This former Woodmen of the World Hall currently serves as the Community Center For the Performing Arts. A local newspaper article highlights its history and tells us:
Mention the WOW Hall these days, and a jam-packed venue blaring lively music by groups with names like Devin the Dude, OUT/LOUD and Ty Dolla $ign may be the first thing that springs to mind.
But while it is a great spot these days for music, dancing, yoga and other leisure activities, the venerable 82-year-old building at the corner of West Eighth Avenue and Lincoln Street in downtown Eugene also has a history that is firmly rooted in the day-to-day economy, politics and culture of days long gone by.
The Community Center for the Performing Arts, or CCPA, the nonprofit organization that now owns and cherishes the WOW Hall, will show it off during National Historic Preservation Month in May, with an extensive photo and artifact exhibit that has its opening reception today. The CCPA also is in the process of restoring many of the building’s rooms and features to their original, historic character.
WOW stands for Woodmen of the World, a fraternal association that began in 1890 in Omaha, Neb., and swiftly spread throughout the Western United States. Its mission was to provide social and recreational services for people in communities that were part of the vast expansion of settlement that followed the Homestead Act of 1862.
The charter issued to the Eugene chapter in May 1892 begins with the words “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
While Woodmen of the World might imply that membership revolved around the lumber industry, at least the Eugene chapter of the national organization was more bent on nurturing values of friendship and mutual support among all residents of a community still in its formative stages.
Its early members included many prominent businessmen, educators and pioneers of the day, among them John Straub, dean of the University of Oregon’s college of arts and sciences; William Yoran, owner of the Morning Register, a newspaper later consolidated into The Register-Guard; R.E. Bristow, a member of the pioneer Bristow family that settled the Pleasant Hill community; and physician-pharmacist William Kuykendall, who served as mayor of Eugene, founded what became the Eugene Hospital and Clinic and became president of the Oregon Senate.
But the group also included many people in the “blue collar” trades, such as carpenters, laborers, farmers, mill hands and loggers.
According to documentation that helped land the WOW Hall on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996, the Woodmen of the World never occupied any location but the one at Eighth Avenue and Lincoln Street, although they weren’t the first inhabitants of the corner.
“There’s been a major public building on this property from 1857 to now,” local historic preservation specialist and WOW Hall volunteer Jonathan Pincus said.
“First, there was a small church that was bought by the First Presbyterian Church, and that burned in 1882. That was rebuilt into a much larger Presbyterian church the next year. The Woodmen of the World bought the building from the church.”
Records show that the Presbyterians originally purchased the land from the city of Eugene’s founder and namesake Eugene Skinner and his wife, Mary. At the time, it lay on a busy thoroughfare, part of the Territorial Road that later became known as the Pacific Highway.
The Presbyterians left the church in 1906, when the First Presbyterians consolidated with the Cumberland Presbyterians and became Central Presbyterian Church.
The Woodmen of the World bought the building and used it until 1932, when they replaced it with the unprepossessing but still-existing hall.
Helping the workers
Building anything new in 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, was a significant undertaking, but Pincus said it showed the determination of WOW members to live up to the purposes of their charter.
“Building this hall envisioned their pledge to create a utopian place with mutual support for the people of the community,” he said. “We believe the reason for building it was so that the Woodmen would have jobs.”
The Register-Guard wrote that at a cost of $8,000, the new WOW Hall was the most expensive building constructed in 1932 and described it as “modern in every detail.”
The hall opened for use in December that year and was dedicated in January 1933.
One of its most exotic features was the hardrock maple “floating” floor in the main hall, which was used every Saturday night for public dances, from ballroom to square dance, and still remains in use.
“It was accomplished not with ball bearings or springs but with a certain kind of structural carpentry that allows the floor to ‘give’ as people move on it,” Pincus said. “It was done to be really easy on the legs and feet -- apparently the old-time dancing could get very vigorous.”
It’s a facet of the WOW Hall that still makes dance and exercise groups love to use it, said Katy Vizdal, assistant program coordinator at the hall. “Everyone always comments on how much they appreciate this floor, how much more comfortable it is than any other place. Through the years, several dance groups have been resident companies here.”
