Geyser Community Hall prepares

for another 100 years

By VICKY MCCRAY

Judith Basin Press News-Editor

The Geyser Community Hall will soon be as good as new after suffering a major setback last June when three to four inches of rain fell in the area. With its roof still not fixed from the hailstorm of the previous June, the hall suffered major ceiling damage and some floor damage when the roof gathered water and became waterlogged.

Since last summer the Geyser Community Hall Club has worked very hard to gather the funds to fix what needed fixing at the hall. The county’s insurance covered the cost of the exterior work, but the interior work has been paid almost entirely by grants, private donations and anonymous gifts.

People have put in countless hours, some as contracted workers like J & K Construction, and others donating their time, but all with the same goal: making sure the hall is a place the community can be proud of. And proud everyone is! The first party in the new “old” digs was held on New Year’s Eve shortly after the new ceiling and lights had been installed.

Since that time work has been ongoing, with a fresh coat of paint on the walls and a coat of polyurethane for the wood around the windows.  Johnson Madison graciously donated the paint for the hall’s new color.

A major task has been re-sanding the wood floor. Raelene Konzak, Darcy Mapston and Holly Croff put in “a pile of hours,” about 175, on the floor. All of their hard work is well worth it, however, as the floor looks like new.   Interestingly, the wood floor and the Geyser Community Hall have actually been around for quite some time.

The town of Geyser moved from its original site (Old Geyser) when the railroad came through the area in 1908 and missed the town. According to an article written by George McKenna in “Furrows and Trails in Judith Basin,” a history of Judith Basin County, many of the people who settled in the new town of Geyser were natives of Finland. These people realized the necessity of having a meeting place where they could enjoy each other’s company; they also wanted a place for a library. They built themselves a hall and used it for dances and funerals. Eventually they began playing basketball in this hall, but the structure was not conducive to the sport.

McKenna said the group realized they needed a larger area and determined to raise the funds they would need for a new hall. First of all, they formed an association with a seven-member board of directors. Then they began sponsoring dances and other entertainments to raise the needed funds. Eventually, they purchased the old three-story Geyser Hotel from Pat O’Hara’s widow. (O’Hara was the originator of Old Geyser.)

The association knew the hardwood maple floor on the third story of the hotel would work well for basketball and for dancing, McKenna said. They removed the room partitions on this level and made one large room that served them well. In the meantime, they continued to raise funds for a new hall.

The present-day Geyser Community Hall was built by John Livingston, who came to Montana from Boston in 1899. He eventually settled in Geyser, living on the place that John Riley has today.

The association hired Livingston to construct their new hall. The contractor, along with a man named J.P. Heck, had built many other buildings in the area, including the Judith Basin Mercantile building in Hobson, the First National Bank building in Stanford, the Bank of Windham building and the Geyser School.

Bud Olson, a long-time resident of Geyser, said Livingston had also built the Geyser Hotel, the structure that eventually became the community hall.  “Livingston was the designer; he was a contractor, and he built many homes throughout this area,” Olson said. “He was a hard worker and all business.”

Olson was just 11 years old in 1928, but he remembers helping with the community’s hall. The Geyser Hotel originally sat in the space occupied today by the hall. The people who helped Livingston used the hotel’s foundation and all the materials from the hotel.  “They were very careful in taking it apart,” Olson said, “to prevent destroying the lumber. And it was all donated time. Nobody had any money and it was all farmers who kind of pieced [the hall] together in between their farm work. People in town couldn’t take off a whole day.  “I had no hand in dismantling the hotel,” Olson added. “All I did was to help. There were a lot of nails to drive out of the boards and I could do that.” 

The hall has the same dimensions as the hotel, 50 feet wide by 80 feet long. The floor joists are 2 by 12’s and are 16 inches apart.  “Anything that John Livingston made was made strong, not out of cardboard, that’s for sure,” said Olson. “The guys that just got done working on the hall said, ‘If they take care of that roof, that building will still be here a 100 years from now.’”

A gin pole was used to raise the walls of the hall, which were put together with lumber from the hotel, Olson said.  Once the walls were in place, the roof was put on. Olson said the hall’s roof is three feet lower than the hotel’s was and it is rounded. To make the ceiling flat, a drop ceiling was added.

The floor of the hall is all hardwood taken out of the hotel.  “Livingston called it five quarters,” Olson said, “or 1 1/4 inch thick. He laid all of the floor himself with a stiff backsaw and a shingling hatchet. The floor has been sanded now about three times. That’s possible because of the original thickness of the boards.”

