Delft Theatre

Here is an article from the Ironwood Daily Globe dated 7/8/30:

CHANGE THEATRE PLANS

Officers of Delft Theaters, Inc., said Saturday that for business reasons they have set aside, temporarily, the plans which they announced a few months ago for building new theaters in Marquette and Escanaba. It was stated, also, that specifications had been sent to contractors and bids asked for remodeling the Strand Theater in Escanaba. It is expected that this work will be started by the middle of July.

The Delft Theater in Munising, it was announced, will be redecorated and improved by the installation of Western Electric sound picture equipment, the same as that used in the Delft Theater in Marquette. This equipment will, it is expected, be ready for operation early in August. Rumors current in Marquette for some time that Delft Theaters, Inc., was about to become affiliated with a large chain of theaters and that 11 Delft theaters in the Upper Peninsula would be sold or leased to a chain organization were declared Saturday by Delft officials to be false. No negotiations are pending for a change of ownership of the Delft properties, they said.

An item in the September 4, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World said that C. J. Butler of Ishpeming had hired architect D. Fred Charlton to design his new theater there, and added that Charlton had been the architect of the Delft Theatres in Munising and Marquette.

Demetrius Frederick Charlton was, in 1916 when the Butler Theatre opened, in the partnership Charlton & Kuenzli with architect Edwin O. Kuenzli, but I don’t know when the partnership was formed. Charlton apparently used the name D. Fred Charlton professionally, as that is how he signed his application to practice architecture in Michigan, and how he was listed in the AIA'a American Architects Directory.