By 
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, and all of these clubs are descended from the St. Louis Imperial Dance Club which was founded in 1973. The largest of these sister clubs, the West County Swing Dance Club, has the distinction of being one of the largest swing clubs in the United States with an active membership totaling over a thousand dancers.
Imperial Swing owes its name to 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, much like Arcadia (later called Tune Town), the Admiral Showboat in Midtown, and Casa Loma on the Southside, were the ballrooms. most popular in their respective areas. In 1952, George Edick Enterprises bought Imperial Hall and George Edick renamed it the Imperial Club. During the early 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 was mainly devoted to private parties. He was able to regularly book guest appearances with popular artists like Stan Kenton and Louis Prima because CBS and KMOX radio’s Robert Hyland was broadcasting his weekly show “Coast To Coast with Bob Hyland” from the Imperial Ballroom.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Edick realized that the country’s taste for music had shifted to “Rock ‘n Roll” and used his advertising and public relations company to aggressively promote the Club. Imperial in KWK, KXOK, WIL and WGNU. The quintet of Joe Bozzi, Jimmie (Night Train) Forrest, Chuck Berry, Dolly Parton, the Monkeys, Glen Campbell, Ike and Tina Turner and a small vocal group now called “Fifth Dimension” are among the many artists who began their careers. in your club. He promoted a “Jitterbug” contest where an Imperial Club couple (Teddy Cole and Kathy Burke) won the National Jitterbug Championship. During the “Rock ‘n Roll” craze, Edick held “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 the St. Louis swing. As the 1960s progressed, musical trends changed again. The “roll” began to disappear from “Rock ‘n Roll”, “rock” became more difficult and teenagers increasingly attended concerts of psychedelic and loud music. Because it was nearly impossible to dance to the mind-blowing 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 at the Imperial Club and found that hosting swing contests was the ticket. She teamed up 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 “Salute Dances” to introduce these veterans to the newer dancers. As more and more people began to learn Imperial, they began to organize into small dance groups that met in apartment complexes around the St. Louis area, and George Edick kept in touch with many of its 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, which 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 great promoter convinced them, with a persuasive new adaptation of his original 1950s theme, that their growing club should hold their future dances in their Club Imperial ballroom because it is “a good place for nice people to be with. who likes to swing dance “.
Good slogans never die, but sadly 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 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!