One of the more mysterious aspects of fraternal organization rituals can be seen in the raised, wooden pewlike seating that runs around the perimeter of the main hall. In the middle of the east and west walls, there’s a built-in chair, presumably reserved for the WOW’s top officers.
Curved to fit the human anatomy, the pews around the 50-foot by 66-foot main hall could hold about 200 people comfortably. Much of the pew seating isn’t always available, but instead of being removed as the use of the WOW Hall evolved through the decades, portable risers, storage and backdrops were constructed to conceal but preserve them.
That level of conservation is one reason the WOW Hall has both exterior and interior historic designations, which is relatively rare among old buildings.
Perhaps in part because of the Eugene area’s traditional boom-and-bust economy, the WOW Hall was maintained well but not structurally changed through the decades. When applying for historic designation, analysts determined that the building in and out was 95 percent original.
One partial exception is several rooms in which floors that used to be linoleum are now wood, but Pincus said that’s going to change.
“The old art deco linoleum wore out, and it was removed, and the wood you see now is the original fir subflooring,” he said. “The company in Sweden that originally made the linoleum still exists, and the plan is to replace it in at least some of the spaces.”
One of the original functions of the WOW Hall included providing medical services, and the spaces in which that was done still exist, Vizdal said.
The ticket office to the left of the main entrance “originally was the waiting room for people coming to the clinic,” she said. “The small offices down the hall from there were the doctors’ examining rooms.”
Saved from demolition
The original application for historic status described the WOW Hall as “a mix of stylistic influences popular for public buildings at the time of its construction, including a mix of art deco and commercial style details with Spanish or Mission style finish on the exterior, and stripped classical and commercial style on the interior.”
The building was designed by John Hunzicker, a prominent architect in Eugene at the time, and built by contractor W.B. Baker. It was used actively by the Woodmen of the World until 1946, after which it became a more general center for community activities.
From then to the early 1970s, it suffered from neglect that led many to believe it had become structurally unsound. In 1975, Pincus recalled, “It was announced that the hall would be sold, and people were really afraid it would be torn down.”
In reaction, fans of the old WOW Hall formed the Community Center for the Performing Arts and announced their intention to purchase and restore the building. Emile Mortier, a well-known structural engineer in Eugene, conducted a complete inspection of the building, charging the nonprofit organization only $50 for his services, and determined that it was structurally sound and, in fact, “somewhat overbuilt.”
“Our first fundraising event was an ‘All-Art Revue’ on July 19, 1975,” said Pincus, who had moved to Eugene in 1969. “There was a guy at the time who had a lease/option on the hall, and he gave us 10 days to raise $10,000 as a down payment to buy it. We did a five-day marathon with round-the-clock entertainment and raised the money we needed.”
With a purchase price of $75,000 and $1,000 monthly payment, the next few years were sketchy at best.
“It kept us pretty poor as an organization,” Pincus said. “But in the early 1980s we started a ‘WOW It’s Ours’ campaign,' and we paid off the mortgage, mostly through small donations from people in the community.”
The largest donation came from The Renaissance Faire, precursor to the Oregon Country Fair, and other income came from groups that wanted to rent the hall, either on a regular basis or for one-time performances.
Life is much better now, WOW Hall supporters acknowledge, although fundraising for continued maintenance and restoration is a never-ending activity. The latest effort is a $15,000 project to acquire, refurbish and install four original, historic street lamps that were commonly used in the downtown Eugene area -- including at the WOW Hall -- during the first half of the 20th century.
“We’ve been fortunate to have grants lately to help many of our projects, through the Oregon Cultural Trust, the Lane County Cultural Coalition and the Kinsman Foundation,” Vizdal said.
The hall is home to classes, lectures, dances, meetings, rehearsals, concerts and recording sessions. It also contains a gallery that hosts the artwork of a different regional artist each month. The CCPA has 10 part-time employees and three full-time employees “and hundreds of volunteer members,” she said.