"I quit after a couple of years because as much as I enjoyed working there, it was more fun to be able to come with a boyfriend and dance on the week-ends." She worked for the Way family who at the time lived on the property. Joyce Spring emailed to say she once sold tickets at The Highlands dance club for about two years in the early 1940s. They also owned the Highlands on the far side of the causeway at Long Point (on Lake Erie)."
I went to Manchester School (in Galt) with their son, Billy. "The Highlands at that time was owned by the Way family. You brought your own and they sold you the mix," he said. Phil Hankins of Cambridge emailed to say he and his wife used to "dance the night away" at The Highlands during New Year's Eve parties in the 1960s. It was their loss because I was a good dancer, having learned at our one-room school (Clearview) on Pinebush Road when they held community functions." I was not cool, so I didn't get many dances. "The pretty girls danced with the cool athletic guys. "We danced to The Highlanders," she said.Ĭarl Dahmer of Cambridge sent a note saying he went to after-school dances at The Highlands as a Galt Collegiate student in the 1950s and remembers that it was a huge building with very high ceilings. Events such as the Junior Prom and the annual Snow Ball were often held there.Įleanor Mason of Guelph said she and her husband, Reginald, had their first date at The Highlands in the fall of 1951, then returned for an engagement dinner on March 7, 1962. In the 1950s The Highlands lower level was a regular venue for events attended by students at Waterloo College, a forerunner of today's Wilfrid Laurier University. "We would go down those gorgeous stairs with our gowns on. She was a small child then and doesn't know the details, but said she believes "Hal Davis" was simply a name that her uncle invented because it sounded better than using his own name.įinley said she was thrilled years later when she got invited to gala dances the local Beta Sigma Phi sorority held at The Highlands.
Wanda Finley, a former Guelph resident who now lives at Cawaja Beach on Georgian Bay, phoned to say her late uncle Bill Henshall was the leader of this band in this band, going back to the late 1930s. One number he believes he performed was You're All I Want For Christmas, a tune that Bing Crosby recorded.īefore The Highlanders formed, the house band at the nightclub was the Hal Davis Band. On occasion, Smith said, he got up and sang. You paid $1 to get in and you could get up and sing or play a musical instrument. When he was older, Smith said, he sometimes went to The Highlands to attend the Sunday amateur nights in the 1940s. "They had badminton courts then and he would bring the used birdies home. He phoned to say that his father, William, was a custodian at the The Highlands in that decade. Now 75, Hamilton today heads The Twilites, a Guelph-based dance band started by the late Bob Jeans in 1987.ĭon Smith of Guelph grew up in Preston (also now part of Cambridge) in the 1930s. "That's the one thing you had to watch out for when you were dancing there, that you didn't run into one of those posts," remembers John Hamilton, who phoned to say he was a member of The Highlanders, house band at The Highlands, which performed there regularly in the 1950s and 1960s under band leader Bill Howcroft of Guelph. When the badminton courts were also put to use as a dance floor in the 1930s, the posts that held the nets were still there in the floor. Readers provided information that helps to provide a partial history of the building, which began as the home of the Highlands Badminton Club, probably in the late 1920s. Much changed in recent years, the old Highlands building, a two-level site on a slope leading down to the Grand River, is now part of an office development at 614 Coronation Blvd., just south of Cambridge Memorial Hospital. Last week's "mystery" photo is a rare 1941 picture of the popular nightspot that turned up in a search of the Online Cambridge Archives, a research portal administered by the City of Cambridge. Mark a special date with a loved one.Īt some point in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s area residents were likely to do any or all of the above at The Highlands dance hall in the north end of Galt, now part of Cambridge.
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