, the town's fifty-fourth annual firemen's masquerade ball grossed an estimated fourteen hundred to fifteen hundred dollars despite bad weather Philip and Bison both marked Saint Patricks Day with firemen's dances in 1949 and 1950. At Lemmon, an individual who had benefited from the efforts of the town's volunteer fire department took out an advertisement in the local newspaper urging people not to "be too busy to reach down and find the small sum of $1.50 or more" when firemen approached selling tickets to the annual ball.
Dances sometimes brought in money for national causes as well, particularly the March of Dimes, which fought the much-feared disease poliomyelitis, more commonly known as infantile paralysis or simply polio. Called the "March of Dimes Dances," "Polio Dances," or the "President's Birthday Ball, in honor of polio victim Franklin D. Roosevelt, these fund-raising events were usually held between January and March. In Madison, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Lake Post 2638 sponsored a polio benefit dance on New Year's Eve in 1948, as did the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) branch in Wentworth. In Murdo, the town's firemen sponsored the benefit. That such causes rallied community cooperation was evident at Hot Springs, where a polio benefit dance early in 1949 netted one thousand dollars. Despite the particularly hard winter and bad road conditions that year, the committee in charge of Colome's March of Dimes dance reported bringing in about one hundred dollars.''' Although Martin had hosted a March of Dimes dance in January 1948, it also held a "Polio Prevention Dance" in the spring, with the proceeds to be used "to defray the cost of spraying the town with D.D.T. Ottumwa scheduled a polio benefit dance for August 1950 at which a local orchestra called the Gumbo Lily Kids entertained. The event featured a western theme, with women requested to wear gingham dresses, while the men were expected to appear in denim western trousers.
In at least one instance, polio caused the cancellation of a dance. In McLaughlin, a rodeo scheduled for early September 1946, with a "sunrise dance . . . planned for Monday morning to begin at 12:01," were canceled because of an outbreak of the disease. The city and county boards of health had requested that all public gatherings "be dispensed with in order to prevent the spread of infantile paralysis which is gripping the entire northwest and which is the worst epidemic of the disease ever experienced in the history of the state." Officials also called off an evening dance planned in conjunction with the rodeo.
Some churches used dances as a means to raise money for community causes or for their own activities. In Estelline in 1941, the "young folks of St. Jolin's parish" scheduled a benefit dance at nearby Castlewood. In April 1952, the Jolly Coppersmiths appeared at a dance sponsored by the Catholic Daughters of Colome. A month later, the Knights of Columbus in Colome hosted a benefit dance featuring Joe Novak and His Orchestia. Tiny Ole and His Orchestra played a benefit dance for Saint Peter's Episcopal Church in Lake Andes in 1954.
In addition to occupying an important place in the social lives of young people, school dances occasionally helped to raise funds for special causes. At Martin, the 1949 homecoming dance was held in conjunction with a carnival. The previous spring, festivities had been more purely social, featuring a formal dance honoring the seniors of Bennett County High School and the junior-senior prom, advertised as an event where "all the girls will parade in their formals and strut their stuff [while] all boys . . . will drool." In nearby White River, the Otterman American Legion Post No. 94 sponsored a benefit dance for the school in the gymnasium. At Eureka, a baseball fund-raiser dance was held, while Andover, Grenville. and Eagle Butte had similar events for their teams. High school basketball was the beneficiary of a dance sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars following a game in Kennebec. In Lake Andes, the school staged a dance benefit to raise money for new band uniforms.
One unusual fund-raising project highlighted a problem common to many remote South Dakota towns. In May 1944. the Community Club of Eagle Butte sponsored a dance to raise funds "to accompany the application for a Doctor." The announcement for this event urged those who "don't believe in dancing [to] leave a donation at any of the business places and help this worthy cause. This Community needs a doctor." The dance netted one hundred and fifty dollars and by the following month, the Community Club had doubled that sum, enabling Eagle Butte to take steps toward securing a physician.