In his article, McKenna noted the grand opening of the Geyser Community Hall took place on New Year’s Eve 1928. The Directors hired a Lewistown orchestra, the Stompers, for the occasion. The party was a huge success, with over 600 tickets sold. The cost of the ticket was $1. Dinner was also furnished for 50 cents per plate. The association made enough money to pay for the party and to clear the debts owed on the hall.

Olson recalls the 50th wedding anniversary dance of Mr. and Mrs. Bill Skelton, who moved from Stanford to Geyser in about 1915. Except for a short time in Great Falls, the Skeltons lived in Geyser until Bill died.

Over the years the hall was the center of community activity. Basketball games were played in the hall. In fact, Olson said the main reason for building the hall in the first place was to have a place for the kids to play ball. Ken Meyer of Geyser remembers watching vaudeville shows when he was just a youngster. He also roller-skated in the building.  “My dad was a heck of a good roller skater, too,” he said.

By the early 1950s Geyser residents saw a need to do some maintenance work on the hall. Meyer said the Kolar brothers, Ed and Jerry, were a big push behind the pouring of a foundation under the building. Originally the hall had been placed on a rock foundation. Olson said the roof and the siding also needed fixing on the exterior and the sheet rock inside needed repairing. This work was accomplished through donations. Olson said he and Eddie Kirby, who died in 1957, managed to collect $800 the first day they began collecting funds for the project.   “Several people wanted to burn [the hall] down,” Olson said. “Some wanted to make a garage out of it, but the community finally got together to fix it up.”

In addition to Olson, Kirby and himself, Meyer remembered some of the people who helped with the hall in the 50s: Sulo Karjala, Donny Wirtala, Jim McDonald and Donny Petesch.

The hall had again fallen on hard times by the 1970s. Olson said people had started using it for roller skating again and had made big holes in the walls.  Martha Olson, Bud’s wife, said, “It was a free-for-all in there. Do you believe we even found motorcycle tracks on the floor? And they had an elk drawing at one time, and all the guys were spitting on the floor.”  “It’s true,” Bud Olson said. “They had a ball in there, but it was not good for the building.”

A group of concerned citizens that included the Olsons, Wally Black, Sue Evans, Barbara McCray and Bob McCray Jr. joined forces to put the hall back in order. Barbara scoured the country for paint, Sue Evans said, and she mixed all of the colors together.  “And that was the color the hall became,” Evans said. “Then she somehow managed to find wallpaper that matched the paint. The group used the scaffolding from the school for the paint and wallpaper jobs."

In 1979 Ken Meyer and his sons refinished the hardwood floor and installed conduit and light fixtures in the ceiling. Meyer’s daughter Lynn and her husband Harvey held their wedding dance in the hall that year.

For about 13 years Barbara McCray was in charge of the New Year’s Eve parties at the hall. These parties were well attended and gave the community a chance to socialize.

In 1980 the Geyser and Raynesford senior citizens were looking for a place to build a senior center, and government money was available, Olson said. He and Alton Knutson traveled to Helena with plans drawn up by Olson’s son-in-law, Lee Payment. These plans involved building on to the hall, placing a 25 foot by 50 foot addition to the south side of the existing building. This addition gave the community a kitchen. Eunice Nordell was the center’s first cook.

The Geyser-Raynesford Senior Citizens Center, Incorporated, bought the community hall from the Geyser Community Hall Association for $1 in July 1987, and began taking care of the building. When the group was no longer able to pay the insurance and taxes on it, they turned the building over to the county. That was in December 1996.

The Family Community Education Club (FCE), the Go-Getters, began a 21st century rejuvenation of the community hall. The Geyser Community Hall Club was eventually formed, with Kris Hill as president, Ken Meyer as vice-president, and Sharon Backa as secretary-treasurer. These officers, along with Raelene Konzak and Sue Evans, make up the Geyser Community Hall Club Board. The Club is responsible for what is going on today.

According to Meyer, the hall has already been rented by three separate groups, and a Spring Fling is planned for April 25.   “This is just so exciting,” said Raelene Konzak, “and everybody is already looking forward to the Spring Fling.

“I just can’t believe how great it looks,” she added, “and it is so fun to watch the older folks when they look at it. They are so delighted and so happy that somebody is carrying on what they’ve worked hard for. And that’s what we have to do. You don’t just expect things like this to hang out and be great. They take a lot of work and the old people in our community did that.”

The Geyser Community Hall today is testimony to the community’s tenacity and speaks well of the pioneer spirit that settled the area so many years ago. It also bridges a generation gap, as the older residents of the town hand the keys of the community hall to the younger residents. These new guardians will now preserve the hall and help to create new memories for the generations to come.