Owners: Theodore J. and Leona Mades1940 Census: Theodore J. Mades, age 47, carpenter - private construction
Leona Mades, age 46
William Leslie, age 20, laborer - river work
Location: 696846 4282052 (the water plant on Highway 94)
Acreage: 26.04
Contract price: $12,000
Property sold on February 4, 1941
Today: daffodils at the house site
In 1936, Tot Mades, a lifelong Hamburg carpenter, decided to construct a dance hall next to his family’s home in order to provide a local teenage piano-playing sensation a place to perform. The Riverview Dance Hall was often the venue for performances by the young man who would later become the world famous jazz musician Ralph Sutton. Originally the building was not entirely enclosed; Mades roofed only enough of it to cover the band. The next year Mades enclosed the entire structure, but left some of the walls with the capability to be raised to create an open pavilion. At each dance, dozens of hamburgers, prepared by Leona Mades and Edna Sutton, sold for fifteen cents; hot dogs were a dime; beer was a nickel a cup; besides enjoying the music, patrons could play horseshoes if they wished. As many as seven hundred people would attend, several traveling from St. Louis County and the city to hear the music of area bands. Up to 150 couples would fill the wooden dance floor, which was surrounded by a rail about thirty inches high. Sometimes corn meal was spread on the floor to make it more slippery, enabling dancers to perform certain moves. Admission was fifty cents for couples, ten cents for ladies, and forty cents for gentlemen, and each man had to wear a wrist bracelet to stop gate crashers. Cars would be parked wherever they could be squeezed in, and law enforcement officials were hired to keep order. Hamburg was known for several miles around as a place to hear good music.
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| The Riverview Dance Hall and the Mades home |
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| Tot and Leona Mades |
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| The Riverview Dance Hall |
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| Another view of the house and dance hall |
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| Newspaper ad for a dance in 1940 |