While the reasons for holding dances were legion, the worthiness of the cause and all of the effort that went into staging events were to no avail unless people actually came. Attracting a paying crowd was essential to making a profit, and advertising in local newspapers was a popular way of spreading the word. Advertising content and format varied greatly, according to the budget and creativity of the sponsor. Some advertisements were as basic as ''Dance After Bull Sale Saturday, April 30 at Buffalo Pavilion."' Others were more alluring. Publicity for events at the Brookings Armory almost always included phrases like "Meet the gang at the Armory," along with extra tidbits like "Don Strickland and his Hammond Electric Organ featuring conversational sweet rhythm music." At Lake Andes, an advertisement for the "Air Cooled." Rest Haven announced a dance featuring the Del Clayton Orchestra with "Sweetheart Waltz under special lighting at 10. 11 and 1." American Legion dances in Webster were usually promoted as "Your Last Opportunity to Hear This Outstanding Band!" or "Back by Popular Demand!" If a band had performed on the radio, that fact was typically touted in an advertisement.
Promotional efforts for some dance sites stressed the amenities the hall offered. The Sioux Valley Dance Pavilion west of Brookings, for example, boasted a "Large Dance Floor With Modem Lighting Effects [and] Ladies' Powder Room," as well as the "Northwest's Finest Bands Always." New or improved facilities were sometimes mentioned, such the Bonesteel Ballroom's "New Band Box New Lighting New Floor!"' While food service at dances was not usually highlighted, an announcement for a dance in the Armour High School Auditorium mentioned that lunch would be served in the home ec room. The Vets Club in Hot Springs advertised "Chicken-in-the-Basket" in its Thanksgiving Eve Dance promotion in 1948.
In addition to locally produced advertisements, booking agencies prepared promotional materials for the big-name and territory bands. The National Orchestra Service in Omaha circulated packets of sample cards, posters, and other materials to the sponsors of dances featuring the bands it represented. The packets included background on the band leader and a price list for purchasing printed materials. Another promotional device was a calendar interspersed with full-page montages of its orchestras and other performers.
Occasionally, dance advertising noted the two categories of music common to the region at mid-century; "modern," or "new time," and"old time," or "Bohemian." The former included danceable tunes that were currently popular across the country or memorable for their romantic imagery, while the latter included polkas, schottisches, and waltzes. It was not unusual for both types to be played at one dance. At Spearfish City Park Pavilion, Friday night dances featured "modern" music, with "old-time" music the other on Saturday nights. Tastes in dance music changed with the times and varied from place to place. Johnny Soyer, leader of the Jimmy Barnett Orchestra, observed in 1948, " We play more sweet music now. During the war, it was all bounce, all jive." Another area band leader, Jimmy Thomas of Luverne, Minnesota, also noted a declining interest in "be-bop" and "jive," commenting, "It's the old-time polka and waltz that brings down the house at a dance now."
The popularity of "old time" music suggested the European ethnic heritage of South Dakota and its neighbors. Joe Novak and his Bohemian Orchestra often performed at Fairfax, and Martin-area dancers could enjoy Tom Ptak and His Orchestra playing "Czech, Scandinavian, and Modern Music" or Milo Kocourek's "Bohemian and Modern Music." One of the region's best known old-time groups was the WNAX Bohemian Band from Yankton, famous for its radio broadcasts and performances throughout the region. The 6 Fat Dutchmen, billed as "the Northwest's finest old time band," rounded out the list of groups playing traditional-style tunes.
Indeed, what Americans at the start of the twenty-first century would call "cultural diversity" was often evident in the bands and dancing places of South Dakota two generations earlier. Dancing was an especially popular pursuit in northeast South Dakota, a predominantly Scandinavian area where the Sons of Norway frequently sponsored dances at places like the Roslyn Auditorium. In June 1947, one issue of the Webster Reporter and Farmer carried advertisements for no fewer than four different dances. Numerous dances were held in the halls of the Western Bohemian Fraternal Association (ZCKJ), indicative of the Czech presence in South Dakota. The ZCBT halls at Geddes, Wagner, Hamill, and other places reflected a pattern of Czech settlement reaching west and northwest from Yankton County through Bon Homme, Charles Mix, Gregory, Tripp, and Brule counties. Further west, at Martin, the ZCBJ Lodge sponsored dances at the local fairgrounds, including, in August 1949, one featuring the Locke All Indian Orchestra.
