For one thing, I can’t recall the last time I saw square dancers in a shopping plaza parking lot.
Rich’s department store, long gone, is now home to Kohls. And across the parking lot, HomeGoods is set to open on Sunday, Sept. 23. That building wasn’t even there yet! Of course, you can find more Upper Valley throwbacks at the #valleynewsthrowback hashtag on the @vnewsuv Instagram.
The Twin State Squares gathered at the West Lebanon Shopping Center on election night — Sept. 10, 1974 — to offer a little entertainment to shoppers and promote their “fun night” at the Hartford School Annex. For square dance enthusiasts, “Chub” Smith will be the caller. (Valley News – Larry McDonald) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com.
This is so great
Rich’s was still there when we moved to the UV in 1987, and in a few years Ames — or as the natives pronouned it, Ames’s — took over. I think Penney’s is the only store left from our early years. We still miss the following sign at the main intersection leading into the plaza: “Entran-A-ce” …
Before Penney’s it was W.T. Grant’s.
I would love to see a picture of the plaza when the triple cinemas were there and The Music Shop was next door to it. We used to shop Rich’s a lot. Great memories of going to the plaza on Friday or Saturday nights.
And before the interstates, plazas, or super stores there were beautiful corn fields both sides of Rte 12A.
Many of us danced “Round and square dance” to Woody and the Ramblers, a local band playing at dances over a broad area around the Upper Valley long before the towns were lumped together. Before that dance lovers gathered weekly at places like the second floor dance hall over a general store in the apartment block by the park in North Hartland to dance to Lynne Cady and his band from the Rutland/Bridgewater area. Does anyone remember Marshall’s Cabins in Hartland, Roseland Ballroom in Claremont, or the other dance centers of the forties and fifties? And did you ever watch the ceiling rise and fall from the general store below in North Hartland as the dance floor bounced up and down to the moves of square dancers overhead?