March Theater
21 E. Main Street,
Vermillion,
SD
57069
21 E. Main Street,
Vermillion,
SD
57069
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An ad touting the movie “Pershing’s Crusaders” in Moving Picture World of September 17, 1918 lists the Opera House, Vermillion, S. D. as one of the theaters that has shown the film. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory skipped Vermillion, but it’s likely that movies were already being shown then. The 1926 and 1930 FDYs list the City Theatre with 600 seats.
The March Theatre is listed in the 1935 FDY, with 450 seats. Also listed that year is the Coyote Theatre, with 300 seats. The March is listed in the 1940 FDY with 600 seats again, and the Coyote is up to 500 seats. In the 1945 edition, the March is listed as closed, though still with 600 seats, and the Coyote is gone, the Co-Ed being listed instead with 492 seats. In 1950, the Co-Ed has 500 seats and the March is listed with only 350.
I’m still trying to puzzle out Vermillion’s rather confused theatrical history, but I’m not sure that this was the only house in Vermillion to be called the March Theatre. I think that at some point the name might have been moved to the house now called the Vermillion Theatre. A 2014 article about the closing of the Vermillion Theatre says that the Vermillion was once called the March Theatre. This makes me wonder if the name March wasn’t moved to the building at 4 W. Main Street when the original March was closed. It would account for the drastic reduction in seating capacity.
Address is wrong. Not sure why there is no information in the listing, but the city hall seems to have been built between 1903 and 1912, replacing an older 3 story version with a smaller footprint. It might have been a remodel of the older structure, which had been built between 1883 and 1892. That also had an opera house. The 1912 map just calls it an opera house, but the 1923 map shows the City Theatre. The 1905 Cahn guide gives a capacity of 775, and calls it the Grand Opera House. It’s not clear if the new building then existed, but 350 seems very low for such a big building.
The proper address is 21 E Main, which is now the site of a nasty ‘70s or '80s bank building.
Nice old photo of The MARCHS vertical sign.
It’s too bad they knocked that building down. That was a very nice Colonial Revival facade. Liebenberg and Kaplan’s undated work on the building must have involved only minor alterations as far as the exterior was concerned if it was done before that photo was taken.
The archives of the architectural firm of Liebenberg & Kaplan list an undated theater project at Vermillon under the name March. The photo of the theater linked by ken mc above does look like their earlier work, but seems quite old fashioned for the opening date of 1935. Perhaps this was an older building that was converted into a movie theater?
The November 30, 1946, issue of Boxoffice has an interesting item datelined Vermillion: “George March is the new owner of the March Theatre here. He purchased the house at an auction.”
There was a March Brothers theater circuit, headquartered in Vermillion, in the 1960s. Perhaps that had something to do with the name of this theater.
Here is an undated photo of the March:
http://tinyurl.com/2ypfw8