In fact, social dancing enjoyed a measure of popularity with the state's American Indians as well as its more recent transplants. The He Dog School, Okreek Day School, and Red Hall at Parmalee were among the places where residents of the Rosebud Indian Reservation gathered for dancing and other social activities. Of the American Legion dances he attended at Mission and White River, Robert G. Raymond, himself an American Indian, recalled that "the majority of the dancers were white, but a goodly number of Indians attended." The state had at least one band composed primarily of American Indian musicians— the Red Ramblers, based in the Highmore-Fort Thompson area.
A few all-women orchestras or bands with women leaders traveled the region, as well, and the unique composition of these groups was stressed in their advertising. In 1941, '"Lucille and Her Band" played at Gregory's Rosebud Ballroom, and 'Alice and Her Band" came to the Paxton Ballroom. " In 1947, the Ruth Colman Orchestra, known as the "(All Girl) Sweethearts of Swing," performed at Rest Haven in Lake Andes. Touted as a "Name Band . . . Coast to Coast," the same group also appeared at the annual Western South Dakota Stud Ram Show and Sale in Newell.
African-American bands were more unusual. Lloyd Hunter's group, billed in the language of the time as "That Popular Colored Band," and "Preston Love and His Popular Colored Band" both played at Rest Haven in 1946 and 1956, respectively.'" At Martin, a 30 October advertisement for the closing dance of the 1947 season stated, "By Popular Request we have returned, at a Big Expense that Great Colored Band of the Year [,] Howard Sheppard & His Orchestra." Appearing two weeks earlier were "Terry Gordon and His Harlem Express [with] 8 Colored Artists and Floor Show" and Ted Schroeder's "Big Colored Band Direct From Omaha, Nebraska."
Whatever the occasion for holding a dance, some individuals or organizations had to take the initiative in planning, hiring a band, advertising, and overseeing the actual event. Because such an endeavor could involve considerable manpower and financial risk, it usually required a group or community effort. At mid-century, when the American Legion may well have been at its zenith, many local posts took the lead in sponsoring dances and other civic activities. In Martin, a subsidiary of Post No. 240 sponsored the Fifth Annual Sioux Stampede in July 1950. Included in the event held on "Wild Horse Butte, in the Heart of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation were hot-rod races, a rodeo, softball games, a parade, horse races, fireworks, and, of course, "Dancing!.. July 2-3-4 to the music of Bob Caíame." The Maitin post was particularly active, creating a building fund for a hall in which to host entertainment for young people and thus "combat juvenile delinquency." The Herbert McKennett Post in Webster, another especially active organization, sponsored Friday-night dances during the summers of the late 1940s. In 1948, the post's annual summer carnival featuring the Art B. Thomas Shows included dancing on Friday night to the Ray Palmer Orchestra and on Saturday night to the Johnny Cacavas Orchestra. The American Legion posts in the neighboring towns of Mission and White River sponsored dances on alternating weekends. Of the White River dances. Jan Rasmussen of Belvidere recalled, "Legionnaires booked the best bands they could, and they held good, well-run, fun dances."
By contrast, the frequent dances at Dupree's Legion Hall late in World War II offended E.L. Schetnan, the outspoken editor of the lake newspaper, West River Progress. In a November 1944 editorial, Schetnan lamented the fact that at a time when conserving gasoline and tires was essential, people had traveled to attend dances at the hall on three consecutive Fridays. "We are at war," he wrote, "So what all this frivolity?" He also contended that townspeople who had contributed to the building of the hall had contemplated "something better, something higher" than its use as a dancing place. Schetnan concluded, "While the editor of this paper never go[es} do dances himself, we are not opposed to dances if conducted with some decorum and at proper intervals, and that means not oftener than once a month." Schetnan's views apparently did not reflect those of many locals, for at both Dupree and Eagle Butte, some twenty miles to the east, dances were popular recreation during the war.
In addition to the veterans' organizations, many other groups held dances, including the Elks and the Lions in Hot Springs, the American Horse Rifle Club in Martin, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in Wentworth, the Future Farmers of America in Philip, and Burke, Company B of the 109th Engineers in Hot Springs, the Woolgrower's Auxiliary in Buffalo, and the Masonic lodges at Eagle Butte and Isabel.
