The Texan Theatre’s first public event (other than the open house) will a free country music concert on Friday, May 20. The official web site is listing three more free events over the next couple of months, and two that will charge admission (click the “SHOWS” link at the top of the home page.)
This article from the Tyler Morning Telegraph has a slide show with a few current photos. The auditorium has a flat floor, portable seating, and the stage end is all glass. Essentially, only three walls of the original building remain. The renovation was designed by the Austin/Dallas architectural firm Architexas.
This item is from the February 6, 1909, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Hamilton, Ohio. — C. J. Kilian, formerly half owner of the Princess, is now the sole owner of this pretty little playhouse. Mr. Kilian bought the half interest of Dr. J. B. Scott, who acquired it from Lou Wittman some five months ago. The new owner is not a stranger in Hamilton; having come from Dayton about sixteen months ago, he formed a co-partnership with Lou Wittman and established the first successful moving picture theater in Hamilton. At this time Mr. Kilian also owned the Dreamland Theater in Dayton, which he sold last October and since then has been devoting his time and attention to the Princess. It was due to Mr. Kilian’s knowledge of the moving picture business which made the Princess a success from the start. The theater will be under his personal management and the latest and best motion pictures and illustrated songs will be shown.”
Schwalm and Rothleder were the operators of the Jewel Theatre in 1907, and Schwalm was in the movie theater business in several cities from 1905 until retiring in 1931, but I’ve found no evidence that either of them was ever an architect.
Rothleder was in the piano business, according to this item from the phonograph industry trade publication Talking Machine World:
“Dayton, O., Feb. 1, 1909.
C. F. Rothleder, a prominent piano dealer of Pittsburg, Pa., and a member of the firm of Rothleder & Schwalm, who own several of the largest picture theaters throughout the country, including the Jewel and the Third Street Theater in this city, was recently in the city looking after his business interests. Mr. Rothleder is optimistic over business conditions.”
The January 26, 1971, issue of the Hamilton Daily News and Journal ran an article about the Jewel Theatre building, which was about to be demolished. It said that John A. Schwalm and John H. Broomball, directors of the Jewel Photoplay Company, opened the Jewel on May 1, 1909, and the house closed in March, 1926.
The Jewel Photoplay Company had taken over operation of the Grand Theatre in 1918, and had built and opened the Rialto Theatre in 1920. In 1931 the company leased the Grand (renamed the Regent by 1924) and the Rialto to Paramount-Publix. Publix operated the Rialto, but kept the Regent closed.
When the Jewel Theatre building was demolished in 1971, the January 26 issue of the Hamilton Daily News and Journal published an article about it that included information about Hamilton’s other early theaters. One thing it said was that in 1926, when the Jewel closed, the Grand Theatre had already been renamed the Regent Theatre. In fact, Hamilton’s newspapers were advertising the Regent Theatre at least as early as 1924.
The FDY’s from 1927 through 1929 double-list the house both as the Grand and the Regent. Only the Palace and the Rialto are listed for Hamilton in 1930— quite a comedown for a city that had nine theaters (not including the double listing for the Grand) in 1929. The Regent is then listed from 1931 through 1937, but except for 1931 is always listed as closed. It was apparently never wired for sound.
The reason for the Regent’s long desuetude might have been revealed in a June 19, 1931, article in the Hamilton Evening Journal, which said that the Jewel Photoplay Company had sublet the Rialto and Regent Theatres to Paramount-Publix, the Rialto for ten years and the Regent for one year with an option to renew annually.
The rent on the Regent was quite low, $2,750 a year, and the agreement allowed Publix to use the house for such events as boxing and wrestling matches. It could be that Publix simply kept renewing its lease in order to prevent any other company from reopening and operating the 700-seat Regent in competition with its new Paramount Theatre and the Rialto, which Publix was also operating. It essentially cost them nothing to keep the Regent closed, as the agreement stipulated that if the lease on the Regent was terminated the $13,001 rent on the Rialto would automatically increase by the $2,750 amount of the rent on the Regent.
This item from The Moving Picture World of March 14, 1925, mentions the Lyric Theatre and another house that is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures (unless it is just a missing aka for another theater):<blockquote.“C. Zost, who operates the Lyric Theatre, Hamilton, Ohio, has acquired the Gem in that city.”
