Liberty Hall Theatre
644 Massachusetts Street,
Lawrence,
KS
66044
644 Massachusetts Street,
Lawrence,
KS
66044
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This Liberty Hall replaced the original Bowersock Opera House that was destroyed by fire.
Photos of the Liberty Hall.
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There is a Bowersock Opera House in Lawrence listed in the 1897-98 edition of the Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide. There are no street addresses in this Guide. So I don’t know how it fits in with this theatre, the Liberty Hall/Bowersock/Jayhawker. The Mgr was J.D. Bowersock, and it had 1,000 seats and was located upstairs on the second floor. It had both gas and electric illumination; the proscenium opening was 30 feet square,and the stage was 30 feet deep. There were 2 daily newspapers in Lawrence, plus 3 weeklies; and 2 hotels for show folk, the Eldridge and the Lawrence. The 1897 population of Lawrence was 12,000.
From 2010, photos of the Liberty Hall Theatre in Lawrence.
2007 photo of the Liberty Hall Theatre courtesy Keith Wondra.
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Liberty Hall was known as the Jayhawker for quite a while. My father worked for the company that owned a chain of theaters in the Midwest, the Jayhawker and Varsity among them, and my first job was as a cashier at the Jayhawker in 1958. The Liberty Hall restrooms are still the same…a real vintage experience.
Susan (Whitley) Peters
Here is another photo.
This is a recent close-up view of the Liberty Hall Theater.
Here is an old photo. Note the vertical marquee with the name “Jayhawker”.
http://www.uss-rangerguy.com/Kansas/jayhwkr.htm