Plans for Fun

One place to dance was better than none, but plans for even more such places were underway in March 1919, according to the News:

The Hobart House as a hotel is probably a thing of the past. Repairs are to be made as desired, and the place will be rented by the room or suite of rooms. It is being planned to make the upper floor into a dance hall, as it was used for this purpose some forty or fifty years ago.

A week later, the Gazette added that a new hardwood floor was being laid in the proposed third-story dance hall.

At the same time, Benjamin W. Strattan wrote from Florida, where, I gather, he was vacationing, to announce that when he got back to Hobart he intended to re-open his "Opera House." Once his planned renovations were completed, the Strattan building would be available to rent at "moderate prices."


Sources:
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 13 Mar. 1919.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 21 Mar. 1919.