It is still possible, though increasingly unlikely, that the Princess Theatre will come back to life in a new building. This article posted to the Oxford Patch on May 18, 2018, says that the construction of a new Princess Theatre building took place in 2015, but that the ground floor, intended as a location for the theater, remains incomplete. If financing to finish the theater cannot be found the owner of the building is likely to lease the space for some other use.
These abstracts of articles from issues of The Rochester Sentinel published in 1913 pertain to the second Kai-Gee Theatre. The first item is from the issue of Thursday, May 8:
“New Theater to be Most Modern
“Rochester will be able to boast of a really high class vaudeville and MOTION PICTURE THEATER, as well as a handsome addition to the business district of the city, when the J. F. DYSERT building for which excavating is now being done just north of the DILLON BLOCK, is completed. W. H. KENDRICK is the architect.
“… . will be conducted by Mr. & Mrs. Roy SHANKS, who have for some time had the KAI GEE and STAR theaters… . . [building described]
“The basement will be large and exceedingly well lighted, and will be a splendid location for a restaurant. A stairway leads down to it from the main lobby … . .”
The second item is from the issue of Tuesday, December 16:
“New Theater to Open Dec. 24
“Final arrangements have been made for the opening of the new K. G. THEATER on Christmas eve, Wednesday, December 24th. The initial performance will be featured with vaudeville acts, three reels of motion pictures and music by an orchestra of 14 pieces.
“The new house when finished, will present a splendid appearance. The room will accommodate 300 seats far enough apart that no one will have to arise to let people pass. The lighting is made as nearly perfect as possible. A heavy velvet rug will cover the entire length of the aisle.
“People in all parts of the house will have a good view of the stage as it is elevated about six feet. The pictures will be cast upon a mirror screen which can be rolled up when the stage is needed for vaudeville acts. Mr. SHANKS has purchased one of the best motion picture machines made. It contains a double magazine feed which enables the operator to handle a two reel picture without stoppping.
“The doors on Christmas eve will be opened at 6:30 o'clock.”
I’ve been unable to find anything about architect W. H. Kendrick. A moderately famous architect of that name practiced in England in the late 19th century, and a builder/architect named William H. Kendrick practiced in Tampa, Florida, in the late 19th-early 20th centuries, but the Rochester architect does not appear to have been either of them.
Google Maps is loopy from this address. It is fetching Hamilton, Illinois. This is probably because there is no Main Street in Hamilton, Missouri. The correct address is most likely 302 N. Davis Street, which is now the site of a parking lot on the northeast corner of Davis and Bird Street.
I took the reference to be to the railroad station, though the name probably applied to the entire neighborhood for several blocks around. The railroad R/O/W was between Manomet Avenue and Samoset Avenue, and the station itself was a few yards north of Kenberma Street. The station and railroad are gone, but this Wikimedia page has two vintage photos. Several houses in the photos can still be picked out in Google street view. The theater would almost certainly have been in the small business district around Kenberma and Nantasket Avenue a couple of blocks west of the station.
In 1916, the Majestic was owned by a T. V. Barnes. The June 24, 1916, issue of The American Contractor said that work had begun on a $15,000 remodeling of a theater at Ellwood City for T. V. Barnes. H. J. Lohman of McKeesport was the architect.
The South Shore Theatre might have been a 1916 project noted in the April 22 issue of The American Contractor that year. It was to be a one-story brick and concrete moving picture theater to cost $35,000. The location was given as “Kemberma sta., Hull, Mass.” and the owner was named William F. Eccles, of Somerville, Massachusetts. Stephen S. Ward of Boston was the architect.
Ralph Pate’s Rocket Drive-In was about four miles west of town on Highway 12, according to an item noting its recent opening in the October 23, 1954, issue of Boxoffice. I don’t believe the designation Highway 12 is used anymore, though. Pate was also the owner of the Royal Theatre in Samson.
Adel also had the 325-car Spardel Drive-In, opened by Stein Theatres in 1954. The name suggests that it was located north of Adel on the road to Sparks, a smaller town nearby.
A house called the Courter Theatre was in operation in 1966, when the September 29 issue of the Albany Ledger from Albany, Missouri, mentioned the Courter Theatre at Gallatin as one of four movie houses operated by a Mr. and Mrs. Fred Wilcox, who had just bought the closed Rigney Theatre in Albany and planned to reopen it as the Wilcox Theatre.
The problem is that I don’t know if this article concerned the original Courter Theatre, or the current Courter Theatre, which has existed since 1965 according to this article from the Davies County Historical Society. The Society’s article notes that the theater had both a movie screen and a concession stand, and had been owned by a non-profit group since 1965 and was showing movies as late as 1983.
