The Magnificent Orpheum, Act 1
My last post
found us at the east end of the Coal viaduct. This time, we're at the
west end. The building there, if you've ever noticed it, looks like just
another nondescript corner, and it would be hard to imagine much of
anything interesting going on inside. But this could not be further from
the truth. If you could travel through time and visit the building at
different points in history, here are some of the things you might see:
Hundreds of children being traumatized by one of the earliest horror
films. A crowd celebrating Washington's birthday on roller skates. A
future millionaire changing spark plugs. Albuquerque's first jiu-jitsu
match. Fires (so many fires). And whatever the hell "Poofy's Den of
Lust" is. That's barely scratching the surface. This is the story of the
Orpheum Theater.
The theater was built in 1911 by William V. Futrelle (c. 1845-1913), a Confederate veteran from Mississippi who moved west after the Civil War.1 In 1895, he arrived in Albuquerque with his wife Ella, daughter Rosa Gideon, and son-in-law J. O. Gideon, and opened a shop selling furniture, stoves, bicycles, and other household goods. Gideon had a furniture store too, and in 1898 the two businesses moved into adjoining storefronts on South First Street. They divided up the merchandise to not compete with each other, with Futrelle selling "new furniture, carpets, bicycles and wall paper" while Gideon offered secondhand furniture, "new cooking and heating stoves, crockery, glassware, tinware, woodenware, etc."2 In 1900 Futrelle decided he wanted to retire and let Gideon take over his business, 3 but the plan was thwarted when Gideon unexpectedly dropped dead at his home a few months later at age 44.4,5
Unexpectedly thrust back into business at age 55, Futrelle decided to go all in and started building a new store on some land he had recently purchased at the corner of Second and Coal. By choosing a location a little outside the main business district, he hoped he would "be able to save to the customer what we are paying in high rents" while offering a larger stock.6 The Citizen reported that "W. H. Jenne had the contract for the building, and put the work through in a hurry." This would appear to be a bit of an understatement; the company moved into the new building on December 29, 1900, just two months (!) after Gideon died.7
Futrelle's store was described in a 1902 profile in the Citizen: "Mr. Futrelle has two salesrooms, respectively 30x100 ad [sic] 28x60, but they are equivalent to four rooms, for each has a double floor, and the elevated platforms are as densely packed with stock as the main floors. The main room is devoted particularly to furniture, mattresses and bedding and the side room to stoves and other items of stock. Every foot of floor space is utilized either for stock or passage ways, and there is not a store of equal capacity in the city that has more actual stock in sight. ...[Futrelle] put up the building he at present occupies, and lives with his family on the second floor. It is a substantial brick structure, and one of the best buildings in the quarter in which it is located. Personally, Mr. Futrelle is a pleasant and courteous gentleman, with whom it is a pleasure to do business."8
Futrelle tried exiting the business again in 1905 because of "failing health".9 Evidently he got better, because he returned in 1907 to repurchase the store from its interim owner, and announced that he planned to "conduct the business more extensively than ever before."10 This was not just talk. In 1908, he built a new two-story building next to the existing one, with more room for furniture sales on the ground floor and boarding rooms, which he called the Hotel Denver, upstairs.11 An ad from that year included photos of both buildings, which were the only photos I was able to find.12
Things were going fine for a while, and then, as so often happens in these stories, disaster struck. Around midnight on April 12, 1911, a fire broke out in the Futrelle building and it burned to the ground in a matter of hours. Hotel guests still in their pajamas watched as the fire raged through the wooden building, consuming the huge stock of furniture and extremely flammable furniture polish with "astonishing rapidity". The Journal reported "Through the smoke and flames it could be seen that the building was of flimsy structure, thin brick veneered over a frame interior, and this fact added to the difficulty of fighting the fire." Shortly after 2 am the outer walls of the building collapsed into the street, and by 3:30 "the whole was a tumbled mass of burning wood and heated brick, with a few uprights standing where the building had been before, sentinels over the pire of a destroyed structure." Surprisingly, nobody was hurt in the fire. The total loss was reported at $50,000, but the building and stock were insured, so Futrelle didn’t take too much of a hit.13
