Northwest
Dance & Music Venues
Seven
Cedars
Riverside
Drive
Mount
Vernon, Washington
The
Seven Cedars was once a dairy barn, then later a roller rink before
becoming
a dance hall.
Some
of the bands that rocked this place during those great years of
Northwest
music were:
The
Bluenotes
Stan
Boreson
Connie
Francis
The
Drastics
The
Dynamics
The
Esquires
The
Everly Brothers
Exotics
The
Fleetwoods
The
Frantics
Harry
Lindbeck and His Orchestra
Lawrence
Welk & His Orchestra
Les
Brown Orchestra
Louie
Armstrong
The
Mystics
The
Night People
The
Swags
Bobby
Vinton
The
Wailers
Others ?
The
Night People at the Seven Cedars
Photo
Courtesy of Bob Christensen
|
The
Demise of the Seven Cedars - Newspaper photos courtesy of Linda
Heide
Photo
By: Walter Jackson
|
I have
two
older sisters, one graduated in 58, one in 61, and I graduated in 65.
Seven
Cedars, "The Stumps" affectionately referred to the place we, during
our
high school years, looked forward to every weekend. The music has been
unparalleled to this day.
I was at the
dance
the night it burned. We were having a wonderful time and all of sudden
smoke started rolling onto the dance floor at the edges where the walls
and floor meet. Everyone knew immediately what was happening and all
exited
without panic. We had been through a million fire drills at school, so
even though I knew my purse and coat were checked, I would not even ask
to retrieve it. We exited quickly, without much conversation, and
within
minutes it was engulfed by a blaze of flames. Words couldn't at that
time
and still don't fit what a loss we felt then and realize today. You can
move the bands and the kids, but you could never come up with the
ambiance
and connection that young people responded to at that rockin dance
floor
with the best dance music this state has ever seen. What I
realize
now, and didn't then, what lucky young people we were to have access to
live music every week in a safe place set aside for them, monitored by
caring adults. Not so today.
Thank you to
all
who were instrumental in contributing to the best of times in my and so
many of my peers' memories.
Cheryl
Palmer,
December 2002
Anacortes, WA
The Dynamics
were
on stage the night the Seven Cedars burned down.
Ken
Raby, September 2003
I used to work
at
and dance at the Seven Cedars teenage record hops in the late 1950's
which
was located on Riverside Drive.
Harry Lindbeck
and
his orchestra started holding dances at the Seven Cedars on October 7,
1944. Jim Nelly, a native of Tacoma, WA and a disc jockey at KBRC
radio 1430 on the dial in Mount Vernon started the record hops,
probably
in 1958, that were held on Friday nights. Admission was just $1.00 per
person. The stumps burned at 8:45 PM on Saturday, September 21,
1963
and Randy Craig was the manager of the Saturday teenage dances and I
suspect,
but have not verified, that he worked for Northwest Rock 'N' Roll
legend
Pat O'Day.
Two local bands
that
performed here were the Esquires from LaConner and the Maddy Brothers
from
Snohomish (www.maddybrothers.com).
There were other Northwest bands, but I have to verify them. Of
course
Barbara, Gary and Gretchen, The Fleetwoods, performed there just as
Come
Softly To Me was breaking nationally. The Diamonds, Gene Vincent,
Carl Dobkins Jr, Randy Sparks and Bobby Darin all performed at the
Seven
Cedars.
There was
another
dance hall in Skagit County, four miles North of Burlington, on old
Highway
99 just North of the Samish River named the Holiday Ballroom. The
Holiday was also destroyed by a fire. Vancouver, B.C. disc jockey
Red Robinson from CKWX 1130 held several teenage hops at the Holiday
with
such acts as Ritchie Valens and Robin Luke. My Senior Ball was
held
there (Mount Vernon High School Class of 1960).
Larry
Mowrer,
May 2005
I fondly remember
attending
my one and only dance at Seven Cedars. I had turned 13 and I had
asked my father numerous times if I could go to the dances there and
his
answer was always “no”. I guess he wasn’t sure of the type of
people
that attended the dances. I gave up asking him until the day I
found
out that Bobby Vinton was going to appear there. I asked him once
again and he said, “Do you really think that you should go”. I
said
“yes”. He let me go. I was shy and naïve and I remember
waiting anxiously for Bobby to appear while in the interim I was being
chased around the dance floor by one guy who I really didn’t want to
dance
with. I took a piece of paper with me, so that I could get Bobby
Vinton to sign it. He came on stage and sang a couple of songs;
“Roses
Are Red” was the one I wanted to hear. After his appearance he
came
down into the crowd and I handed him my piece of paper for a signature,
but he took out his photo instead and signed it for me. That was
my one and only experience with Seven Cedars and apparently the only
one
that I needed as I never went back. Aren’t memories
terrific?
