It's unusual for a square dance club to own a building—usually, folks gather to dance in community centers or other borrowed spaces. But in Laramie, the Quadra Dangle Square Dance Club owns its own space. This year, the building on the east side of town turns ninety.
The Quadra Dangle square dance club is celebrating the anniversary with public events on Saturday, November 10.
The building was originally an athletic club for Union Pacific rail workers. Laurie Hill, square dancer and Quadra Dangle board member, says, "In 1928, on 80 acres of land donated by the Union Pacific to the Union Pacific employees, they built this giant log structure. It would have been probably two miles out of town."
Twenty years later, the building transferred ownership to the Quadra Dangle square dancing club. Now the building is on the Wyoming Historic Register.
To commemorate the ninetieth anniversary and raise money to maintain the historic space, the Quadra Dangle is hosting an all-day festival on Saturday, November 10.
"It's quite a unique and beautiful building, and very well built," Hill says. "But at ninety, all things have issues. And that’s why we’re going to have this fall festival for what we’ve dubbed Our Grand Lady."
There will be a soda fountain, food, golf, tennis, horse-drawn wagon rides, live music, and, of course, lots of square dancing.
