Saturna Community Hall
The completed hall, 1933.
A letter concerning the property title of the land.
The Community Club was first incorporated in 1945, over ten years after the hall was built.
School children at the Community Hall for a Christmas pageant, ca. 1948.
A dance held at the Community Hall, ca. 1958.
The popular story goes that the Community Hall was built after the shale plant workers' wives demanded that their husbands build a proper place to hold a dance. Construction began in 1932 and was finished in March of the next year.
The Saturna Community Club was founded shortly after, but their struggle to gain legal status meant that they couldn't hold the title to the Hall's deed. In true Saturna form, a work-around was devised: Mrs Burnett, whose husband had donated the land, kept the title in good faith until the Community Club gained certification in 1945. Today, the Community Hall has Heritage status, and is used for public concerts, dinners, and other events.
Gloria Manzano's book Bonded to an Island (ed. Bill Schermbrucker), contains a contemporary poem about the completion of the Community Hall. It begins, "If you like an old time dance, you now have a chance / Saturna has a dandy new hall..."