Once a sponsor had determined to hold a dance, the next necessary ingredient was finding a place to stage it. Dancing sites ranged from town streets to parks or fairground pavilions to community halls and city auditoriums. "Bowery dances" were outdoor events held on floors constructed adjacent to streets. Surrounded by barriers to ensure that only paying customers entered, such floors had an elevated stage near one end where the band played. Tommy Matthews, a well-known South Dakota band leader, recalled that at Belle Fourche, bowery dances were held in conjunction with the rodeo, and dancers paid a dime for a short set of songs. In order to clear the floor between sets, "the Legion fellows would take a big rope and shoo the crowd out." Of course, the possibility of bad weather was one drawback of the bowery dance. Some outdoor dance sites were more primitive.
Ernest Miller of Sturgis recalled "a big slab of cement" measuring approximately thirty square feet and loaded on South Dakota Highway 34 about thirty-two miles east of Sturgis (or fifteen miles west of Union Center) where dances were held on Saturday nights in the summer. Fairground pavilions like the one in Webster, where American Legion dances were held from late May to early September, made good dancing sites in warm weather. Martin's American Legion Post 240 sought to extend the dance season by holding its events at the Bennett County fairgrounds in a pavilion outfitted with a pot-bellied stove. A number of lakeside venues, including Rest Haven on Lake Andes, the Lake Madison Resort, and the Blue Dog Lake Pavilion, offered dancing opportunities along with other leisure activities such as boating, swimming, and fishing.
City auditoriums were also popular dancing spots. From its first dance featuring Keith's Capiolians in November 1936, the Pierre City Auditorium was an important venue. For example, the local Junior Chamber of Commerce sponsored a dance featuring the popular Lee Williams orchestra on 12 December 1941, just five days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The event was turned into a war effort as people brought items such as playing cards, books, and pictures of South Dakota to send to local servicemen stationed at Camp Claiborne in Louisiana. Between dance numbers, war bulletins transcribed from radio broadcasts were announced over the public address system. The city auditorium in McLaughlin, boosted in 1945 as "one of the finest buildings for the size city in the northwest," was a another popular site for dances. Other communities hosting dances in their city auditoriums or town halls included Bonesteel, Pickstown, Gregory, Dallas, Buffalo Gap, Hot Springs, Lake Andes, Mission, Selby, Philip, Rosyln, and Elkton.
In some towns, the most suitable place for dancing was the high school auditorium. One drawback of such an arrangement was having to share the facility with other activities, especially during the basketball tournament season. Military armories also served double duty as dancing spots, as in Madison, Edgemont, and Brookings. During World War II, dances for military personnel were held at the Pierre Army Air Base as well as the city auditorium, and Rapid City Airfield had its own dance band. In the Cold War years when Rapid City Air Force Base (now Ellsworth Air Force Base) was a key military installation, civilian dance bands were there for extended engagements.
At Buffalo, the importance of a place to dance took center stage in 1944, when restaurant operator Ward J. French and barber Harry Ellis decided the town needed more entertainment opportunities for area ranchers. The two men bought a floor that had been used for street dances and convinced a lumber firm in Belle Fourche to donate materials for constructing a dance hall. Fred Lagerman, a local carpenter, agreed to build the stricture adjoining the French's restaurant and Ellis's barber shot in return for a few years worth of meals. A dance on Labor Day inaugurated the new hall where monthly dances drew crowns from a fifty to seventy-five-mile radius. The year firemen's ball, plus anniversary and wedding dances quickly became part of the Buffalo Pavilion routine. Other dances, sometimes impromptu and set to segs from a jukebox, marked the departure and return of local men serving in World War II. Roller skating became another popular activity at the pavilion, which, for a time, also hosted Saturday matinee movies.
The prospect of spending an evening at a dance brighter the lives of many people, although for teenagers and young adults feeling of anxiety punctuated the anticipation. Robert Raymond attended dances at Mission and White River from 1946 to 1955 when he was between fifteen and twenty-four years of age. "Toward the end of the week," he remembered, "I would start becoming very nervous about the upcoming dance. Where would I beg, borrow or earn the admission fee? If the dance was in White River where I could get a ride?" On Saturday while waiting for his bath wat to heat, Raymond would shine his booth "with Shinola shoe polish and lay out my best pants and shirt." After bathing in a galvanized tub, he would "slick down my hair with Vasoline hair oil and be ready for the dance."