Indeed, the reopening of the Courter Theatre following a refurbishment that took about four weeks was mentioned in Boxoffice of August 12, 1974. Then-manager John Schwieger was the manager of the house until resigning in 1983, according to the Historical Society article.
I have been assuming that the address 211 N. Main was indeed the location of the original Courter Theatre, but I have not found any source saying that the current Courter Theatre either was or was not the original, nor any source other than Cinema Treasures saying that the building at 211 N. Main ever housed a theater (though it certainly does look like it could have.) Either way, the current Courter Theatre at 105 S. Main Street (east side of Main just south of the square) and now the home of the Gallatin Theatre League, was operated as a movie house as late as 1983.
The Silver Theatre was in operation at least as late as 1966, when the September 29 issue of the Albany Ledger of Albany, Missouri, reported that Mr. and Mrs. Fred Wilcox of Gallatin had bought the closed Rigney Theatre in Albany and planned to renovate and reopen it as the Wilcox Theatre. The article said that the couple were already operating the Courier Theatre in Gallatin, the Civic Theatre in Hamilton, and the Silver Theatre and the Patio Drive-In at Cameron.
The Lyric Theatre is first listed in the FDY in 1928, so the 1930 project I cited in an earlier comment must have been either a remodeling of the existing house or a project for a different theater nearby that fell through.
However, a thumbnail biography of Lewis Harry Warriner in the NRHP registration form for the Lincoln Street Historic District does attribute the design of the Lyric to him. As it is first listed in 1928, it most likely opened in 1927, unless it had operated earlier under a different name.
The Waymarking page for the Pickwick Theatre for which bluesneaky provided a link above (clickable version) has a gallery with several photos and other items. The most interesting is a rendering of the building as rebuilt in 1936, from the architect of the project, L. H. Warriner (Lewis Harry Warriner.)
While the gallery is quite useful, I don’t know how accurate the text on the page is. It claims that the late Victorian commercial building on the Pickwick’s site, also seen in other photos, was the home of the Theatorium, the town’s first movie theater, but I see no clear evidence in the photos themselves (despite a marquee-like structure on the front of the building very early on) that there was a theater in this earlier building. It also claims that the Theatorium and the Pickwick were “…in the same place, all the same size….”. a claim which is belied by listings on the Film Daily’s yearbooks.
The Theatorium is never listed in the FDY, but in 1927 the book lists a house called the Oakland Theatre, and in 1928 and 1929 there is a house called the Community Theatre. Syracuse does not appear in the 1930 FDY, but the Community Theatre reappears in 1931, its seating capacity listed for the first time (250) but there is an asterisk denoting that it has not been wired for sound. The Community continues to be listed through 1937, always with 250 seats, but always with the notation that it is closed.
The Pickwick first appears in the 1938 edition, with a seating capacity of 1,100. My guess would be that the front of the old two-story building was remodeled in 1937 and an entirely new auditorium was built behind that structure. The Dickensian name Pickwick was likely chosen to match the Tudor revival style of the new front, or vice versa.
There was a house called the Theatorium at Syracuse, mentioned in the October 13, 1917, issue of Motography, when the theater changed hands, but whether it was the same theater as the Oakland and the Community, and whether it (or they) were in the building behind which the 1937 Pickwick was most likely built, I don’t know. Any theater in that building would have been a storefront conversion. The Pickwick auditorium was clearly new in 1937, though I don’t doubt that the 1937 auditorium did indeed survive the 1945 fire and is the theater still in use today.
The January 17, 1936, issue of The Hammond Times said that the Hartley Theatre Company would remodel and reopen “…the long closed Lyric theater in East Chicago….” with a new name, no more than four letters long, to be chosen in a public contest. I guess that accounts for the non-standard spelling “Voge” that the house ended up with.
This house had fournames. This article posted to the web site of the Columbia Daily Tribune says that a movie house opened on October 16, 1913, as “… the Alamo Theatre, eventually became the Dickinson Theatre, then the Fayette Theatre and finally the Grand Theater.”
After this theater was demolished, an old commercial building down the block was converted into a theater also called the Grand. The site of the original Grand is occupied by an extension of the Commercial Trust Company.
The Grand Opera House at Bluffton, Indiana opened in 1903, according to a list of buildings designed by its architect, George Otis Garnsey (1840-1923.) Over the course of his long career, Garnsey designed some forty theaters and opera houses, mostly for smaller midwestern cities.
