Once Upon a Time: Dance pavilions of the Bruce coast

Those were the days — summer breezes off Lake Huron, strolling the beach as swing music wafts from the dance hall, and dancing under the stars.

Beachfront dance pavilions were common at lakeside resort towns starting in the 1920s. In fact, on the Bruce coast, there were seven. The oldest, at Oliphant, was joined by dance halls at Sauble Beach (two), Southampton, Port Elgin, Inverhuron and Kincardine.

William McKenzie built McKenzie's Pavilion at Oliphant in 1921. The dance hall, on the second floor, had lights powered by lead-acid batteries charged from a 32-volt Delco-Light gasoline generator. William's son, Mac, recalled his summer job: sprinkling powdered wax on the floor and taking tickets as couples entered the dance floor—admission to the hall was 10 cents per person plus five cents for every "dance" (two musical numbers). Eventually the pavilion was used only for the annual Civic Holiday Regatta dance, and then became a flea market.

Sauble Beach's original dance hall was Bob Walker's Octagon, built on the beach in 1933. Band leader Wally Scott, together with his brother-in-law. Jack Robertson, bought the Octagon and opened it in 1946 as the Sauble Beach Pavilion. Later, they added an outdoor terrazzo floor so couples could dance under the stars on warm summer evenings. The house band in those years was the “Wally Scott Orchestra.” A regular guest was the “Warren Ovens Band” of Kitchener. 

In 1950 Scott and Robertson replaced the old structure with a bigger dance hall on the same site, retaining the open-air portion. The new layout held up to 2,500 dancers. The Pavilion also hosted bingo, movies and country dances with Don Robertson's “Ranch Boys.” In the ‘60s and ‘70s, rock bands, such as “Crowbar,” kept the Pavilion open but crowds declined to the point that the owners closed down in 1978, demolished the building and retired.

Stewart Wilson opened a second dance pavilion at Sauble Beach, the Danceiro Dance Hall, in 1967. He headlined rock bands, such as the “Calgary Stampeders.” Though Wilson also hired local bands to attract an audience for country music, Danceiro suffered from its location on the highway, far from the beach. It closed in 1972 and the building became an auto body shop.

In 1922, the Knowles family added a dance pavilion to its Breakers Lodge Resort on Southampton beach. It headlined well-known big bands, such as “Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians” and Ferde Mowry's band of Toronto. Southampton resident Margaret Large remembers the summer nights of the 1920s: "The pavilion opened with the music of the Southampton ‘Rayner Dance Band.’ I believe dances were five cents. The Rayners played 'Valencia' at least five times every night. My sister and I would sit on the porch listening to the music as we were too young to go to the dances." The pavilion closed in 1942 and was renovated as guest rooms.

Opened in 1924 on Port Elgin beach, the Cedar Crescent Casino offered dancing six nights per week. The Ferde Mowry band played the Casino in the 1930s. Emmett and Pat McGrath bought the hall in 1944 and made it one of the town's major summertime attractions. Vacationers thronged to see bands led by the Wright Brothers, Ozzie Williams, Brian Farnon, Norm Harris and Bert Worth. From 1950-64, the house band was Lloyd Kibbler's Big Band from Owen Sound.

Moving with the times, the McGraths introduced Twist contests, Go-Go nights and rock bands, such as David Clayton Thomas, Ronnie Hawkins, Robbie Lane, Paupers, Major Hoople's Boarding House and local band Gordon Rhodes and the Swingin' Comets. In 1968, the McGraths retired and sold the pavilion. It burned down two years later. A new pavilion at the same spot lasted about 10 years, only to be condemned as structurally unsafe and demolished.

Built in 1930, the dance hall at Inverhuron beach opened as Casa Nova Gardens. George Scott, bass player in the Tony Cryan band, bought the Gardens in 1948. He catered to the farming community—he hired local bands, which played for both round and square dancing. One of the best callers was Skipper McKinnon. As other forms of entertainment grew, like television and bars, the dance business shrank. The Inverhuron Pavilion closed in 1964 and became an apartment building.

The Kincardine Pavilion opened during the 1923 Old Boys and Girls Reunion. In “Lake Huron's Summer Dance Pavilions,” author Peter Young named some of the bands presented there: Giles Merrymakers, Don Messer, Lionel Thornton, Mart Kenney and his Western Gentlemen, and the bands of John Brenan and Johnny Downs, both of London. Young wrote, "Paper dresses were available for rent if a young woman was wearing shorts at the beach during the day and wished to attend the dance at night."

The Kincardine Pavilion was due for demolition in 2004 but volunteers with the Friends of the Pavilion intervened and restored it to its former glory. Home to the Lighthouse Swing Band, it’s the only dance pavilion left on the Bruce coast.



Dancing at the Kincardine Pavilion; photo courtesy of the Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre, A2017.058.001