The Futrelle Furniture Company didn't waste any time getting back on track. A temporary location was in business within two days after the fire,14 and a month later the company launched a "Great Fire Sale" to dispose of all the scorched merchandise that the firefighters had piled in the street on the night of the blaze. According to an ad in the Journal, the sale marked "an epoch in furniture selling long to be remembered as the most sensational selling event the city has ever known." This might have been over-hyping it a bit, but there were definitely some sweet bargains, like "Curtains that sold regularly from $1.50 to $7 a pair; slightly smoked, but not scorched; this week at the ridiculous price of 25c a pair."15 By this point, Futrelle was no longer actively running the company, and it officially became the Kapple Furniture Company in November, 1911, marking the end of his involvement.16
As for Futrelle, he was now 66 years old but apparently still needed a new project. I guess he had had his fill of furniture selling by this point because he decided to try something completely different with his now-empty property: a theater. Once again, he didn't waste time; the building was said to be "progressing rapidly" just three months after the fire17 and was ready for its grand opening on November 9, 1911.18 The new theater, to be called the Orpheum, was announced in the Journal with the headline "Newest Playhouse 'The Orpheum' Entirely Safe… Beautiful Futrelle Theater Unique in Construction With Absolutely No Danger of Fire or Panic." Perhaps this was a bit of a suspiciously specific denial, but the public would surely have been wary after what happened to the previous building, and theater fires were a very real concern at the time. Besides, Futrelle really had gone all out as far as fire safety was concerned. The building was of reinforced concrete construction with "no woodwork exposed anywhere except the doors and window frames" and had a row of five large exit doors along the side of the auditorium which could be opened instantly in an emergency, allowing the whole theater to be emptied in a minute and a half.19
Inside, the main auditorium was "eighty by fifty feet without a post in it", and the Evening Herald reported that "the pitch of the inclined floor assures a clear view of the stage from every part of the house."20 There was a single tier of seating with room for about 1,000 patrons and a "commodious" stage with hand-painted scenery by John Herboth, a local artist.18,19,21 The theater was equipped with the latest "automatic" seats made by Hardesty Manufacturing in Ohio, which could rotate independently and folded out of the way when not in use.19 On opening night the place was packed with a "record-breaking audience" and the Journal reported that it "gives every promise of being popular".18
Like other theaters at the time, the Orpheum showed a combination of movies and live Vaudeville entertainment. The concept of multi-reel narrative feature films was still very much in its infancy, so the movie program would generally consist of 3-4 assorted single-reel shorts running about 15 minutes each.22 The subject matter varied widely and usually included both narrative and documentary films. A typical Orpheum bill from 1912 lists four shorts: Jews in Poland ("Intensely dramatic"), Dog Detective ("Don’t fail to see the almost human intelligence of this animal"), Flanigan’s Family Outing ("Screamingly funny"), and Bull Fight ("Thrilling with all the cruel features eliminated").23 Films about current events, like the Titanic,24 the Panama Canal,25 and the Mexican Revolution26 were also popular. A film about the 1913 Dawson mining disaster was advertised as "showing it in every detail, from the explosion to the burials, and the life saving crew in action. … Bring the family."27 Another similar type of entertainment was the "illustrated song," which was a musical performance accompanied by a slideshow of related images. These were often shown between reels with the audience invited to sing along.28
The Vaudeville shows also encompassed a variety of content, which might include traveling headliners like Prof. Gilbert, "the greatest trick violinist on the American stage today", 29 the mysterious "lady in black (not a fake)" who "will reveal past and future",30 or "Dolly Dimples, the educated horse".31 Other slots on the bill would be filled by house performers—often including the manager's own family members, like David Clifford's children Leon and Virginia,32 or later the Hart Sisters.33 On slow nights, the management might try to attract patrons with giveaways or special events like an "amateur night" for local performers. This was not without its peril, though; the Journal reported on a 1913 incident where a woman attempting a Spanish dance was "beaned" with a lemon from the audience and could not continue.34