One standard feature of dances was the "stag line"— a spot where young meant in search of dancing partners congregated. "I usually stood with a group of peers," Ramond recalled, "and when the music started we would immediately move out to ask one of the girls to dance. You had to have two or three as targets incase someone beat you to your first choice .... Working up your guts to go ask a particular girls/s/ to dance was always a major problem for us young stags. Actually, the girls in my peer group were very nice and I don't recall any of us guys being refused." While the socializing at dances might lead to courtship, a young person who came with a date was not obligated to dance every number with that individual. "If we went with a dace," recalled Jo Harman, who attended high school in Gregory at midcentury, "we certainly danced the first dance with him and probably some in between, and when the refrain of Goodnight Sweetheart, or Goodnight Ladies begin you found our date to finish the evening with."
Jan Rasmussen remembered a family-oriented atmosphere at the American Legion dances she attended in White River, which drew crowds from as far away as Gregory, Martin, Kadoka, and Pierre. At these gatherings, "seniors kept up their dancing skills, parents could dance and socialize and still keep an eye on teenagers, and kids could leam important social skills—like accepting an invitation to dance even if the guy wasn't one's first choice at the moment." She summed up her experiences, writing, "Where else could one go to a social function with Mom and Dad, meet someone new, fall in love, have fun with friends, and go safely home again with Mom and Dad, all in one night under the same roof?"' In Buffalo, T. J. French recalled, "the entire family came to the dances. The infants slept on the benches that surrounded the dance floor. The little girls would dance with one another and the little boys milled around observing the grown-ups." Everyone wore their best clothes, with the men "in suits, ties, and cowboy boots. The ladies were all in dresses."
Before the era of television and with the Great Depression and World War II, fresh in people's memories, dances offered a measure of glamour and an escape from life's routine. Reflecting upon the dances she attended at Bonesteel, Gregory, Dallas, Colome, and Winner, Hazel Clifford wrote, "Looking back, it almost seems a magical time. Life wasn't easy for any of us; the years were lean but, on Saturday night, we could forget as we danced the hours away!" Jo Harman, who lived in the same area, remembered the "first time we walked into the Dallas auditorium & a Big Band had come to town—we thought we had died & gone to heaven." Vivid in Jan Rasmussen's childhood memories of dances at White River were "the shiny music stands and gorgeous suits of the musicians. They set a tone of sophistication we didn't see elsewhere."
Dances, punctuated by an intermission, typically ran from nine or ten o'clock at night to one or two o'clock in the morning. An especially lively evening might lead to an extended dance unless the band was under a union contract or had another commitment at a distant point the next night. At the Buffalo Pavilion, where dancers could snack on coffee and sandwiches for twenty-five or thirty-five cents, "the patrons would often pass the hat to induce the band to continue and it was not uncommon for dances to last until sunrise."
Given the mix of individuals and the atmosphere of excitement, behavior could be a problem, although it was not usually serious enough to be reported in the press. Even so, the publicity heralding one American
Legion dance at Martin assured the community that "Legion dances are well-policed and good order is assured." Jan Rasmussen recalled that the entrance to the White River school gym, where American Legion dances were held, served as a place for "winnowing out the occasional errant drunk." Most drinking at dances probably occurred in parking lots. According to Donna Ratemian, who remarked on the orderliness of Legion dances at Fairfax, "It was considered very daring to 'spike a coke' in someone's car."
At the Mission and White River Legion dances, "public drunkenness was not socially acceptable," but alcohol consumption sometimes led to fights outside the dance hall, "usually between young swains over the attentions of some gal," Robert Raymond noted. Even though dances at Buffalo Pavilion were family events, T.J. French remembered them as "raucous affairs" where men typically brought alcohol to share with their friends. "the beer and whiskey rekindled old animosities and nearly every dance would have at least one skirmish. Most of these battles were mainly pushing and shoving matches with an occasional missed swing."
Of course, the volatile combination of alcohol and dances was not a new phenomenon in the 1940s and 1950s. After an especially bad episode involving liquor and a weapon at the White Place Pavilion east of Pierre in 1928, Hughes County commissioners closed that establishment and another rural dance hall, the Grey Goose. A short time later, a mixture of alcohol with what the Murdo newspaper called "a bunch of rowdies from Pierre" created a bad situation at a dance at Van Metre, in Jones County. In the fall of 1936, there as more trouble at a dance at that location when "two bipeds carrying more liquor that sense, started a fracas without having decency thought to go out of doors. Neither [of the} combatants got his just deserts, no did people in the crowd," reported the Pierre Daily Capital Journal.
