Orpheum Theater
1214 Baltimore Avenue,
Kansas City,
MO
64105
1214 Baltimore Avenue,
Kansas City,
MO
64105
2 people
favorited this theater
This newer Orpheum Theater opened on December 26, 1914 and the old Orpheum was then left vacant and was later razed in 1922.
The new Orpheum was designed for a sumptuous experiences inside and out. Built to resemble the Paris Opera House, the exterior was faced with terra cotta designed to resemble Tennessee marble. Embedded along the top of the building’s facade were carved panels symbolically depicting art and music.
The lobby floor was enhanced with a random marble mosaic in figured patterns and panels. A spacious ladies lounge provided divans, lounging chairs, writing desks, telephones, and dressing tables as well as offering maid service. Inside the auditorium was a domed roof painted blue and highlighted with artificial stars. The main stage curtain was made of wire woven asbestos painted to resemble velvet drapery and weighed in excess of 1,200 pounds.
As motion pictures gained in popularity and vaudeville declined, the Orpheum owners tried to draw audiences with legitimate theater in the 1930s, motion pictures in the 1940s and legitimate theater again in the 1950s. These efforts proved to be unsuccessful at filling the theater’s seats, and in 1962, the Orpheum was brought down to make room for an addition to the Muehlebach Hotel.
Contributed by
Paul Salley
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater
Recent comments (view all 14 comments)
A Wurlitzer theater organ opus 1735 style 190 was installed in the Orpheum Theater on 9/20/1927. Status: sold.
A photo of the Orpheum Theatre from the late 1940s.
View link
On PBS' Nightly Business Report for Friday, January 25, 2008 they ran a special feature story on a successful Midwestern minority businessman, and among his proud achievements, a freshly restored movie palace in Kansas City, MO called “The Orpheum.” They even showed a brief glimpse of it. Is that this theater? Or a new one that was recently built?
Not the same theater. An annex for the Muehlebach hotel was built on the former site of the Orpheum Theatre.
You’re right, RobbKCity. Since my last post, I did some online research, and the Orpheum Theater that was fully restored by that successful minority businessman profiled on The Nightly Business Report Friday night is to the other side of the state in St. Louis. I obviously misheard when I thought they said Kansas City.
Interesting to note, St. Louis' The Roberts Orpheum Theater, as it’s now called (though its marquee still bears the name “The American”) was designed by the same architect — G. Albert Lansburgh — was built right around that same era, and in comparing photos it looks almost identical to K.C.’s late Orpheum. It also should be noted that in previous years it, too, held the name “Orpheum.” And going by the webpage that Cinema Treasures has on that theater — /theaters/436/ — it appears to be doing fantastically well! It’s a shame that K.C.’s Orpheum could not have experienced the same fate, but at least one of the two has survived and is now doing well.
This is from the Moberly Monitor-Index on 8/28/61:
KANSAS CITY (AP)-Operators of the Muehlebach Hotel plan to add a 200-room motel to the hotel in downtown Kansas City. Barney L. Allis, operator of the Muehlebach, said Saturday the Orpheum Theater will be razed to make room for the 12-story addition. The project will be completed in mid-1963.
Here is an October 1940 ad for the RKO Orpheum Theater.
This site has photographs of many artists who performed on KC stages –
View link
Does anyone of good interior pics of the Orpheum and Tower Theaters of Kansas City, And, any demolition pics that I know the KC Star ran in addition to pics and stories in Box Office Magazine? I would like to do an artical in the Pitch about the beautiful theaters that we lost espeically to surface Parking Lots. Any assitance will be most appreciated. If the pics are not public domain, I will do my best to get permission to use them.
Thanks,
Mike Gallagher
816 347-0487
Still hoping to find some quality interior auditorium pics of the Tower and Orpheum. However, I am not interested in interior pics of all the old downtown KC movie palaces.
Any assistance will be most appreciated.
Mike Gallagher
816 347-0487