Dryfus Theatre
Columbia Street,
Lafayette,
IN
47901
Columbia Street,
Lafayette,
IN
47901
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The 1908-1909 Cahn guide lists the Grand Opera House at Lafayette as a ground floor theater with 1,400 seats, but does not provide a breakdown of their distribution. Plans to rename the house Dreyfus (the correct spelling) Theatre for owner Leopold Dreyfus were noted in the October 9, 1909 issue of the New York Dramatic Mirror. The Dreyfus Theatre was destroyed by a fire on the morning of April 10, 1914. The fire caused the death of firefighter Captain John Mitchell, 47.
Although movies had been shown intermittently at the house for several years, at the time of the fire a play was about to be mounted by the Purdue University drama society, who lost $1,400 in scenery to the blaze. Later in the month, a road show production of “Ben Hur” was to have been presented by the Klaw and Erlanger circuit.