Al Woldin has lived in Great Falls for about 20 years, but he and his wife had never been in the Colvin Run Schoolhouse and didn’t know what it was used for until a year ago. "I walked into this place and I said, ‘Wow, I feel like I’m on the Hindenburg,’" he said at the Colvin Run Citizens Association’s annual summer picnic last Sunday, Aug. 30. "I said, ‘I want to do something for this place.’"

The citizens association, which exists to maintain and operate the building, was already a nonprofit organization, but Woldin, now the newest member of the group’s board, just got it certified as a public charity as of late July.

Woldin’s wife, Marguerite Adams, said she thought many in Great Falls didn’t know what the schoolhouse was for.

BUILT IN 1908, the building on Colvin Run Road served as a school until the county closed all one- and two-room schoolhouses in 1930. The following year, the Colvin Run Citizens Association formed to purchase the school and has been hosting ballroom dances there ever since.

The annual, indoor potluck picnic was to kick off the season, said citizens association President Conrad Heer. In the past, the building did not have air conditioning, and farmers were busy working on their farms in the summer, so there were no summer dances. Although circumstances have changed, the citizens association still suspends its twice-monthly, Saturday-night ballroom dances for July and August.

However, the Argentinean tango and West Coast swing groups that rent the hall for monthly dances carry on year-round, and the citizens association began offering a weekly, Tuesday-night dance/lesson series as of July. There, one-hour dance lessons, including swing, hustle, shag, Latin, country two-step and others, are followed by dances.

Woldin said the board hoped to establish some youth-oriented dance programs and expand its community outreach over the coming year. He also said a bulletin board announcing events had been put out front of the building the day before and some signage was in the works.

According to board member Walter Harrison, who has been attending dances at the hall since 1946 and still lives in Great Falls, there was a time when air conditioning wasn’t the only concern. Two large stoves once heated the place in the winter. In those days, he said, dancers smoked inside the building and drank outside, the opposite of today’s practice. "Intermissions were long and hardy," he said, adding that the police used to regularly stop by the dances, as the events could get rowdy in the early years. "I stopped a few fights, but I never had any." But he said it had been many years since he had seen any fisticuffs in the schoolhouse.

The dances in the earlier decades were well attended not only by adults but also by teens from around Great Falls, Herndon and Sterling, Harrison said. Now, they are for ages 18 and up, a rule that board members are considering changing.

THE VENUE now draws from a large area, with board members from as far away as Purcellville and Mount Vernon and events like West Coast swing dances bringing revelers from Maryland and West Virginia, Woldin said. "They pack this place with 120 people."

A board of eight volunteers runs the citizens association, and board member Jean Rosenbluth said about a dozen people cycle through the various positions. The Reston resident, who has been coming to dances since 1984, is a past president and has also held just about every other office. "It’s a unique building, for one thing," she said by way of explaining her interest in the organization. "There’s nothing like it in the area."

In addition to its long history and high-ceilinged spaciousness, she said it was nearly impossible anymore to find a "sprung" dance floor, meaning that a huge beam holds the floor up over a basement, rather than the flooring being laid over concrete.

"Your feet will get cooked if you’re on concrete," said her husband Bill, the board’s vice president.

Heer said the long tradition was also an appeal. "Once you’ve been here a few times, you start to feel like a part of the tradition," he said. "You feel like Colvin Run is part of your family."

"We love playing this place," said Daria Matacia of the band Angel and Aces in between performances at the picnic. "The acoustics in this building are wonderful." The band has been playing at the schoolhouse regularly for the last three years.

"What a great dance hall," said Great Falls resident Bob Poole, who was in the schoolhouse for the first time at Woldin’s invitation. "I think it’s great that people get together on their own and preserve places like this." Just as "old people have a lot of character," he said, the same principle applies to buildings.

The first Colvin Run Citizens Association dance of the season will be this Saturday, Sept. 5. Helmut Licht and his Ballroom Big Band will provide the music and lessons will be offered in triple swing. Dances are open to the public, and all proceeds go to maintenance of the schoolhouse.