The headline: "The New Theater," Deseret News, March 12, 1862.
Before there was a Salt Lake Temple, before there was a State Capitol Building, a Salt Lake City-County Building or a Hotel Utah, there was the Salt Lake Theatre.
"The people must have amusement as well as religion," said Brigham Young, former LDS Church president, colonizer and political leader. He set about providing a home for those amusements that ultimately was proclaimed one of the top three or four of its kind in the nation.
At its dedication in 1862, President Young prayed that those who would be performing in the magnificent new edifice would "be just as virtuous, truthful and humble before God and each other as though they were on a mission to preach the gospel."
Over the years, he was a regular patron but was known to frown now and again to express subtle displeasure when audiences got too demonstrative in their appreciation. Soldiers who misbehaved during one performance were thrown out until they agreed to improve their decorum. President Young's preference for "light fare" influenced the selection of productions, eliminating some heavy dramas.
President Daniel H. Wells, later Utah governor (and an actor in his own right), gave the dedicatory prayer, repeated word-for-word in the Deseret News. Several columns of type reported that he invoked blessings in great detail upon every possible apurtenance, including the dishes to be used in productions. He prayed that the building would "crumble to atoms" rather than be profaned by anything unworthy.
His wife, Louisa, reportedly said facetiously that she wondered if he might not have "left out the lath and plaster." But this was, after all, the only theater then in existence west of the Mississippi River.
With 1,500 seats, the theater could accommodate in one seating more than 10 percent of the 12,000 residents living in Salt Lake Valley when the theater was dedicated. Built at a cost of about $100,000, it provided a cultural focus for pioneers who were to a great degree cut off from the world they had known.
The theater, on the northeast corner of 100 South and State Street, was a marvel for a town that had been in existence just 15 years. With the closest lumber stores and hardware outlets hundreds of miles away, the builders called on pioneer ingenuity.
At the site where the future D&RG Railroad depot would rise, workers mixed clay from Salt Lake City's east benches with straw and gravel to form bricks. Pine beams were dragged from Cottonwood Canyon, and iron was scavenged from the wreckage of government wagons on the Wyoming desert to make nails.
Women were asked to spend their evenings whittling wooden pegs to hold the massive ceiling beams together. Most every local family could boast some contribution to the theater's construction.
Hiram B. Clawson bought some $40,000 worth of building materials from Camp Floyd for about a 10th of the original cost, leading some to conjecture, tongue in cheek, that Johnston's Army was sent to Utah to benefit theatrics.
The 80-by-144-foot theater was the largest building in town. The two simple Doric columns that distinguished its front pronounced it a place of culture, and the interior was ornately decorated in the mode of the day.
Three posts on either side of the stage each held three large kerosene lamps to illuminate the performance area, and 385 oil lamps blazed away in the hall. Stoves placed around the perimeter of the seating area burned wood from nearby canyons to keep the audience comfortable. Gas was installed in 1872, and in the early 1880s, the theater was wired for electricity.
Two boxes overlooked four descending tiers of seats, and the stage itself was larger than usual for its time.
The theater provided a home for the Deseret Dramatic Association, organized in 1850. At first, productions tended to feature local performers, but as the fame of the theater spread, many of the greatest actors of the day endured the rigors of stagecoach travel to get to Salt Lake City. With the availability of trains in the late 1860s, more of theater's best arrived in touring companies to strut their moment upon Utah's stage.
In one instance, the train arrived at 9 p.m. bearing George Rignold, who had just completed a tour as Henry V in New York. The Salt Lake Theatre program had proceeded with the "after-piece," and Rignold arrived in time to perform "The Lady of Lyons" as planned. Then the audience insisted on a showing of Henry V while Rignold was still in town, giving the local supporting cast two days to prepare.
While the local theater hosted many of the greats of the decades from 1860 to almost 1930, it also produced some local talent that went on to fame. Among them was Maude Adams, who spent much of her babyhood in a cradle backstage while her mother, "Asenath" or Annie Adams Kiskadden, performed.
Born to the theater, Maude became an actress in her own right, traveling the world but often returning to her Utah home.
In Utah's frontier atmosphere, the theater offered an excuse for the city folk to dress up. Women brought out their best dresses and plush capes with bright linings for an evening at the theater. The elite had special seats they claimed as their own, and they used opera glasses alternately to get a better view of the stage and to see who was attending the theater that evening. Farm folks, on the other hand, might show up with produce or chickens to barter for tickets.
Firearms were checked at the door with the treasurer and returned at the conclusion of the program.
Parents were discouraged from bringing babies, but when simple discouragement did not work, theater operators became more direct. "Babies in arms ten dollars extra" signs informed those who hadn't taken the hint.
The theater was always popular but wasn't always financially solvent. At one juncture, it was saved only by the fact that its competition, the Walker Opera House, burned to the ground.
Among those who had their moment in the Salt Lake Theatre spotlight were P.T. Barnum, Billie Burke, Buffalo Bill Cody, Franny Davenport, Eddie Foy, Al Jolson, Edwin Booth, Lillian Russell, Oscar Wilde and all of the Barrymores, including Ethel, John, Lionel and Drew.
Lesser luminaries such as phrenologist Orson Fowler also took turns, and the theater was the scene of many socials, formal balls, benefit affairs and parties.
"I want to play here until I am 100 years old," declared Ethel Barrymore.
But at the time she made her dramatic declaration of devotion to the Salt Lake Theatre, it already was doomed.
In the 1920s, competition from vaudeville, movies and the automobile, which took entertainment-seekers farther afield, combined with an alarming decline in the moral quality of theater offerings, gave church leaders second thoughts.
President Heber J. Grant deliberated over the dilemma for several years and considered several alternatives, but in the end, the theater property was sold to Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph. The decision was opposed by many who wanted the theater preserved, including leaders of the influential Daughters of Utah Pioneers, who openly defied the church leader.
In 1928, the theater was razed, but it didn't give up its place as a Utah landmark easily. The tightly fitted huge red pine beams resisted demolition and delayed the fall of the building for several weeks. ILLUSTRATION: Photograph #1: The elegant 1,500-seat theater drew local talent along with some of the greatest actors of the day. Photograph #2: Dedicated in 1862, the Salt Lake Theatre at 100 South and State was a marvel of pioneer ingenuity for a city as young as Salt Lake City.