The Orpheum was a big success, at least at first. Within a month of its opening it was drawing large crowds; on some nights over 2,000 people showed up, resulting in more than half being turned away.35,36 For perspective, this was nearly 20% of the city population at the time. One notable event was a "Big Free Matinee" sponsored by the Journal which was open to all children under 14. The theater promised to take good care of the kids with extra ushers on hand and "a chorus of ten girls who will dance and sing for the edification of the children".37 The afternoon’s main entertainment, strangely, was two reels of the Italian film Dante’s Inferno, which a modern-day writer described as being filled with "a prodigious amount of horrific and morbid images".38 No one seems to have publicly complained about the suitability of the film for small children, but there may have been grumblings around town because Clifford, the manager, published a column a couple of weeks later defending the educational value of film and condemning "attacks on moving pictures by persons whose minds are biased by unfounded prejudice."39
Despite the initial success, the theater quickly began to struggle. Clifford quit the business after just three months,40 kicking off a rapid succession of different managers, some lasting as little as two weeks.41,42 By early 1915, both the Orpheum and the adjacent Hotel Denver, which Futrelle had rebuilt as well, were out of business and were sold at auction.43 The new owners had a different vision for the property. They removed the seats, installed a Wurlitzer organ and a new maple floor, and reopened it as a roller rink.44,45 The rink offered nightly skating as well as special events like "rube" or "cowboy" costume nights, holiday parties, and dancing.46,47
The dances must have been the most lucrative, because the management eventually ditched the skates and turned the Orpheum into a full-time dance hall. Dancing was offered two nights a week with a live band, with advertisements promising the "coolest hall and smoothest floor in town".48 In 1918, the Journal reported that "The Orpheum possesses what is generally conceded to be one of the largest and best lighted dance floors in the city" and warned that "no disorderly characters will be tolerated".49 Rowdy patrons were one matter, but the real enemy, as always, was fire. The Orpheum had its first (but not last) run-in with that in 1918 when the Superior Lumber Company, which was just across the alley on First Street, went up in 100-foot-high flames. Some blamed it on kids playing with matches; others suspected arson, since both fire companies seemed to have been diverted to faraway locations with fake calls just beforehand. In any case, the lumber yard burned to the ground, but the Orpheum and Hotel Denver were only "slightly burned"—it turned out the thick concrete walls were just as fireproof as Futrelle had promised.50 The dance hall may have escaped the fire but it was still facing financial difficulties, and went out of business the following year.
And with that, I'm going to drop the curtain and take a brief intermission, because this post is already very long. But don't worry, the rest of the story will be coming soon!
Sources
1. "W. V. Futrelle Is Dead After Being Ill 2 Weeks." Albuquerque Journal, October 6, 1913. Via Newspapers.com.
2. "Business Changes and Removals." Albuquerque Citizen, June 20, 1898. Via Newspapers.com.
3. "Local and Personal." Albuquerque Journal, June 5, 1900. Via Newspapers.com.
4. "J. O. Gideon Dead." Albuquerque Journal, October 26, 1900. Via Newspapers.com.
5. "Fairview Memorial Park: Surnames Ga-Gn." Interment.net.
6. "Announcement." Albuquerque Journal, December 6, 1900. Via Newspapers.com.
7. [W. V. Futrelle & Co.] Albuquerque Citizen, December 31, 1900. Via Newspapers.com.
8. "W. V. Futrelle: Wholesale and Retail Furniture." Albuquerque Citizen, October 13, 1902. Via Newspapers.com.
9. "Futrelle Sells Out Furniture Business." Albuquerque Journal, May 9, 1905. Via Newspapers.com.
10. "Futrelle Furniture Co." Albuquerque Citizen, March 16, 1907. Via Newspapers.com.
11. [W. V. Futrelle has let the contract.] Albuquerque Journal, May 2, 1908. Via Newspapers.com.
12. "Futrelle Furniture Co" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, October 7, 1908. Via Newspapers.com.
13. "Denver Hotel Destroyed by Fire." Albuquerque Journal, April 12, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
14. [Since Our Store Has Burned] (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, April 14, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
15. "Five Days of the Futrelle Furniture Co.'s Fire Sale" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, May 21, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
16. "It's the Kapple Furniture Co. Hereafter." Albuquerque Journal, November 1, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
17. "Futrelle Theater to Be Up-to-Date." Albuquerque Journal, July 8, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
18. "Orpheum Theater Thrown Open to Play-Goers." Albuquerque Journal, November 10, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
19. "Newest Playhouse 'The Orpheum' Entirely Safe." Albuquerque Journal, October 22, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
20. "Futrelle Theater Is Rapidly Assuming an Imposing Proportion." Albuquerque Evening Herald, August 12, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
21. "Albuquerque's New Play-House." Albuquerque Journal, October 8, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
22. Keil, Charlie and Singer, Ben, ed. American Cinema of the 1910s: Themes and Variations. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2009, pp. 10-17.
