Mary Hawley’s Vision For

Edmond Town Hall

One of our favorite spots for viewing the Labor Day Parade is from the sidewalk in front of the Budd House on Main Street. The full panoply of the parade is laid out before you there with the Edmond Town Hall as a backdrop. Of the architectural landmarks in the center of town, left as Mary Hawley’s legacy, the marble and brick façade of the Georgian Colonial town hall is the most stately and impressive — suitable for, say, a seat of government.

That use for the building was certainly in Miss Hawley’s mind as she laid the cornerstone in 1929, but she was thinking more expansively. She wanted the building to be more than just offices; she envisioned a center for community life. Mary Hawley died before the building was completed a little over a year later. When it opened in 1930, Edmond Town Hall included not only offices for the town clerk and probate court, a courtroom, and meeting rooms, it also had a bowling alley, a gymnasium, a ballroom with a stage and kitchen facilities, a theater equipped to show sound films, and, for good measure, a post office. The post office is gone, no one bowls at the town hall anymore, and the town clerk’s office is slated to move to Fairfield Hills along with the rest of the town hall’s municipal offices when Bridgeport Hall is converted into town offices.

We wonder sometimes whether Mary Hawley would recognize Newtown today, apart from its timeless Main Street, which she did so much to shape. Things certainly have changed, but her vision for Edmond Town Hall as something more than town offices is still relevant. The landmark still lies at the heart of the community, literally and figuratively, and its facilities, while in need of some refurbishment and repair, are just the kinds of assets that most towns must do without for lack of money.

The Edmond Town Hall Board of Managers now faces a tremendous challenge: reaffirm Miss Hawley’s vision and transform a historic building to fill the needs of a modern and growing town. What they and the town hall itself need now, more than anything, are friends — and lots of them.

Following the model of the Booth Library’s Friends of the Library, the town hall’s Board of Managers is inaugurating The Mary Hawley Society to attract people with creativity, useful skills, and love of a magnificent building to carry the vision of Mary Hawley forward. Employing the incredible charisma of the building itself and its potential for enhancing Newtown’s social, cultural, and economic life, the society should be able to rally the community to the continuing cause of Edmond Town Hall, making this icon of our town something more than a relic of one woman’s fading dream.

If you would like to become a part of this initiative, call the Board of Managers at 270-4285 to see how you can help transform Edmond Town Hall from a symbol of Newtown’s past to a symbol of its future.