RKO Mainstreet Theatre
200 Main Street,
Racine,
WI
53403
200 Main Street,
Racine,
WI
53403
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I’ve been researching this theatre, which just might have been Wisconsin’s finest legitimate playhouse and able to stand on its own as such worldwide.
The namestone above the curved entrance at State and Main Streets read “Bate”. John W. Bate had come to Racine in 1905 and was the general superintendent at the Mitchell-Lewis Motor Car Company. He was the builder and owner of the $150,000 theatre which was to be named for him and open on December 23, 1911 with a charity performance of “A Snug Little Kingdom”, starring a then-unknown Alfred Lunt. (Racine Journal-News, Oct. 11, 1911).
However, that didn’t happen, and the theatre opened instead as the Orpheum (“Racine’s Play House De Luxe”) on 11 AM on Monday, April 29, 1912, leased and operated by the Chicago-based Allardt Bros. Circuit and a Martin J. Gillen. A Mr. H.C. Andress was the first manager.
The Allardts were already operating the Orpheums in South Bend IN, Hammond, IN, and Ft. William, Ont. and the Broadway in Superior WI, the Grand in Joliet IL, the Majestic in Springfield IL and the Lyric in Danville IL.
(Interestingly, there was another Orpheum Theatre nearby on College Avenue, a movie house which became known as the Orpheum on College Avenue.)
The opening program featured the Orpheum Concert Orchestra conducted by Professor O. M. Cotton, Ted Bailey’s Posing Dogs, monologuist Bernardi “The King of Protean Artists”, farceurs Hermine Shone & Company, dancers Lydell & Butterworth, parodist Murray K. Hill, and some unspecified film program of first-run “superlative views”.
Tickets started at .10 for matinee balcony seats and topped out at .50 for box seats at night and on Sundays and holiday matinees. (Racine Journal-News, April 27, 1912.)
On July 1, 1920 the Orpheum was leased by the First National Theatre Company (based in the State-Lake Theatre, Chicago) and was redecorated and renamed the National, with W.E. Duncanson in charge. A new electric sign was mounted.
The announcement ran in the June 27, 1920 Racine Journal-News which had some stunning (and rare) interior photos of the theatre.
The Main Street was built in 1911 for $60,000.
There is a rare 1958 (?) photo of the closed RKO Main Street Theatre in the July 6th, 1972 Racine Journal Times showing the smallish rounded marquee and the spectacular vertical sign which remained until demolition.
That sign towered seven stories above Main Street. In a large circle at the top were the letters ‘RKO’, where scintillating “lightning bolts” would shoot outward from it. The sign’s bottom edge was likewise shaped into jagged lightning-bolt edging outlined with bulbs, typical for RKO theatres but rare in the Midwest.
That sign at night had to have been stunning.
The small accompanying article is captioned “What Might Have Been” (indeed) and praised the Main Street as “one of the best stage houses in the Midwest”. In 1941 it sold for $35,000, in 1945 for $65,000 and for $120,000 in 1948.
But ten years later the owner offered it to the City for $20,000 which was of course rejected and the Main Street was quickly demolished. The owner stopped paying taxes on the empty lot ten years later, the property is still vacant to this day, and retrospect today, a half-century later, shows that everyone lost.
For photos, see www.groups.yahoo.com/group/RacineGranada