| 2/11/2006 7:24:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | First bowling alley was on Mulberry Street
Phil Cole
Special to the Courier
It sits on the East Side of Mulberry Street just south of Second - an old building that was Madison’s first and only (then) bowling alley.
“The Madison Pleasure Parlor” at 214 Mulberry St., never intended to be in any way related to its suggestive name. What it was was four bowling lanes owned by Dell Steigerwald and managed by George “Skinny” Kloss so we can all get our ride out of a rhetorical ditch and plunge ahead .
ORIGINALLY A BLACKSMITH SHOP
Del Courtney operated a blacksmith shop there from before 1912 until the late 19’s or early 20’s according to old city directories. Steigerwald, a Madison Brewing Co. employee, left sometime between 1914 and 1925 part of the time he served in the U.S. Army in World War I, opened an insurance agency when he came home and soon acquired the ten pin lanes. Both businesses grew and prospered.
The 1936 city directory shows Steigerwald as owner of the “Madison Bowling Alley” (Pleasure Parlor no more) at 214 Mulberry.
In the early 1940’s, the parlor relocated to the remodeled second floor of the old Junior High School building at Second Street and Central Avenue, growing to eight lanes. But let’s study the other tale first.
An open interior with one row of center roof supports and Brunswick, Balke, Collender hardwood alleys, kept in top shape by a sander and floor polisher dominated the scene.
BALL RETURNS REVERSED DIRECTIONS
Ball returns separated the four lanes Hand made from a handsome reddish hardwood they rode rails after being picked up in the pits to be returned to sender (sorry, Elvis).
Nearing its destination the return curved, whipping balls into a 180-degree switchback that slowed them down as they rolled slowly down the tracks ready for use again.
Regular keglers had their own custom-made bowling balls. “Recreational bowlers used “house” balls.
PIN SPOTTING USED SPIKED TREADLE
A treadle located at the end of each alley spotted bowling pins. Ten steel spikes sprung up when a lever was depressed to aid the pin boy in setting the traditional 4-3-2-1 triangle, steadying them until the treadle was released, lowering the spikes and letting the bowler know that he might again roll his ball.
Setting pins was the labor of pinboys who returned each ball and got the alley and pin pit ready for the next roll before perching on a painted-board seat, raising his feet into the air as a ball hit the pins.
This was RW’s first job (at age 11). That’s when Social Security taxes first nicked his pay, the start of a deduction that continues today 66, years later. “Skinny” Kloss paid pinsetters two cents a “line” or game.
Two separate men and women’s leagues bowled twice a week.
BIG SIX WAS THE BIG TIME
The premier league of top male bowlers, the “Big Six” included six teams of five bowlers each sponsored by businesses that provided bowling shirts to be worn in “Big Six” action every Monday night.
High average bowlers like Karl Bock, Henry Kimmel, Bill Hertz, Nate Schnabel, Lyman Spivey, Bud Willick, Phil McCauley, Dr. Harold Hertz, Dell Steigerwald, George Willick, Lawrence “Slab” Seiwert, Ralph “Hooks” Kahn, Red Cable, Wilbur “Wib” Eades, “Dr. X” (Skinny Kloss), Bud Willick, Harry Sheets, Abbie Johann, Ben Sheets, Maurice Riehl, RW’s Dad, Phil Cole, Sr., Paul Steinhardt, Lee Pearson, Hank Hugeback, Bernard Schultz, were but only a few of the bowlers who made up these teams.
INTERCITY COMPETITION
Chosen from this elite league an All-Star team traveled to towns like North Vernon, Greensburg, Seymour, Jeffersonville and Columbus on weekends to oppose All-Star keglers there. The All Stars also hosted visits by other town’s All Star units.
One quiet afternoon Clara Steigerwald, Dell’s wife, bowled a perfect 300 game there, the only woman at that time to accomplish that feat.
RW’s father came closest to 300 among male bowlers. RW set pins that night. Dad bowled for Farmer’s Insurance in the Big Six League.
He posted 11 consecutive strikes and needed a 12th to score 300 pins and win a $300 prize from the American Bowling Congress (ABC).
SO CLOSE BUT SO FAR AWAY
Fast as lightning but a bit high on the 1 and 3 pins was his 12th ball..
He wound up with a 7-10 split and a 298 score for which he received a bronze belt buckle (which he seldom wore) from the ABC.
RW’s son, Sam, has that buckle today. RW still recalls how Dad lit up the skies with frustrated invective upon seeing that 7-10 split staring him in the face. Goodbye 300. Hello 298. Goodbye $300. Hello #!*&##@XYZ belt buckle.
Women bowlers like Kathleen “Kack” Cable, Hannah (Golden) Cochrane, Wilma (Kellems) Cade, Pat (Cullen) Oyler-Kahn, Clara (Willick) Steigerwald, Margaret Klein, Celia Schuler, Pauline (Messmore) Peddie, Mimi (Lemen) Scott, Ruth (Hancock), Hugeback, Estella (Davis) Rousch, Maisie (Scheser) Miller, Millie (Jones) Sheets, Sabina (Koehler) Queen, Anna (Koehler) Muessel, Berthsa “Schultz” Barringer, Millie (Collins) Hertz, Mildred (Poindexter) Hertz, “Drusilla (Ziddy” Poindexter) Matthews, Anna Kalb, Bernice (Schnabel) McKay Douglass, Evelyn (Brown) Irwin and Emma (Humphreys) Kloss were among the better distaff keglers.
CELIA SCHULER’S DEATH BALL
The pin boy’s favorite bowler was Celia Schuler who “threw” a ball that rolled so s-l-o-o-o-w-w-l-y you could count its revolutions thumping and rattling down the alley at a crippled snail‘s pace. Clamorous howls of merriment rang when her “death ball” barely made it to the pins. But you know what? She was a high average bowler.
EIGHT LANES REPLACE “PLEASURE PARLOR”
Near the end of World War II the “Pleasure Parlor” moved to new eight lane “digs” in the old Junior High School building at Central and Second. It caught fire in December 1945 and burned to the walls.
Steigerwald built a new eight-alley lane and canteen on the same site but closed down after the Moose Lodge opened its 12-alley facility in 1953 at its home, (formerly Cravenhurst Inn atop Michigan Hill).
Bud and Irene Ritter invested in Madison’s future in the mid-1950s, building a 24-lane bowling mecca on Clifty Drive. attached to a cocktail lounge called the Crown Room.
In 1974 the “Meeses” converted their alleys into a dance floor. Today “the alleys that Bud Built” are the home of 20 lane Ten Pin Alley.
THE SENSIBLE SOOTHSAYER...
This week’s sooth...”A pat on the back is a good thing as long as it’s low enough and hard enough”. Anonymous from RW’s adages & axioms file. Want to share your family’s favorite axioms with Remember When readers? Send them to The Sensible Soothsayer, 1904 Paige St., or E-mail to filcole01@aol.com. We‘ll print the best of those received one per week. And, thank you!
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Phil Cole is a retired Madison Courier reporter who lives in Georgetown, Texas. He may be reached at 1904 Paige St., Georgetown, TX 78626, or e-mail him at filcole01@aol.com
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