News

August 14, 2008

Duryea firefighters’ bingo tradition ends

Germania Hose Co. said competition from Mohegan Sun casino was final blow.

RALPH NARDONE Times Leader Correspondent

DURYEA -- The curtain closed on a 49-year-old tradition in Duryea Tuesday night when the last weekly game of bingo was played at the Germania Hose Co. on Foote Avenue.

Organizers point to the Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs as the grim reaper.

Duryea resident Jim Steer, bingo chairman and a 50-year firefighter, remembers when the games started in 1959.

“It was the idea of a good friend of mine from Hamburg, Jim Gilmartin,” Steer said.

In the beginning the bingo game went through some “hard knocks,“ Steer said. “We didn’t have enough money to buy tables and chairs so we borrowed them,” he said.

He remembered driving to churches and funeral homes to borrow tables and chairs and then returning them after when bingo was over.

The people from the neighborhood kept the games alive in the beginning, Steer said.

As it grew in popularity, people from all over the Wyoming Valley began to attend, and grand prizes rose to up to $2,000.

In its heyday, the bingo games would draw 130 people each week and could raise up to $30,000 a year for the hose company for firefighting equipment, Steer said.

Unfortunately, about five years ago attendance dropped to about 80 people.

Then the bottom fell out and attendance dropped again when the casino in Plains Township opened, Steer said.

“You can’t operate with less than 80 people. It costs more to run than it makes,” he said.

Steer said he will miss the weekly gatherings of friends and neighbors.

There may be a resurrection though, he added.

The hose company is interviewing three unnamed private bingo operators who are showing interest in reopening.

The hose company is holding a meeting today on the issue, he said.

Tweet	Follow @TLnews