It’s time for Beaver County memories, Presented by St. Barnabas Beaver Meadows.  The season of the year between Memorial Day and July fourth is traditionally a time of the year when patriotic themes, and honoring military service are prominent. In this edition of Beaver County Memories, we will take a look at how one Beaver County town, and a local theater factored into the development of a veterans organization.

Shortly after world war one, veterans returning home to the states discovered that while they didn’t necessarily miss combat, they did miss the camaraderie of their fellow soldiers.  As is the case with any group of people with a common, shared experience, area veterans had a connection with each other and wanted to have a place to gather and interact with their fellow wartime comrades.   Along with the social aspects of visiting with each other, they also had common issues like being separated from their families for extended periods of time, many men had physical and mental wounds and financial difficulties caused by fighting for our country.  There was definitely a need for a regular gathering, and perhaps even a permanent place for these wartime heroes to congregate and share ideas and experiences, socialize, and help each other.

According to a presentation given by  Beaver County historian Ken Britten, it was a group of people in Beaver Falls who took the initiative to have a meeting for the area veterans who had just come home from their duties following the first world war.  In the early 1900’s, Beaver Falls Pennsylvania was a bustling, robust town with many different entertainment venues and halls that would be suitable for such a gathering. Among other things, there were a handful of theaters that lined the main street of town in that day that would be perfect to host a gathering of veterans.  The theatre chosen for the gathering was located right across from the Carnegie Free Library, in the thirteen hundred block of seventh avenue. Originally known as the Alhambra, and later on known as The Regent, and eventually renamed for a third time as the Cinema Theatre, the one thousand plus seat auditorium at 1308 seventh avenue was the place where area veterans had their first organized meeting together as a group of people with common interests.  According to Britten, this meeting was the first get together that eventually turned into what we now know as The American Legion post 261 headquartered in and chartered to Beaver Falls sometime during the 1920’s. The American Legion is a national organization that primarily serves as a politically active group that lobbies and serves as an advocate on behalf of veterans and unique issues surrounding persons who have had active military duty. The current American Legion Post in Beaver Falls in located on sixteenth street, near the Beaver Falls Middle School.

The theater hosting that original meeting, which was known as the Cinema at that stage of the game, closed after a fire destroyed most of the building in 1980.  Eventually it was torn down and the property has since been redeveloped is where the Primary Health Network building and Parking lot on the northern side of the business is located now.

This has been Beaver County Memories, presented by St. Barnabas Beaver Meadows.  Tune in at this time for another Beaver County Memory right here on 1230 WBVP and 1460 WMBA.  A complete transcript of this segment and other archived editions of Beaver County memories can be found at Beaver county Radio dot com.