Wellston Theater (#1)

The Empire Winter Garden Theater opened in 1905 with what it called “high class vaudeville” every evening. The high profile location opposite City Hall did not deliver much success to the Empire Winter Garden which scuffled trying to find its audience.

Three street-car lines stopped right in front of the venue making it possible for the EWG to recruit vaudeville talents throughout the City of St. Louis. In 1906, the venue moved to minstrel shows and its new name was the Empire Garden Theatre Hall. In 1908, it was shortened to the Empire Theater and had returned to vaudeville with short films interspersed between live acts. In 1909, it largely referred to as the Empire Hall moving more to sporadic events.

In 1911, the venue is renamed and becomes the first of three Wellston Theaters almost but not quite in the same footprints. In early-1912, the Wellston Theater went into receivership and lost all of its seating, scenery and fixtures. In the receivership, Jacob Oppenheimer appears to have lost the Suburban Garden Theatre, the Wellston Theatre, and the Jai Alai Skating Rink (and programmed the American Theater and Garrick Theater for one season, each).

The venue is shifted to retail. But ten years later in March of 1921, the former Empire Hall / Wellston Theater multipurpose building is slated for demolition. In its place, the Wellston Theater Company will build Wellston Theatre (#2) which opens in the Fall of 1921. Spoiler alert, it will burn down on April 4, 1944 and will be replaced by Wellston Theatre (#3) opening in November 1945 and will operate for 17 years before also being demolished. Both Wellston Theatre #2 & #3 have their own pages on Cinema Treasures.

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