The memories that cluster around a certain building are often impressive, both intrinsically and by reason of their variety.  Platt’s Hall is connected with experiences of first interest.  For many years it was the place for most occasional events of every character.  It was a large square auditorium on the spot now covered by the Mills Building.  Balls, lectures, concerts, political meetings, receptions, everything that was popular and wanted to be considered first-class went to Platt’s Hall.

Starr King’s popularity had given the Unitarian church and Sunday-school a great hold on the community.  At Christmas its festivals were held in Platt’s Hall.  We paid a hundred dollars for rent and twenty-five dollars for a Christmas-tree.  Persons who served as doorkeepers or in any other capacity received ten dollars each.  At one dollar for admission we crowded the big hall and always had money left over.  Our entertainments were elaborate, closing with a dance.  My first service for the Sunday-school was the unobserved holding up an angel’s wing in a tableau.  One of the most charming of effects was an artificial snowstorm, arranged for the concluding dance at a Christmas festival.  The ceiling of the hall was composed of horizontal windows giving perfect ventilation and incidentally making it feasible for a large force of boys to scatter quantities of cut-up white paper evenly and plentifully over the dancers, the evergreen garlands decorating the hall, and the polished floor.  It was a long-continued downpour, a complete surprise, and for many a year a happy tradition.

In Platt’s Hall wonderfully fine orchestral concerts were held, under the very capable direction of Rudolph Herold.  Early in the sixties Caroline Richings had a successful season of English opera.  Later the Howsons charmed us for a time.  All the noteworthy lecturers of the world who visited California received us at Platt’s Hall.  Beecher made a great impression.  Carl Schurz, also, stirred us deeply.  I recall one clever sentence.  He said, “When the time came that this country needed a poultice it elected President Hayes and got it.”  Of our local talent real eloquence found its best expression in Henry Edgerton.  The height of enthusiasm was registered in war-time by the mighty throng that gathered at Lincoln’s call for a hundred thousand men.  Starr King was the principal speaker.  He had called upon his protege, Bret Harte, for a poem for the occasion.  Harte doubted his ability, but he handed Mr. King the result of his effort.  He called it the “Reveille.”  King was greatly delighted.  Harte hid himself in the concourse.  King’s wonderful voice, thrilling with emotion, carried the call to every heart and the audience with one accord stood and cheered again and again.