High Street was alive with theaters during the early 20th Century. The theaters included the Royal, Star, Bijou, Empire, Churchill Hall, and the Lyric. The Bijou later moved to Main Street. Four theaters were located on Main Street: the Wonderland, Palace, Bijou, and Majestic. After 1956, no theaters operated on either of these 2 busy commercial streets. Today's story takes us back to High Street's heyday as a theater district: the history of the Grand Theater.
The Grand Theater opened its doors on December 3, 1907, at 353 High Street. Opera chairs were installed to make all patrons more comfortable. The theater featured movies backed by a pianist in the classic Nickelodeon style. Vaudeville acts, including comedians, singers, dancers, and others, performed for the audience's enjoyment.
In December 1908, Mr. Rackliffe, who owned the building, planned to demolish it and rebuild. He would then lease the storefronts to two local merchants, who partnered with one from Boston and one from Springfield. The local parties ran a dry goods business. As a result, the Grand Theater needed to relocate or shut down.
The theater moved a block away to 407 High Street, in the building that previously housed the Hotel Leon, owned by Louis LaFrance. The theater occupied half of the first floor. Charles Higginbotham owned the Grand Theater, the Palace Theater, and later the Globe and Suffolk Theaters.
In 1911, the theater held amateur nights and awarded prizes to the winning participant. In 1913, the theater offered dance lessons, including the Turkey Trot, Tango, and hesitation waltz on its stage.
In 1914, local safe expert and locksmith Frank Rackliffe duplicated the tricks of "Cunning, the jailbreaker" and tried to free himself from handcuffs and escape from a locked trunk. Before this, he successfully escaped from the steel records vault in the basement of Holyoke City Hall.
On November 28, 1914, a fire at the Grand Theater required repairs. Moses Demers, the theater owner since 1913, used the downtime to improve the venue. Mr. Demers had previously owned the Star Theater.
He installed electric current to improve direct and indirect lighting. They removed posts that obstructed patrons' view of the stage. The theater installed a backup electric line from the Hotel LaFrance power station in case it lost power.
The Grand Theater reopened on February 4, 1915. Mr. Demers agreed with the General Film Company of New York to present several Broadway Star features at the Grand as soon as their run ended at the Vitagraph Theater in New York.
In January 1916, the theater underwent additional modifications to increase seating capacity. Henry Glutney conducted the work.
The theater continued to run feature films throughout 1916. On November 1, 1916, Moses Demers sold the theater to Walter D. Hanley. Mr. Demers remained theater manager. The last advertisement for a film showing appeared in the Holyoke Transcript on June 1, 1917. It was announced that Mr. Hanley took a position as a salesman for the Dunbar Motor Car Company on June 17, 1917.
In March 1918, the building's owner, Walter Potolski, sought a building permit to change the building's front and interior, including the space of the former Grand Theater, to accommodate other business purposes.
Citations:
Newspapers.com (paid subscription): Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript -Telegram; publication dates and pages shown.
Ancestry.com (paid subscription): Genealogy Records and Price & Lee, Holyoke, Massachusetts, City Directories
1911 Richards Atlas of Holyoke, Massachusetts
Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System, Boston, Massachusetts