The 1913-1914 Cahn guide lists Bluffton’s Grand Opera House as a ground floor theater with 378 seats on the main floor, 216 in the balcony, 175 in the gallery, and 12 in boxes. The proscenium opening was 30x28 feet, the stage was 33 feet from the footlights to the back wall, and 52 feet between the side walls.
A partial list of works by Chicago architect George Otis Garnsey (1840-1923) lists an opera house built for Charles May at Piqua, Ohio, in 1902-1903 as one of his designs. Garnsey had about forty theaters and opera houses to his credit, most of them in small midwestern towns.
Eau Claire’s Grand Opera House, a ground-floor theater built in 1883, was one of some forty theaters and opera houses, mostly in smaller midwestern cities, designed by the Chicago architect George Otis Garnsey (1840-1923.)
The 1913-1914 Cahn guide listed the Grand with 508 seats on the main floor, 382 in the balcony, 300 in the gallery, and 12 in boxes. The stage was 32 feet deep feet from the footlights to the back wall, and 70 feet between the side walls. The proscenium opening was 32x32.
The Texan Theatre’s first public event (other than the open house) will a free country music concert on Friday, May 20. The official web site is listing three more free events over the next couple of months, and two that will charge admission (click the “SHOWS” link at the top of the home page.)
This article from the Tyler Morning Telegraph has a slide show with a few current photos. The auditorium has a flat floor, portable seating, and the stage end is all glass. Essentially, only three walls of the original building remain. The renovation was designed by the Austin/Dallas architectural firm Architexas.
This item is from the February 6, 1909, issue of The Moving Picture World:
Schwalm and Rothleder were the operators of the Jewel Theatre in 1907, and Schwalm was in the movie theater business in several cities from 1905 until retiring in 1931, but I’ve found no evidence that either of them was ever an architect.
Rothleder was in the piano business, according to this item from the phonograph industry trade publication Talking Machine World:
The January 26, 1971, issue of the Hamilton Daily News and Journal ran an article about the Jewel Theatre building, which was about to be demolished. It said that John A. Schwalm and John H. Broomball, directors of the Jewel Photoplay Company, opened the Jewel on May 1, 1909, and the house closed in March, 1926.
The Jewel Photoplay Company had taken over operation of the Grand Theatre in 1918, and had built and opened the Rialto Theatre in 1920. In 1931 the company leased the Grand (renamed the Regent by 1924) and the Rialto to Paramount-Publix. Publix operated the Rialto, but kept the Regent closed.
When the Jewel Theatre building was demolished in 1971, the January 26 issue of the Hamilton Daily News and Journal published an article about it that included information about Hamilton’s other early theaters. One thing it said was that in 1926, when the Jewel closed, the Grand Theatre had already been renamed the Regent Theatre. In fact, Hamilton’s newspapers were advertising the Regent Theatre at least as early as 1924.
The FDY’s from 1927 through 1929 double-list the house both as the Grand and the Regent. Only the Palace and the Rialto are listed for Hamilton in 1930— quite a comedown for a city that had nine theaters (not including the double listing for the Grand) in 1929. The Regent is then listed from 1931 through 1937, but except for 1931 is always listed as closed. It was apparently never wired for sound.
The reason for the Regent’s long desuetude might have been revealed in a June 19, 1931, article in the Hamilton Evening Journal, which said that the Jewel Photoplay Company had sublet the Rialto and Regent Theatres to Paramount-Publix, the Rialto for ten years and the Regent for one year with an option to renew annually.
The rent on the Regent was quite low, $2,750 a year, and the agreement allowed Publix to use the house for such events as boxing and wrestling matches. It could be that Publix simply kept renewing its lease in order to prevent any other company from reopening and operating the 700-seat Regent in competition with its new Paramount Theatre and the Rialto, which Publix was also operating. It essentially cost them nothing to keep the Regent closed, as the agreement stipulated that if the lease on the Regent was terminated the $13,001 rent on the Rialto would automatically increase by the $2,750 amount of the rent on the Regent.
This item from The Moving Picture World of March 14, 1925, mentions the Lyric Theatre and another house that is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures (unless it is just a missing aka for another theater):<blockquote.“C. Zost, who operates the Lyric Theatre, Hamilton, Ohio, has acquired the Gem in that city.”
