Nipmuc Park Theatre

Joe Vogel on September 18, 2021 at 1:04 am

There was a theater at Lake Nipmuc Park at least as early as 1908, when it was listed in that year’s Massachusetts Business Directory, but it might or might not have been this one. Nipmuc Park was opened on March 23, 1902 by the Milford Street Railway Company, and if it was typical of such pleasure parks from that era it was probably reconfigured and some parts of it rebuilt many times over the years.

Lake Nipmuc Park, like other such places, was a seasonal operation, and I’ve come across several entertainment trade journal notices of the Nipmuc Theatre opening or closing for the season. The venue provided a variety of entertainments, including movies from a fairly early date, confirmed by the listing of the Nipmuc Park Theatre in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.

The last mention of the Nipmuc I’ve found in the trades so far is a brief notice in Boxoffice of July 3, 1954, which said simply that plans to reopen the theater at Lake Nipmuc “…have not yet materialized.” Privately owned parks such as Lake Nipmuc faded rapidly in the 1950s, and I haven’t been able to confirm when it closed or what became of the theater. The park’s former ballroom, however, has survived for quite some time, and today is operated as a venue for weddings called Grand View.