Nancy E.
Stapleton,
June 2006
My
Grandfather
was the Fire Chief for the City of Mount Vernon the night the Seven
Cedars
burned. My Father was a teenager then and was at the Fire Hall to
help make sandwiches and such during the fire.
While my Father
was
helping at the Fire Hall one of the Fireman asked my Father if he had
ever
driven a fire truck and before he could answer my Father was sitting in
the drivers seat of the last pumper not at the scene and was told to
head
there. 37 years later my Father retired as the Fire Chief for the
City of Mount Vernon. My Grandfather served for over 35 years and
retired as Fire Chief also.
Another
interesting
fact is that my Mother's Mother (my Grandmother) was the punch lady
that
night and was the first to alert the management that she smelled
smoke.
One of your other writers mentioned that the smoke was coming from the
edges of the floor when in actuality the fire and smoke was coming
through
the floor registers and as it was an old WOOD barn it went up
quick.
The weird thing is my Mother and Father did not meet until 4-5 years
later.
We still have
the
original newspaper clippings of the fire.
The 7 Cedars
stood
where the Safeway is now in Mount Vernon as it was all farmland then.
Joel H.
Hofstad,
June 2007
This really brings
back
memories. I went to Seven Cedars many times in the late Forties
as
well as Homers Barn, and places I have forgotten the names of in Lake
Stevens
and Stanwood.
Ken Rogers,
January
2008
I was at The
Stumps
every Saturday night from around 1953, then the Army from 56 to 60 or
so.
Stan Boreson and Harry Lindbeck had the band there with Herb Benthene
on
the clarinet. Herb's daughter Cheryl has been been with the
Manhatten
Transfer for many years.
I would give
about
anything have one of those nights back. Hell even sitting in my '28
Buick
or '36 Ford drinking cheap whiskey in the parking lot would be a doer.
How about a 7
Cedars
reunion or are we all too old?
Jerry
Esterly,
March 2010
In
1963 the “Exotics” were playing at the Seven
Cedars in Mt. Vernon! We started playing at 8 PM and around 8:30
I smelled smoke. We had a few roadies, friends, in the audience
and
I asked one to check out the restrooms to see if someone had set a
trashcan
on fire! He came back and said no!
As we started
the
next song, the smoke became more intense and we started to panic.
All of a sudden a wisp of fire shot up out of the center of the dance
floor.
The audience came up and grabbed our amps, guitars and our instruments
and PA system. Walt and I were the last two out carrying his
portable
electric piano. When I started breathing fresh air again I saw my
new, well new to me, 56 Mercedes 260S sedan, parked head in by the
door.
Mercedes Benz had a key for the Front doors, the Parking brake, the
glove
box, the gas cap, the trunk and the ignition. Since I had just
purchased
the car, I didn’t know which key opened the door. Three or four
firemen
picked up the back of the car and pulled it backward to a safe place
for
me to find the right key!
Jim Day,
March
2010
Recently
we attended a birthday party at the Edison Inn/Tavern and one of the
attendees
came up to me and mentioned she had my autograph in her book. She
had been working at the Cedars (Seven Cedars) the night we performed
Come
Softly To Me. I thought that place was the neatest place we ever
sang, bar none.
Her bringing up
the
Cedars aroused my curiosity and had to Google to find what was on the
internet
about it.
We moved up to
Anacortes
from Olympia in 1964 and I started working as a casual longshoreman
eventually
making it into the union and am now retired. My wife Jenifer
worked
as the assistant finance director for the City of Anacortes and is also
retired. We now live in Bayview. Her uncle Charlie Townsend
built the Guemes Island Fishing Resort back in the 40's. She and
her family used to vacation there regularly.
I still perform
occasionally
with two women who are not the originals but sound just as good and
look
even better. My web site is www.thefleetwoods.us
Gary Troxel,
The
Fleetwoods, July 2010
If
you have corrections, a neat photo or more information, please send it
to:
Credits:
Bob Christensen, Linda Heide, Dennis DeWitt, Cheryl Palmer, Danny
Holiday,
Ron Roe, Ken Raby, Larry Mowrer, Nancy Stapleton, Joel Hofstad, Dorothy
Matia, Ken Rogers, Ted Vanderford, Jerry
Esterly,
Jim Day, Gary Troxel, Bill Englehart
Last
Update: 5 July 2014