It is still possible, though increasingly unlikely, that the Princess Theatre will come back to life in a new building. This article posted to the Oxford Patch on May 18, 2018, says that the construction of a new Princess Theatre building took place in 2015, but that the ground floor, intended as a location for the theater, remains incomplete. If financing to finish the theater cannot be found the owner of the building is likely to lease the space for some other use.
These abstracts of articles from issues of The Rochester Sentinel published in 1913 pertain to the second Kai-Gee Theatre. The first item is from the issue of Thursday, May 8:
The second item is from the issue of Tuesday, December 16:I’ve been unable to find anything about architect W. H. Kendrick. A moderately famous architect of that name practiced in England in the late 19th century, and a builder/architect named William H. Kendrick practiced in Tampa, Florida, in the late 19th-early 20th centuries, but the Rochester architect does not appear to have been either of them.Google Maps is loopy from this address. It is fetching Hamilton, Illinois. This is probably because there is no Main Street in Hamilton, Missouri. The correct address is most likely 302 N. Davis Street, which is now the site of a parking lot on the northeast corner of Davis and Bird Street.
I took the reference to be to the railroad station, though the name probably applied to the entire neighborhood for several blocks around. The railroad R/O/W was between Manomet Avenue and Samoset Avenue, and the station itself was a few yards north of Kenberma Street. The station and railroad are gone, but this Wikimedia page has two vintage photos. Several houses in the photos can still be picked out in Google street view. The theater would almost certainly have been in the small business district around Kenberma and Nantasket Avenue a couple of blocks west of the station.
In 1916, the Majestic was owned by a T. V. Barnes. The June 24, 1916, issue of The American Contractor said that work had begun on a $15,000 remodeling of a theater at Ellwood City for T. V. Barnes. H. J. Lohman of McKeesport was the architect.
The South Shore Theatre might have been a 1916 project noted in the April 22 issue of The American Contractor that year. It was to be a one-story brick and concrete moving picture theater to cost $35,000. The location was given as “Kemberma sta., Hull, Mass.” and the owner was named William F. Eccles, of Somerville, Massachusetts. Stephen S. Ward of Boston was the architect.
Ralph Pate’s Rocket Drive-In was about four miles west of town on Highway 12, according to an item noting its recent opening in the October 23, 1954, issue of Boxoffice. I don’t believe the designation Highway 12 is used anymore, though. Pate was also the owner of the Royal Theatre in Samson.
Adel also had the 325-car Spardel Drive-In, opened by Stein Theatres in 1954. The name suggests that it was located north of Adel on the road to Sparks, a smaller town nearby.
A house called the Courter Theatre was in operation in 1966, when the September 29 issue of the Albany Ledger from Albany, Missouri, mentioned the Courter Theatre at Gallatin as one of four movie houses operated by a Mr. and Mrs. Fred Wilcox, who had just bought the closed Rigney Theatre in Albany and planned to reopen it as the Wilcox Theatre.
The problem is that I don’t know if this article concerned the original Courter Theatre, or the current Courter Theatre, which has existed since 1965 according to this article from the Davies County Historical Society. The Society’s article notes that the theater had both a movie screen and a concession stand, and had been owned by a non-profit group since 1965 and was showing movies as late as 1983.
Indeed, the reopening of the Courter Theatre following a refurbishment that took about four weeks was mentioned in Boxoffice of August 12, 1974. Then-manager John Schwieger was the manager of the house until resigning in 1983, according to the Historical Society article.
I have been assuming that the address 211 N. Main was indeed the location of the original Courter Theatre, but I have not found any source saying that the current Courter Theatre either was or was not the original, nor any source other than Cinema Treasures saying that the building at 211 N. Main ever housed a theater (though it certainly does look like it could have.) Either way, the current Courter Theatre at 105 S. Main Street (east side of Main just south of the square) and now the home of the Gallatin Theatre League, was operated as a movie house as late as 1983.
The Silver Theatre was in operation at least as late as 1966, when the September 29 issue of the Albany Ledger of Albany, Missouri, reported that Mr. and Mrs. Fred Wilcox of Gallatin had bought the closed Rigney Theatre in Albany and planned to renovate and reopen it as the Wilcox Theatre. The article said that the couple were already operating the Courier Theatre in Gallatin, the Civic Theatre in Hamilton, and the Silver Theatre and the Patio Drive-In at Cameron.
The Lyric Theatre is first listed in the FDY in 1928, so the 1930 project I cited in an earlier comment must have been either a remodeling of the existing house or a project for a different theater nearby that fell through.
