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25 North Main

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You’re driving down Broadway in your Model T and turn onto North Main Street. The street is lined with cars – also mostly Model T’s – but you luckily find a spot right in front of the Eagles Club, just a few doors down from Broadway. You park the car and walk over to the building next door. As you enter, you can hear loud voices and the sound of bowling balls crashing into pins. Just inside the door, you head down a dark stairway that opens to a big brightly lit room with six bowling lanes filling the entire space. Cigar smoke hangs heavy in the air. 25 or 30 men, all wearing long-sleeved, white dress shirts and ties, are either bowling or waiting their turn to bowl. Several young men work frantically at the far end of the lanes, setting pins up and rolling balls back on the return tracks. The Merchants League is bowling tonight, and the league leading Joe Smiths are taking on the second place Broadway Cleaners. You find a seat behind the bowlers in the spectator area. Should be some g...
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Delehant Bowl/Anderson’s Bowl/State Street Bowl/Regal Lanes

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For 62 years there was a bowling alley at the corner of Pierce and State Streets in Council Bluffs. It had several owners and went by several names.  Ed Delehant Sr. built Delehant's Bowl at 15 State Street on the site of the historic Clausen residence which had stood since 1874, itself being on the site of the old mission blockhouse, the first building built in Council Bluffs. The bowling alley opened on October 29, 1954, with 14 lanes and semi-automatic pinsetters (still needed pin boys). One year later fully automatic pinsetters were installed – the first in Council Bluffs. The mention of the roof is ironic considering what happens in 1971. You can see the old ball return racks and masking units in this matchbook photo. Delehant's Bowl in 1956. Nonpareil photo from the Council Bluffs Library. In March of 1957, Ed Delehant decided to retire, and sold the bowling alley to Leonard and John Anderson. Leonard was one of the better bowlers in Council Bluffs. His brother John was ...
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Ed Delehant, Sr.

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Ed Delehant Sr. 1964 Council Bluffs Men's Bowling Hall of Fame Photo  No one person had more of an influence on 20th century organized bowling in Council Bluffs, Iowa than Ed Delehant Sr. Before his arrival and his establishment of the Broadway Recreation Parlor in 1930, bowling in Council Bluffs was almost exclusively a game played by adult men in saloons and men’s clubs. These bowling alleys were often in basements, and rarely more than two lanes. Delehant’s Broadway Recreation Parlor was a clean and modern ten lane bowling alley that made bowling fun and competitive for men, women, and children. He, his wife, his children, and his grandchildren, have been top bowling competitors and bowling center proprietors almost continuously from those early years clear until the time of this writing, in 2022. Edward Joseph Delehant was born on October 15, 1892, in Blue Springs, Nebraska. He was the second child of prosperous farmers, Dan and Hattie Delehant. Ed married Blue Springs native, ...
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