Posted: Thursday, April 3, 2014 9:08 am | Updated: 9:27 am, Thu Apr 3, 2014.

Evan Bell

History buffs have reason to dance

Note: This story appeared in the “On the Rise” section with the March 28 edition of the Free Lance.

What is old is also new, at least in San Benito County.

On a recent rainy day in February, the Free Lance took in a little piece of history at the San Benito Historical Society at Tres Pinos.

“As a small town, with 149 nonprofit organizations, we don’t have a gathering place,” said Gary Byrne, the executive director of the Community Foundation for San Benito County.

The reason for that is because Dunneville Dance Hall, which once hosted nonprofits, fell down after it was struck by lightning on New Year’s Day in 2006.

“For a long time, this was just a slab,” said Byrne about the dance hall.

Don Pidd, the caretaker of the Historical Park, said he hopes the newly rebuilt dance hall will last “100 years” like the last one did.

The original dance hall was built in Hollister in 1890. After many years of renovation and different ownership, the building was moved to the historical park in 1992.

Pidd hopes to have the hall finished by May. The building is being constructed by trainees at the Center for Employment Training, or CET, in Gilroy, who come out once or twice a week to do electrical and dry wall.

“When the building originally fell down, nobody thought of saving the building,” he said.

But eight years later, it has been saved and is expected to accept nonprofits into its wings soon, Byrne said.

“They can’t wait,” he said.

At more than 2,000 square feet, the hall is expected to host about 100 guests for nonprofits, Byrne said. It is “ideal” for medium-sized nonprofits, he said.

“Particularly with the smaller nonprofits, it’s hard to come by (fees for renting out places),” he said. “We believe this is going to be an asset to the community.”

Byrne, who has headed the Community Foundation since 2002, said he hopes the historical park and the history of San Benito County become required knowledge for students in the county.

“Kids are all futuristic,” he said. “They can see how people used to live.”

He said the historical park allows residents to revisit the past and can still serve a purpose for the community.

“You’ve got to think big,” he said.

Foundation seeks to keep funds local

He has been thinking big for a long time, and so has the Community Foundation. Its main hub was started more than 100 years ago in California, he said in a recent interview, before the tour of the historical park.

“Our big dream is to keep as many dollars in San Benito County as possible,” he said. “What makes Community Foundation different from any other nonprofit is to serve our donors.”

He said the people of San Benito County are generous and constantly give back.

The same goes with efforts to maintain the historical park and rebuild the dance hall – efforts that came to fruition in 2012, when the park held a “Heritage Wall” fundraiser to bring in much-needed dollars, exceeding $10,000 at the time. The Community Foundation kicked in a final grant to the park in December of that year for $25,000 to rebuild the dance hall.

The “Heritage Wall” places names of historical residents of the county on a plaque that will go inside the dance hall once completed.

When the dance hall is done, it will resemble the old hall, they said.

The rebuilt dance hall at the outset will lack some modern amenities such as electricity.

“Getting power out here is something we need to raise money for,” Pidd said.

Still, once the building is finished, many nonprofits – along with private groups and wedding parties – can use the facility and continue the tradition of the dance hall as a premiere event-throwing place for the county.

“A lot of people in our older community – when they see something permanent, appreciate it,” said Byrne.

Pidd agreed, saying the buildings have “significance” to the older population.

“If we can get old artifacts in the corners of the dance hall, that would make a difference,” Byrne said. “There’s not many of these old buildings left.”

Across from the dance hall is an old bar known as the Cottage Bar. It was constructed in the county in 1896 as a two-story structure but burned down in 1906. It was rebuilt as a one-story building.

It was originally built in downtown Hollister on Fifth Street. As a bar for most of its existence, it stopped serving alcohol in 1920 during Prohibition. It went back to its roots in the 1930s and, in 1956, the property was sold to Ray Dassel and was converted to an office for the owner’s propane business. It was later donated to the park by the Dassels in 1995.

Without the funds raised for “Heritage Wall” and other funds, the historical park would not be able to do what it does, said Pidd.

“We started this campaign to raise matching funds for the Community Foundation grants,” he said.

He hopes more families who are native to the county start contributing to the wall in order to preserve some of San Benito County’s history. The campaign includes reaching out to old families from the area.

“We tend to be Euro-centric,” he said. “We want to start expanding that.”

Much like the dance hall, the historical society works to save history before it’s destroyed forever, he said.

“They thought we lost it forever,” Pidd said.

If the historical society has its way, the quaint and fascinating history of San Benito County and its residents will not be going away anytime soon, and neither will the Dunneville Dance Hall.