(http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad256/waldoegray/2ndbowlingalley.jpg)
First Bowling Alley in Howard and maybe the only one in Elk County
(http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad256/waldoegray/bowlingalley.jpg)
Second Bowling Alley in Howard
Photos from Kansas Memory
I believe the bowling alley was where the Cox Building is now.
Waldo, I think it was down North, just South of where the Rebekah Lodge is now, Across the street East and a little South of where the old Hotel was. I think later the Roller Skating rink was where it was and then Geo Criger's Auction was there in the early 50s. Maybe in the area where Howard Muilenburg had his grocery store.
I may have some old pictures of that area. Also I will ask Glen Miller if I get the chance, Glen is the best source left that I know of.
I was unaware of it when I posted those photos, but one of the photos is in the Elk County history book and the narrative says that an Air Dome was operated by L.F. Roberts on the site of the Cox Building and that facility later became a roller rink while apparently doubling as a movie theater and then was enclosed and became a bowling alley.
Roberts also at one time had a stage show theater on the east side of Wabash in that area that included movie presentations.
I thought Glen Miller was last observed flying over the English Channel?
Is this Glen Miller that fellow that the last I knew he was pretty well into his 90s?
Quote from: W. Gray on February 23, 2012, 04:53:21 PM
I was unaware of it when I posted those photos, but one of the photos is in the Elk County history book and the narrative says that an Air Dome was operated by L.F. Roberts on the site of the Cox Building and that facility later became a roller rink while apparently doubling as a movie theater and then was enclosed and became a bowling alley.
Roberts also at one time had a stage show theater on the east side of Wabash in that area that included movie presentations.
I thought Glen Miller was last observed flying over the English Channel?
Is this Glen Miller that fellow that the last I knew he was pretty well into his 90s?
Waldo, L.F. "Lee" Roberts lived where the Rebekah Lodge Building is now and he had a store just South of there. I think that is where the theater on the east side was. His son, Jess carried on the Furniture Business into the 50s, Jess' Daughter and her husband were traveling actors and put on shows all over the country. Yes Glen is close to 97, the last time I talked to him he still had a wealth of information.
I believe his wife was the same age as he and they were both 93 when I last spoke with them. They both were really alert individuals.
My wife worked for Glen in the late 50s and early 60s , she says he is one of the finest people she ever worked for or with.
So were there 2 bowling alleys - or did the first one simply expand?
And I can't quite read the "spit" sign - does it say Gentlemen will spit on the floor?
It says " No Gentleman will spit on the floor ". Hopefully all the men were gentlemen.
Thanks! :)
Dont know about whether there were two different bowling alleys. I got the opinion that the two lanes had been expanded to three and moved over a little to provide room for spectators. The windows on the left of each picture seem to be the same treatment.
The writing on the second alley says "Cool in the summer, warm in the winter" suggesting, perhaps, air conditioning.
The writing also says "Real factory made alleys." The Elk County history book said that Roberts was quite skilled so he must have laid the first alleys and thought the factory made were better.
Because of some of the other threads that are so active now talking about the down fall of so many of the little towns, does anyone know why these places closed? lowered interest? loss of population? or what? Did anyone try to save them or was their loss just accepted?
I don't remember the bowling alley. I do remember shooting pool with Johnny Cooley and I think the pool hall was close to the dry cleaning shop run by my aunt and uncle. But, then again, memories fade over the years.
Larryj
Maybe Frank can help out, but I remember going into a pool hall with my Uncle Johnnie Miller that was on Adams Street across from the phone company in one of those two buildings that are now part of the Benson Museum.
I also recall going into a pool hall with my granddad on South Wabash about where the flea market is now.
The only two pool halls I remember is the one on the East side just south of the First national Bank, it is the oldest one, and was there in the late 40s . There was another one, for a short time, on the West side of the street, I believe it was where the Library is now.
But why did they close?
And when?
I am thinking pin boys hand reset the pins one at a time on these alleys--or maybe customers had to reset their own.
It is done electrically and automatically today without human interaction.
I can recall when it was done semi-automatically. A pin boy jumped upon a dividing wall between the alleys to get out of the way when the ball came flying down the alley. He then jumped back down and then put all the pins in a machine contraption that was pulled from above down to about knee level. He lowered the machine by hand to the alley floor releasing a lever setting down all ten pins at once in their proper place. The machine was then manually raised out of the way and he jumped back on the dividing wall.
In school, I wanted to be a pin boy to make some money but so did every other male kid around. I had to settle for working in a grocery store beginning as a pop bottle sorter (for returns) and bagger at $1 per hour, which actually turned out to be higher than usual wage.
I think my aunt was bowling in Sedan as late as 1990.
I dont know where their alley was located.
I was a pin boy in another town in another state when I was in high school. I well remember jumping up on the wall and then jumping down to reset the pins. It got a little scary sometimes because pins would go flying everywhere. I never got hit by one, but you sure had to pay attention. Then there were the arguments from the bowlers when they felt you reset their second shot incorrectly.
