Palace Theatre

Don"t you just love the fascade and marquee of the palace.

Clarifying the architects of C. Howard Crane & Associates who designed the 1950 renovation of this theater, the architects from that firm who did the actual designs were Elmer Keihler and Dixon Kellogg. The original 1917 design was by Chicago architect “John W. Everson.” I wonder if that is a misspelling of the legendary theater architect John Eberson.

The Palace used to have stage shows every Friday night. It aired on W.T.A.C. radio. They had a talent show (Yes, Flint had talent too and their own American idols). Smiling Max Henderson was the MC who had a daily radio show on W.T.A.C. Tiny Don Faulkner (who wasn’t too tiny), played the accordion. He also played schools with Ltn. Lagree who sang safety songs. Russ Waters was on the electric steel guitar. He taught guitar at the Honolulu Conservatory of Music near the Flint River Bridge.

I got to know Max from his daily radio show. I used to go to the station when I got out of school. So, when the Cowboy Jamboree started at the Palace, I would go there after school and save three seats for three of his fans, in the front row. The program started at 9:00 which meant I had to watch the feature film twice. But, I always had the three seats saved every week. The theater filled up every Friday night. They made so much money that they closed down and renovated the front and the interior. It looked good and they always had slopped floors, similar to stadium seating today. But, after they remodeled, they canceled the stage shows.

It was first run like the Capitol. Art black was the manager. He had worked for Paramount Studios creating names for movies. Someone stole some of his ideas so he moved to Flint and managed the Palace. He always looked like a manager, nice suit and always had a cigar in his hand. He did the candy inventory after hours, alone.

The Palace had a lot of movie stars appearing in Person. The line for Sal Mineo stretched around the block. He was there for his film, “Dino.” His brother Mike was with him. I got to know Mike in Hollywood. He too is gone now. Yes, the Palace could still be operating. But, like most cities today, the younger generation don’t seem to care about saving historical buildings.

When the Palace was opened in Autust 1917, Butterfield’s other theatres in Flint were the Majestic and the Garden.

Actually, the post-1950 Palace Theatre photo is at View link and the pre-1950 photo is at View link

The above message is for Tom aka Bill aka Sally etc. I figured that I would post it in a message area where he would have to search for it. :)

At least there was “a plea to save the bulding itself” by some group, but there voices were unfortunately ignored!