Wonderland Theatre

Stanley Gay launched an early silent movie house on March 30, 1908 in the Bostwick Block. It replaced a music and phonograph store. The Gay Theatre competed against the popular Nickel Theatre as the town’s second dedicated movie theatre. In 1910, Lyons & Walden took on the venue renaming it as the Wonderland Theatre at its Grand Opening on March 4, 1910. The theatre had fixed seating and now had both a sloped floor and an emergency exit. Quite the improvement.

The Wonderland Theatre received a refresh in 1915 and then was purchased along with Plaza Theatre and Strand Theatre in 1918. Unfortunately, the new operator tiered the theatres with the Strand Theatre as the “A” movie house, the Plaza Theatre as the sub-run value house and the undersized Wonderland Theatre as a sporadically-used vaudeville and live event house. The Wonderland Theatre appears to have closed at end of lease late in 1919.

On January 12, 1926, the entire block was destroyed except for the corner building when high winds toppled the vacant Bostwick Hotel. The spared building at the corner of St. Joseph Street and Second Street appears to be the former Wonderland Theatre which turned bicycle store in the 21st Century.

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