It was hard to convince them that the rack came down on the pins left standing and that was that. Sometimes though, the rack would knock over a pin and you had to remember where it was at originally. I think that was a very temporary job or maybe I was covering for somebody else, I don't know.
Larryj
Larry J,
As I recall watching the pinboys, it seemed that the pin resetting work was physically demanding amplified by having to continually jump up and down on that wall. And the heavy ball had to be returned also.
The automatic pin setters came out in 1946 or thereabouts and I think by the beginning of the 60s the pin boys were essentially eliminated at least in the KC area. It could have been earlier, though.
Maybe you lost your job to automation?
A real estate advertisement on the web shows that an 8-lane bowling alley is for sale at $120,000 in Sedan.
The advertisement says that all equipment is in working order and ready to open, indicating a now closed facility.
Well, this town was small, but bigger than Howard. The bowling balls were set on a ramp next to the alley and rolled back. Sometimes, the ball didn't quite make it all the way back and the bowler had to walk up and retrieve it. The town did build a new bowling alley complete with automatic pinsetters, but I am pretty sure I was not doing pin setting anymore at that time. I had moved on to my new job earning $.90 an hour working at a Conoco station, changing oil, grease jobs, car washes and pumping gas in my spiffy new uniform with the green cap with the Conoco logo on it. I remember some of the farmers bringing in their pickups with a inch of mud and dirt on the floorboards (no carpeting in those days) and I had to clean all the mud out, both inside and outside their trucks. That was in 1961-62. The other guy working there, besides the boss, was a 70 year-old man named Harry. Occasionally, we would get a semi-tractor from one of the local trucking companies for an oil change. Nasty job, but it was Harry's job. It took all day and he was absoluety filthy when it was done. I never did that job.
Another story about Harry: I couldn't drink the water there, too hard, so I drank a lot of colas. Harry used to admonish me about drinking so many colas. He would tell me they were going to rot my stomach. One day the boss told me that a crew from Conoco was coming out to tear a hole in the parking area to fix one of the underground gas tanks. I was going to open that morning. The night before that was going to happen, just when Harry was leaving, he was on my case about the colas. I told him to follow me out to the parking area and I poured a Pepsi on the ground. The next morning, the crew came and did their thing, but left a big hole which would be patched later. Around noon, Harry came to work, and looked at the hole, right where I had poured the Pepsi. I thought he was going to have a stroke!
Larryj
I usually wash my car at the 25 cent car wash each time I come to Howard.
One of the things I dont like about car washing in Howard is the amount of mud left on the stall floor that comes from the farmers and others who constantly travel the county roads. I have the same problem when I decide to take a tour of the back roads.
I cant seem to time my trips to the area just after someone cleans the floor. The outside stall is for bigger vehicles and is muddier. I learned not to use it if the other one is busy.
Apparently, when the floor is cleaned the mud is piled in the back of the facility. The little hill there got almost head high at one point. I noticed on my last trip that the hill had been reduced. Someone must have needed some dirt for a project somewhere.
One other note: when those 25 cent car washes first came out, maybe in the late 50s where I was at, it actually cost 25 cents to wash a car. Prior to the coin washes, one had to settle on a pull through wash that cost quite a bit more, I am thinking 75 cents.
Larry,
I was with an uncle and we were standing inside one of the filling stations on the east side of K-99 in Howard one nice day. It had to be sometime between 1947 and 1950.
A guy came riding into the station on one of those Vespa motor scooters from Italy. They were the rage around that time because they did not use much gasoline. The attendant went out to provide the service, and the guy asked for five cents worth of gas.
Yeah, I had similar experiences. I seem to remember gas was going for $.19 to $.22 a gallon. When we would go "cruising," we would stop and get a dollars worth of gas. The cars we drove got about 10 miles to the gallon. So at, say, $.20 a gallon = five gallons = 50 miles. Our cruising in this small town would be like driving from Wabash out to Hwy 99 and back many times a night.
My mother and I once drove to Greeley, Colorado, where she was going to summer school for a teacher's certificate. There was a gas war going on in Denver.............price $.14 a gallon.
Larryj
There used to be a very small, perhaps, brass, "STOP" sign at Wabash and Washington in the middle of the street in the middle of the intersection.
The sign was embedded or attached to the brick and stuck up perhaps six or more inches. I cannot recall if there were also yellow stop signs on the intersection corners .
Cruisers in Howard headed north on Wabash and used this small in street sign as a pivot point making a UTurn around it driving south on Wabash to Adams, making another UTurn repeating the process. I don't recall if there was a similar in street stop sign at that intersection.
On cruising night, the sidewalks were loaded with people and parking spaces were at a premium on Wabash. I believe it was Saturday night and it was the late forties or early fifties. To my young eyes, it seemed like the cruising went on for a long time during the evening but I doubt it.
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Another view of the Roberts Bowling Alley showing spectator seating and pool tables.