Garfield Hall

The Dance Hall that Jim Kirby built on springs.

According to Kirby's great-niece, Gale Betters, Uncle Jim had obtained heavy-duty streetcar springs from Cleveland.  He enjoyed dancing, and "probably built it just to see if it could be done."

Inside Garfield Hall
Photo: Ann Marie Niziolek

The hall does not look unusual from the outside.  The modified floor is not even immediately apparent when first stepping up onto the edge.  This is not like an inflatable bouncy house at a carnival.  Walking across the middle gives a single person just the slightest hint of a quivery step.  But an entire troop of girls skipping, or jumping, or dancing, will have the floor rocking along with them.

When the camp was first opened, Garfield Hall was the dining hall for resident camp.  The bell outside called campers in to supper.  The Girl Scouts later added the screened porch and the back storage portion.

My own story about Garfield Hall

In 1995, when Camp Margaret Bates was suddenly closed, the Bedford service unit had to move their spring camporee from Bates to Crowell.  I'll never forget Nancy Straughter of Lake Erie Council sitting down with me after I had called every possible camp that I could think of and found out that every single one of them had been long booked solid for the third week of May.  She unrolled a large map of the property,and after starting at it for several seconds, got out a pencil and started making marks and talking.  "The Scouting in Schools group don't need all this much space, we can move them all over to Hilaka.  Now let's see if that leaves enough room for you."  By doubling up troops and using every site, we could almost make it.  Only one troop of Brownies was left out.  More staring at the map by Nancy.  "They can stay in Garfield!" she announced suddenly.  "We had to get the bathrooms fixed anyway".  Since I had never before been to Camp Julia Crowell, I did not realize what a major accomodation this was.  I realized it as the troops were coming in on Friday night and the camp manager, Jim Brigham, was still hammering away installing the bathroom walls.  He finished as the first girls were coming in the front door of Garfield. 

It was a great weekend.

The lodge, the dock and the original boathouse

Garfield Hall as seen in a newspaper announcement of the purchase of the camp