Valleydale Ballroom

Valley Dale is one of the nationally renowned Ballrooms of the "Big Band" musical era of the 1930's and 1940's. Many famous Big Bands and entertainers including Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby have appeared at Valley Dale. During the early 1940's CBS and NBC had simultaneous coast-to-coast radio broadcasts from the Valley Dale. The Grand Valley Dale Ballroom opened in 1918. It's owners, converted an existing 19th-century stagecoach stop and inn into what was described as "a new roadside inn and dancing pavilion." Just five years after they introduced the facility as a dance hall, on New Year's Eve 1923, Valley Dale burned to the ground. Luckily the place was empty when an overstocked wood burning furnace enveloped the building in flames. By the time Valley Dale had been rebuilt upon its original foundation, America was being introduced to a homegrown style of music: big band jazz and swing. In 1925, the New Valley Dale featured both indoor and an outdoor dance garden and stage. By the 1930's Valley Dale was rapidly out growing its local reputation, routinely drawing audiences from all around Ohio and its contiguous states. It was also drawing the biggest names in the big band business. George Gershwin and Cole Porter, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman all played at Valley Dale Ballroom.