It’s May, which means that the Harrisburg riverfront again comes alive with walkers, bicyclists and runners, with summer festivals not too far behind.
The waterfront, though, was once a hub of nightlife, as well. A century ago, local entrepreneur George K. Riest launched his first dance boat, testing whether city residents wished to mingle and dance on the river. They did, in large numbers.
What began as a boat equipped with a small dance floor soon expanded to a former coal barge outfitted with a band shell at one end, a nightclub at the other and a dance floor in the middle. A 1940 article in the Harrisburg Sunday Courier reported that the boat, which launched every year on Memorial Day, carried thousands of dancers up and down the Susquehanna during summer months.
According to anecdotes and newspaper archives, the boat was docked at the foot of Locust or Market streets. For a dime, revelers could dance the night away. The dance barge would go up to either Harris or Reily streets, a distance of about a mile, and float back. When the water was low, it instead would moor off of City Island. Smaller boats might drift closer to better hear the music, which would be provided by one of the fashionable orchestras in the area, led by the likes of Dan Gregory, Kay Kyser, Ted Brownagle or Red McCarthy.
Kansas City musician Andy Kirk described the experience of performing on the barge in his 1989 book “Twenty Years on Wheels.”
“On one of our dates, we were afloat,” he wrote. “We played on a barge, Reese’s [sic] Houseboat, on the Susquehanna River. We’d start at 8 o’clock in the evening, move out into midstream, then return at 9:30. We played at the pier before shoving off, and after coming to port while passengers came on and got off.”
Harrisburg danced on the river for several decades. Riest operated the barge until 1934. The USO took it over during World War II and ran a “floating club” at the foot of Locust Street each night, the Courier reported.
Riest, an avid riverman who sponsored the Kipona boat races for 25 years, died in 1940 at the age of 46.
“He was best known as the proprietor of the string of boathouses that remained docked along the riverfront off Locust Street throughout the summer months and for the operation until 1934 of a popular river dance boat,” The Evening News reported in his obituary. “The greater part of his life was spent on the river, and he was one of the originators of recreation on the Susquehanna.”
The boat is remembered fondly, if infrequently. The Dauphin County Historical Society’s records consist of a slim manila folder with five sheets of typing paper, and most memories are anecdotal.
Rabbi Carl Choper first heard about the dance barge from a 100-year-old woman in the course of his work as a chaplain at the Jewish Home of Greater Harrisburg.
“She started telling me about life for young people in the 1920s in Harrisburg,” Choper said.
She told him that the youth of the city would gather in Riverfront Park or at the three local dance halls: the Madrid, the Casino and the Coliseum.
At least one romance was kindled aboard the barge. Ken Frew, a historian at the Historical Society of Dauphin County, said his parents first noticed each other across the dance floor. His father was playing trumpet in the Dan Gregory band, and his mother was out dancing with her girlfriends. Later, they were introduced at one of the dance halls downtown.
Fae Morrison, 88, remembered only photos and her husband’s stories of playing the piano on the dance boat with his band, Al Morrison Music.
“I was a little girl at the time, and I knew there was a boat, but I wasn’t allowed to go. I was too young,” said Morrison, who said she was 10 or 12 at the time the boat was popular. She and Al, whom she describes as “one of Harrisburg’s favorites,” were married in the 1950s.
According to historian Erik Fasick’s recent book “Harrisburg and the Susquehanna River,” the barges also sometimes held events for children, including trips to the beaches on City Island and “kiddie hour dances.”
The early 20th century was a period of growth and development for Harrisburg’s riverfront, and Riest’s business sense served him well. The boat’s popularity coincided with city efforts to improve the steps at the foot of Locust Street and the walkways near the river, the Sunday Courier said.
The Susquehanna is still a focal point of recreation in Harrisburg. These days, however, sports—both individual and professional—hold sway over nightlife, making it difficult to believe that, for decades, an old coal barge carried happy dancers up and down the river.
