This early photo shows the Central Emporium dance hall with its walkway shortly after the turn of the century. Zoom in and note the Arnolds Park train station to the right. Not long after this, a hotel was built on the grassy area in the foreground.
For over 100 years, the building has over looked West Okoboji. People have danced and dined, loved and laughed, thrived and thieved there. In the 1900s, there were seven ballrooms in the Iowa Great Lakes. On West Okoboji there were five: Manhattan Beach, Roof Gardens, The Inn, The Casino and The Central Emporium, then known as the Central Pavilion. Big Spirit Lake was home to the Orleans Hotel and on East Okoboji the Wigwam was outdoors at Brook’s Beach. The Walker family from Charles City built the Central Emporium in 1901, calling it the Central Pavilion. It was built on the bank of West Okoboji, behind the Okoboji Hotel, owned by the Milwaukee Railroad.
In 1910, Adolf Becker bought the Central Pavilion from the Walker family. On Aug. 5, 1911, the Okoboji Hotel burned to the ground. Becker traded Canadian wheat land to purchase the land where the Okoboji Hotel once stood. In its place, he built an ice cream parlor. In order to pursue his vision of expanding the Central Pavilion to its current size, Becker moved the ice cream parlor in 1926. With the new expansion complete, Becker renamed it the Central Ballroom Nite Club. The ballroom was a grand place. It gave people the opportunity to get dressed up and dance until dawn. During the 1920s, some of the biggest names in the country were featured at the ballroom. Count Basie, the Dorseys, Woody Herman, Louie Armstrong, and Glenn Miller were entertainers at the Central Ballroom during the “dime-a-dance era.” Lawrence Welk even pitched his tent in the backyard of Becker’s home just down the street from the ballroom. Becker owned the Central Ballroom until the late 1960s. His children were not interested in taking over the business so the building sat empty.
In 1967, Okoboji native Wayne Eves bought the building and used it as boat storage for his marina. During this time, there were renovations of old buildings all across the area. Wayne Eves’ son, Bob Eves decided he wanted to preserve the history of the Central Ballroom. In 1971, Bob bought the building from his father and started the remodeling project. Bob Eves renamed the building the Central Emporium and began leasing out space for stores. He started with only 3-5 businesses including The Diver’s Den, the Outrigger and a jewelry store.
Today the Central Emporium still stands in Arnolds Park, and is a source for entertainment for visitors and residents of Okoboji. It is home to 2 restaurants and several retail stores spanning 2 levels of space overlooking West Lake Okoboji.
Click here to learn more about today’s Central Emporium.
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VIEWS ALMOST A CENTURY APART
About 1924, local photographer L.F. Williamz hopped into a Donaldson brothers airplane to photograph area sights. We’re particularly fond of this view of Arnolds Park he captured. Compared with today, there are no condos, and way, way more mature trees.
At the bottom, you can see the Central Ballroom in its heyday. It extended from the lakefront to about halfway up the steep bank, and you arrived there by walking over a long elevated walkway. The square building in front is an ice cream parlor, built a year or two after the Milwaukee Hotel/Okoboji Hotel burned in 1911.
A short distance away is the Arnolds Park depot and the railroad siding. If you look closely, you can see a hack or trailer pulled up to the right side, waiting to transport vacationer luggage to local hotels. On the siding are some rail cars, and on the left side, it looks like a small locomotive with its tender.
Just up the hill from the cars are some shops that included a laundry—important for travelers coming to the area in sooty steam locomotives—and a fish market. That horse-shoe drive next door led to some vacation cottages owned by A. F. Becker, who also owned the Central Ballroom.
Take a close look at the Broadway street buildings to see what you recognize: The bank on the corner became Captain’s Getaway, with the large white Lake Hotel replaced now by the Captain’s performance space. Going up Broadway, we can see buildings that became Portside and Nautical, but in 1924, one was the Star Theatre.
Where the parking lot is today, there was a garage, complete with shade tree in front. The building attached to the rear became the American Legion post. Up the street is the old Arnolds Park school, and at the top the old Friends Church, destroyed by fire in 1951.
Regardless, take a look at the S-curve in front of the Chaplin Hotel/Hilltop Lounge building (next to current Wine Bar building) and try not to fall in love with how dangerous an uncontrolled dirt road railroad crossing must have been.
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Images
(The 1924 view)
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(The same view today, thanks to Apple Maps)
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(The Central Ballroom, with its many windows to capture lake breezes. A long elevated walkway brought dancers from the nearby train station to the dancehall, perhaps grabbing an ice cream or soda out front or between dances.)
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(A closeup of the Milwaukee station and siding. Imagine how many vacationers came and left from this station since 1883!)
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(Compared with today’s view, many of these building (roofs, at least) look familiar. On the right were a rooming house/hotel, Star diner, and other buildings that showed Arnolds Park was a full-fledged small city. We’re still trying to figure out what was in the two buildings immediately behind the bank/Captain’s getaway, across form the Post office/Throwing Post.)
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(This closeup shows the old Friends Church on the corner–notice the steady stream of automobiles making the turn on to Broadway. The old Arnolds Park school was on the corner, set back from the highway.)
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(Depending on who you talk with, the dirt road S-turn down to the park was a joy or a cause for concern in the days before controlled rail crossings.)
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