1881: A New Year's Ball at Bastar's Hall

"Be Sociable. Dance the old year out and the new year in," read Bastar's poster announcing an Ahnapee New Year's Ball. William Bastar's 1881 poster did not offer a price including dinner, all one could drink, noisemakers and hats in addition to a room for the evening as many of today's party venues do, but he did invite old settlers, young settlers and everybody else.

Bastar built his hotel on the northeast corner of 4th and Clark Streets in Ahnapee the the late 1860's when Ahnapee was almost a boom town following the Civil War. His building ran east and west. A few years later he added the north-south facing section that many Algoma oldsters best remember as Mauer's Sport Shop. The building remains as the popular Steelhead Saloon.

Bastar's poster welcomed everyone, but whether everyone felt welcome is another story. There was animosity in Ahnapee, particularly fanned by the likes of Judge Boalt who made no secret of his loathing for the lower classes. In Boalt's mind, the lower classes were the immigrants who made up most of Ahnapee, such prejudices he didn't hesitate to bring up in his public speeches. There were any number of celebrations where the Yankees had one party and the Germans and Bohemians another.

On New Year's Eve 1881, music was provided by Bastar's Brass Band, made up of Bohemian-born William and his four sons. The musically talented William Bastar - sometimes written as Barschtor - added much to the community. He and John Sonderegger formed the Ahnapee Liederkranz* in 1871. Beginning with 48 members, the group performed throughout the area. Just a year later, Bastar and Carl Noetzl organized a brass band for boys aged 10 to 16. After raising $150 in subscriptions, Bastar had a ball to raise money for instruments. Feeling a string band was a necessity for dances, Bastar looked for instruments such as violins and flutes in town and brought more instruments with him when he returned from a trip south. (Note: In those days when someone went south, it could have been as far as Kenosha.)  Ahnapee's popular Cornet Band furnished music for all three days of the 1890 county fair.

Music in all forms was popular in Ahnapee. By the 1880's, it was a rare week that passed without a dance, ball or masquerade. Some weeks saw several. One, at the Masonic Hall at the southeast corner of Clark and 3rd, prompted this comment from the Enterprise: "Those Ahnapee folks for wind and bottom can beat the world at dancing and hot weather don't (sic) discourage them a bit."

Just as traveling musical groups attracted hundreds of area folk before 1900, Algoma's summer concert series still does. As for Mr. Bastar, it is Algoma's Community Band that continues to meet his benchmark.

*A Liederkranz is a German all male singing society.

Note: Bastar's ballroom was a popular Algoma spot until sometime into or after Prohibition when it was subdivided into hotel rooms and kept that way for the next 80 or so years. When Scott and Paula Talmadge purchased what was then usually referred to as the Kirchman Hotel, they began an immense restoration. During 2003, the Talmadges invited this blogger and five others to view the renovation in a quest for history. The ballrom was one of Talmadge's "finds." A 90 year old woman whose family had owned the hotel did not remember the ballroom. It ran north and south with windows overlooking 4th Street and to the north. Its arched wooden ceiling still had the medallions from which the gas light hung. A small bandstand/balcony was at the south end of the ballroom. As narrow as it was, the knees of any man seated had to hit the balcony wall. On the back wall there were square dance calls written in pencil. On the knee wall were labels peeled from liquor bottles.

From the band's balcony, one could see something looking like peeling paint in the middle in the otherwise nearly perfect ceiling. Scott wasn't so sure he should point out that the cleverly designed "peeling paint" was actually a conduit for rubber tubing. As he was refurbishing, he climbed above the bandstand/balcony to look above the arched ceiling. Seeing wooden boxes apparently stored helter-skelter near the center of the ceiling, Scott's natural curiosity took over. What he found was a chunk of Prohibition history. The wooden boxes disguised the liquor jugs to anyone other than one brave enough to get on his stomach and inch his way across the that curved ceiling. Once there, circumventing Prohibition was apparent.