Havelock 160 years
From The Gleaner archives: Special selection
Thursday, May 8, 1924
BIG HALL BUILT BY COUNTY BOY TO MAKE HISTORY: J.H. McDOWELL WINS – Havelock Boy’s Dream of $7,000,000 Building Sets New Style
In the flurry and excitement, … a son of Huntingdon county [has played] an important part, not as a politician, but as a man who, fighting against odds and prejudice, has constructed one ofthe greatest halls in the world. He is J.H. McDowell, a native of Havelock, and a young man still in his thirties but now near the top of his profession.
Mr. McDowell had the task of designing and supervising the great hall in Cleveland, Ohio, which will seat 15,000 people and which cost over $7,000,000. When construction was underway, criticism was general and bitter. It was claimed the acoustic principles were being ignored and that speakers could not be heard.
Mr. McDowell was in conflict with men of high standing, his critics including stage professors and experts with high-sounding degrees. Flaming newspaper headlines declared the new hall… would be an acoustical failure and practically a dead loss. …
But the job was finally finished and proved a brilliant success. One newspaper report states that “Not only were speakers and musicians on the rostrum heard easily, but a man speaking in any part of the vast hall could be heard in any other part. This sound direction and control, which McDowell originated, was opposite in principle to many of the accepted experts.”