There are a total of eight swing dance clubs located in and around the St. Louis area (including MUSIC in Collinsville, Illinois) that are members of the Midwest Swing Dance Federation, with all of these clubs descending from St. Louis Imperial Dance. Club that was founded in 1973. The largest of these sister clubs, the West County Swing Dance Club, holds the distinction of being one of the largest swing clubs in the United States with an active membership numbering over a thousand dancers.
Imperial Swing got its name from the Imperial Club located at Goodfellow Boulevard and West Florissant Avenue. The building, originally named Imperial Hall, was built in 1928 as a ballroom, bowling alley, and restaurant/bar complex. In the 1930s and 1940s, it was the dance venue of northwest St. Louis, just as Arcadia (later called Tune Town), Admiral Showboat in Midtown, and Casa Loma on the Southside, were the most popular dance halls in their respective areas. In 1952 George Edick Enterprises purchased Imperial Hall and George Edick renamed it Club Imperial. For the first part of that decade, he operated the club as a dance hall with the theme of “a nice place for nice people.” He played “big band” music and mainly catered to private parties. He was able to regularly book guest appearances with popular artists such as Stan Kenton and Louis Prima because Robert Hyland of CBS and KMOX radio broadcast his weekly show “Coast To Coast with Bob Hyland” from the Imperial Ballroom.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Edick realized that country music taste had shifted toward “Rock ‘n Roll” and used his advertising and public relations firm to aggressively promote the Club. Imperial on KWK, KXOK, WIL and WGNU. The Joe Bozzi Quintet, Jimmie (Night Train) Forrest, Chuck Berry, Dolly Parton, The Monkeys, Glen Campbell, Ike and Tina Turner and a small vocal group now called the “Fifth Dimension” are among the many artists who began their careers in his club Promoted a “Jitterbug” contest where a couple from the Imperial Club (Teddy Cole and Kathy Burke) won the National Jitterbug Championship. During the “Rock ‘n Roll” craze, Edick hosted “Teen Night” dances on Tuesdays, and it was during these weekly dances that a variation of jitterbug was born that became known as the “Imperial Style” of St. Louis swing. As the ’60s progressed, musical trends were changing again. The ‘roll’ began to fade from “Rock ‘n Roll”, the ‘rock’ became louder and teenagers were increasingly attending loud psychedelic music concerts. Because it was nearly impossible to dance to the maddening rhythms of his acid rock music, Edick gradually discontinued all public dancing at his club.
In the 1970s, George Edick wanted to reintroduce more listenable and danceable music to Club Imperial and found that hosting swing contests was just what he needed. He met with Teddy Cole, the Jitterbug champion who was also a dance promoter in his own right, and they decided to sponsor an annual St. Louis Jitterbug “Imperial Style” contest to choose a “City Champion”. These widely publicized contests brought many of the older and more experienced dancers back to the club, and Edick sponsored a series of “Greeting Dances” to introduce these veteran dancers to the newer dancers. As more and more people began to learn the Imperial, they began to organize themselves into small dance groups that met in apartment complexes in the St. Louis area, and George Edick kept in touch with many of their leaders.
In 1973 Al Morris conceived the idea of forming a club, and it was his group that first met at the San Miguel Apartments in St. Charles that became the St. Louis Imperial Dance Club. The founders are: Dave Cheshire, Jan Cheshire, Rick McQueen, Joan Fritz, Debbie Dustman (Wheelis) and Veronica Lynch. The new club alternated its dances between the Lynch apartment complex in south county and the Wood Hollow apartments in west county. Edick contacted the Board and told them that he was very interested in helping his club fulfill its mission of keeping swing dancing alive. The big promoter convinced them, with a persuasive new adaptation of their original 1950s theme, that their growing club should hold its future dances in its Club Imperial ballroom because it’s “a nice place for people who are nice to the public.” who likes to dance swing”.
Good slogans never die, but unfortunately people do, and on June 11, 2002 George Edick passed away. The building is silent now, but it stands, not only as a landmark where all of Imperial Swing began, but also as a tribute to a man who, during his colorful life of eighty-six years, was able to turn his dreams into reality. . . . not a bad epitaph!