Stair Auditorium

Joe Vogel on March 15, 2022 at 5:33 pm

The book The A to Z of American Theater: Modernism, by James Fisher and Felicia Hardison Londré, has a brief biographical sketch of Edward Douglas Stair, who built the Stair Auditorium (Google Books preview.) The 1921 Polk gazetteer of Michigan lists it merely as “Auditorium, The.” The 1914-1915 Gus Hill directory listed Stair Auditorium with a seating capacity of 818. A note says “Plays RVP” meaning Road Shows, Vaudeville, and Moving Pictures.

A history page about Morenci says of the theater

“[i]n January 1908 the Stair Auditorium was opened with a stage play called The Fatal Flower. This building served for many years as the center of all entertainment. Until the new high school was built, all graduation exercises, school plays and other school events were held there. In the early 1960s it was not being used and was in a state of disrepair. The city was no longer able to keep up the building, and like many other beautiful old structures it was torn down to make way for progress.”