Received note below via email with no date of the event nor credit for the source. However, the links below, which were included in the email, are to local news articles that give the date of the fire as 2/1/08.
Conneaut Lake is located in northwest Pennsylvania, about 7 or 8 miles west of Meadville. You may wonder why this note is posted on this blog; read the article and you will see the connection. As an aside, Meadville was the location of significant yards and shops of the Erie and Erie/Lackawanna railroads. Conrail put an end to that.
The resort opened in 1892 as "Exposition Park". Development was backed with capital from the Meadville, Conneaut Lake and Linesville Rail Road Co., later the Pittsburgh, Shenango and Lake Erie and still later, the Bessemerand Lake Erie RR. The Dreamland Ballroom was built 99 years ago. The B&LE and ERIE/Erie Lackawanna RRs both held annual employee picnics at the park, as did many companies from the region. Trainloads of Bessemer employees and their families were brought in from Pittsburgh and Erie, and the ERIE/EL ran special CLP company picnic trains in from as far away as Chicago and NewYork City, clear into the early Sixties. A lot of shoes that had climbed off of all those trains over the years were just a little more worn when climbing back on, after having 'cut the rug' on the hardwood dance floor of the Dreamland Ballroom...
Conneaut Lake Park's Dreamland Ballroom destroyed in fire
http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080201/NEWS02/344707526/-1/RSS01
http://www.sharon-herald.com/local/local_story_032213624.html
http://www.sharon-herald.com/local/local_story_033225226.html