In June 1944, the Dupree West River Progress published the names of two men who had been jailed and fined for drunkenness at a dance. A year later, five Dupree citizens complained that liquor-law enforcement was practically nil and called upon the town board to order liquor stores to close at nine o'clock on dance nights. They also asked that the American Legion and other dance sponsors provide at least two officers to deal with intoxicated persons.' However, the problems in Dupree apparently continued, prompting Progress editor E. L. Schetnan to issue the following front-page statement: "Owing to the many accide[n]ts following dances, this Newspaper will not mention the holding of any dances. Please don't ask us to announce dances as the request will be rejected." Schetnan must have reconsidered his policy, for within two years his paper was again publishing dance notices.
An exceptional situation developed at Ramona, a village northwest of Madison. There, the school board had long permitted the use of the high-school gym for dances, but by late 1948, some people believed that these events had become too rough. Citizens were divided on the question of continuing dances at the school, and on 31 December, opponents obtained a court order prohibiting the school board from allowing a New Year's Eve dance, This situation led to what the Madison Daily Leader for 3 January 1949 called "a near riot." Given the lateness of the directive, the board did not comply, and its members were fined for contempt of court. When the board subsequently agreed to ban dances at the school, Ramona's American Legion Hall was refurbished for dancing. However divisive the controversy had been, townspeople reunited to donate labor, money, and material for a medical facility that was finished in March 1949. Ironically, a newspaper article announcing this accomplishment noted that more than four hundred dollars had been raised for the cause through a benefit dance.
In a few instances, rowdyism at dances led to tragedy. During a Red Cross benefit dance in February 1942 at Red Scaffold on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, one man struck another with an automobile crank in what may have been an alcohol-fueled dispute. The victim perished from exposure, and his assailant was sentenced to federal prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter. At a June 1955 dance at Karinen near the North Dakota border, two young men got into a fracas and one wrestled the other to the ground. In the process, the man on the bottom suffered a spinal cord injury and died en route to a Minneapolis hospital, Although witnesses said neither man appeared to have been drinking excessively, the role of alcohol in the tragedy was uncertain. A coroner's jury held the death to be accidental, but there were no more dances at Karinen.
With the coming of television to South Dakota in the 1950s, the advent of new tastes in music, and the diversification of leisure activities, ballroom dancing declined. Today, territory bands have all but disappeared, today replaced by smaller groups playing more contemporary music, The shift of population from rural to urban centers undercut the base of support for the myriad of community halls and pavilions that once dotted the state, as well. Yet, as recently as the 1990s, one might still attend dances at the Dallas American Legion Club or the Carlock Ballroom south of Gregory. The Tommy Matthews Orchestra, based in White River, still performed, and the Watertown Big Band played up to ten engagements annually. Orchestra leader Gale Pifer of Madison edited a Society for the Preservation of Big Bands publication, Big Band News. Twice each month during the summer of 2000, dances were held at the Japanese Gardens at Riverside Park in Flandreau.
Aside from the social importance of dancing and its role in fundraising for civic purposes, the process of organizing dances and bringing them to fruition helped to inspire the leadership and promote the cooperation that was basic to community well-being. Organizations sponsored dances, but individuals within these groups came together to handle bookings, finances, advertising, food, and policing, services that were typically unheralded in print. As with other civic activities, these events attest to the voluntary leadership and labor that are timeless essentials in community life. This work and the remembrances of those who flocked to dances in a host of small South Dakota towns are reminders of a vitality that once marked rural life on the northern plains.
South Dakota History is the quarterly journal published by the South Dakota State Historical Society. Membership in the South Dakota State Historical Society includes a subscription to the journal. Members support the Society's important mission of interpreting, preserving and transmitting the unique heritage of South Dakota. Learn more here: https://history.sd.gov/Membership.aspx. Download PDFs of articles from the first 43 years and obtain recent issues of South Dakota History at sdhspress.com/journal.
