Orpheum Theatre
Brewery Avenue and Review Alley,
Bisbee,
AZ
85603
Brewery Avenue and Review Alley,
Bisbee,
AZ
85603
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This brief article about silent film comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle says that for several months in 1909 he was a resident of Bisbee, where he appeared regularly on the stage of the Orpheum Theatre.
Although the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum says that the Orpheum opened as the Grand Theatre, a book called Arizona on Stage: Playhouses, Plays, and Players in the Territory, 1879-1912 by Thomas P. Collins doesn’t mention the name Grand. It merely says that the Orpheum Theatre was built by a Swiss immigrant named Joseph Maria Muheim who had prospered in Bisbee, that it opened on July 24, 1907, and that it was designed by local architect Fred C. Hurst. The original seating capacity was 1,000, according to the 1909-1910 Cahn guide.
A Facebook post from the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum says “[t]he Grand Theatre at the mouth of the Gulch later became the Orpheum.” The Orpheum was already listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
This web page has a photo of Bisbee’s Brewery Gulch with the Orpheum Theatre in the 1920s.