Caldwell County MO Archives History .....EARLY COMMUNITY GATHERING PLACES IN HAMILTON 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 4, 2008, 4:16 pm

EARLY COMMUNITY GATHERING PLACES IN HAMILTON
	Narrators:  Taylor Allee, Mrs. C. Prentice and other old timers

     In this subject, it has been necessary to talk to more than a dozen old 
people.  We are not yet satisfied on one point:  Where the people of Hamilton 
gathered for their social and political meetings before 1867 when McAdoo built 
on Main street and had the upper floor for such gatherings.  There was no 
church building here till 1868 and in the fifties and early sixties, church 
services were held in the railroad depot.  It is possible, no one recalls it, 
that other good sized meetings might have been held there too.
     But in the late sixties, there were two places recognized as halls, and 
by seventy, there were four.  First, there was McAdoo's Hall on Main street, 
about where the Vaughan store is.  That had no chairs in the late sixties, and 
the Baptists and the Presbyterians who rented it for church services, had to 
buy enough chairs for their membership.  There was the Whiteley Hall over a 
frame building on Kingston street, opposite the park, afterwards used as the 
Baptist chapel and then the early school.  Bennett Whitely, a very unique 
character, owned the building.  Then was Kelso Hall the third story of the 
Kelso building on north Main on the present site of the Missouri building.  
This was the Masonic Hall, but they rented it for festivals and sociables.  
The McCoy Hall over the Wm. McCoy general store on the corner of south 
Broadway, had some vogue for church services (Campbellite as then called).  It 
was early in the 70s when Anthony Rohrbaugh built the big brick block (now the 
Bram site) on north Main street which gave a splendid two room amusement hall 
on the second floor.  This out rated anything yet seen in Hamilton and 
Rohrbaugh Hall was very popular all through the seventies for meetings of all 
sorts, religious, social, dramatical, and political.  One funeral was held 
there in 1879 that of George Lamson, a very popular man, whose funeral held 
the record for attendance.
     When the Rohrbaugh family sold out 1879, the Anderson Brothers bought the 
block, and the hall became known thru the 80s as Anderson's Opera House.
     The south wall was cracked in the big fire of the middle 80s which burned 
up to the building, but the wall was repaired and the hall still continued to 
house immense crowds for many years.  It now serves as the Masonic Hall.
     For the outdoor entertainment places of Hamilton people thru all these 
years, turn to the narrative on the groves of Caldwell county.
     Interviews  1934.


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