However, a thumbnail biography of Lewis Harry Warriner in the NRHP registration form for the Lincoln Street Historic District does attribute the design of the Lyric to him. As it is first listed in 1928, it most likely opened in 1927, unless it had operated earlier under a different name.
The Waymarking page for the Pickwick Theatre for which bluesneaky provided a link above (clickable version) has a gallery with several photos and other items. The most interesting is a rendering of the building as rebuilt in 1936, from the architect of the project, L. H. Warriner (Lewis Harry Warriner.)
While the gallery is quite useful, I don’t know how accurate the text on the page is. It claims that the late Victorian commercial building on the Pickwick’s site, also seen in other photos, was the home of the Theatorium, the town’s first movie theater, but I see no clear evidence in the photos themselves (despite a marquee-like structure on the front of the building very early on) that there was a theater in this earlier building. It also claims that the Theatorium and the Pickwick were “…in the same place, all the same size….”. a claim which is belied by listings on the Film Daily’s yearbooks.
The Theatorium is never listed in the FDY, but in 1927 the book lists a house called the Oakland Theatre, and in 1928 and 1929 there is a house called the Community Theatre. Syracuse does not appear in the 1930 FDY, but the Community Theatre reappears in 1931, its seating capacity listed for the first time (250) but there is an asterisk denoting that it has not been wired for sound. The Community continues to be listed through 1937, always with 250 seats, but always with the notation that it is closed.
The Pickwick first appears in the 1938 edition, with a seating capacity of 1,100. My guess would be that the front of the old two-story building was remodeled in 1937 and an entirely new auditorium was built behind that structure. The Dickensian name Pickwick was likely chosen to match the Tudor revival style of the new front, or vice versa.
There was a house called the Theatorium at Syracuse, mentioned in the October 13, 1917, issue of Motography, when the theater changed hands, but whether it was the same theater as the Oakland and the Community, and whether it (or they) were in the building behind which the 1937 Pickwick was most likely built, I don’t know. Any theater in that building would have been a storefront conversion. The Pickwick auditorium was clearly new in 1937, though I don’t doubt that the 1937 auditorium did indeed survive the 1945 fire and is the theater still in use today.
The January 17, 1936, issue of The Hammond Times said that the Hartley Theatre Company would remodel and reopen “…the long closed Lyric theater in East Chicago….” with a new name, no more than four letters long, to be chosen in a public contest. I guess that accounts for the non-standard spelling “Voge” that the house ended up with.
The Grand’s building is currently occupied by a bar and restaurant called Miknan’s Main Street Pub.
This house had fournames. This article posted to the web site of the Columbia Daily Tribune says that a movie house opened on October 16, 1913, as “… the Alamo Theatre, eventually became the Dickinson Theatre, then the Fayette Theatre and finally the Grand Theater.”
After this theater was demolished, an old commercial building down the block was converted into a theater also called the Grand. The site of the original Grand is occupied by an extension of the Commercial Trust Company.
The Grand Theatre at 107 N. Main was opened in an old commercial building after the original Grand at 115 Main was demolished.
The Grand Opera House at Bluffton, Indiana opened in 1903, according to a list of buildings designed by its architect, George Otis Garnsey (1840-1923.) Over the course of his long career, Garnsey designed some forty theaters and opera houses, mostly for smaller midwestern cities.
The 1913-1914 Cahn guide lists Bluffton’s Grand Opera House as a ground floor theater with 378 seats on the main floor, 216 in the balcony, 175 in the gallery, and 12 in boxes. The proscenium opening was 30x28 feet, the stage was 33 feet from the footlights to the back wall, and 52 feet between the side walls.
A partial list of works by Chicago architect George Otis Garnsey (1840-1923) lists an opera house built for Charles May at Piqua, Ohio, in 1902-1903 as one of his designs. Garnsey had about forty theaters and opera houses to his credit, most of them in small midwestern towns.
Eau Claire’s Grand Opera House, a ground-floor theater built in 1883, was one of some forty theaters and opera houses, mostly in smaller midwestern cities, designed by the Chicago architect George Otis Garnsey (1840-1923.)
The 1913-1914 Cahn guide listed the Grand with 508 seats on the main floor, 382 in the balcony, 300 in the gallery, and 12 in boxes. The stage was 32 feet deep feet from the footlights to the back wall, and 70 feet between the side walls. The proscenium opening was 32x32.