23. "Orpheum Today Only" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, October 20, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
24. "Titanic Pictures Will Be Here Sunday." Albuquerque Journal, April 27, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
25. "Interesting Talk at Orpheum." Albuquerque Journal, January 5, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
26. "Mexican Revolution Pictures" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, November 6, 1913. Via Newspapers.com.
27. "Dawson Disaster Pictures Shown at Orpheum Tonight." Albuquerque Journal, April 8, 1914. Via Newspapers.com.
28. "A 'Forgotten' Part of the Program: Illustrated Songs." In: Abel, Richard. Americanizing the Movies and “Movie-Mad” Audiences 1910-1914. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006, pp. 127-140.
29. "New Vaudeville This Week at Orpheum." Albuquerque Journal, April 17, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
30. "The Mysterious Lady in Black, Orpheum Monday." Albuquerque Journal, April 5, 1914. Via Newspapers.com.
31. "Orpheum" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, May 6, 1913. Via Newspapers.com.
32. "Talented Children of the Stage." Albuquerque Journal, December 10, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
33. "New Company at Orpheum." Albuquerque Journal, October 20, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
34. "Gets Warrant for Man Who Threw Lemon at Wife." Albuquerque Journal, April 22, 1913. Via Newspapers.com.
35. "More Than Thousand Are Turned Away at Orpheum." Albuquerque Journal, December 5, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
36. "Two Thousand at Orpheum Show." Albuquerque Journal, December 6, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
37. "Morning Journal Will Be Host to the Children of Albuquerque at Special Thanksgiving Matinee." Albuquerque Journal, November 29, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
38. Ettleman, Tristan. "The 1911 Dante’s Inferno Film Is a Hellish Delight." Medium, February 25, 2018.
39. Clifford, David. "The Moving Picture and the Child." Albuquerque Journal, December 17, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
40. "Manager Clifford Retires from Orpheum." Albuquerque Journal, January 28, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
41. "Orpheum Theater in New Hands." Albuquerque Journal, March 14, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
42. "Notice!" (advertisement) Albuquerque Journal, March 30, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
43. "For Sale" (advertisement) Albuquerque Journal, March 21, 1915. Via Newspapers.com.
44. "Skating Rink at Old Orpheum Theater." Albuquerque Journal, November 21, 1915. Via Newspapers.com.
45. "Masquerade Ball." Albuquerque Journal, November 25, 1915. Via Newspapers.com.
46. "An Old-Fashioned 'Rube' Skating Party" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, February 2, 1916. Via Newspapers.com.
47. "Big Cowboy dance tonight" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, March 8, 1916. Via Newspapers.com.
48. "Dance" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, July 19, 1919. Via Newspapers.com.
49. "Orpheum Dance Hall Will Reopen Under New Management." Albuquerque Journal, April 1, 1918. Via Newspapers.com.
50. "$50,000 Loss in Fire at Superior Lumber Company." Albuquerque Journal, September 2, 1918. Via Newspapers.com.
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| The Orpheum Theater and Coal Viaduct in 2018. Orpheum Community Hub via Facebook. |
The theater was built in 1911 by William V. Futrelle (c. 1845-1913), a Confederate veteran from Mississippi who moved west after the Civil War.1 In 1895, he arrived in Albuquerque with his wife Ella, daughter Rosa Gideon, and son-in-law J. O. Gideon, and opened a shop selling furniture, stoves, bicycles, and other household goods. Gideon had a furniture store too, and in 1898 the two businesses moved into adjoining storefronts on South First Street. They divided up the merchandise to not compete with each other, with Futrelle selling "new furniture, carpets, bicycles and wall paper" while Gideon offered secondhand furniture, "new cooking and heating stoves, crockery, glassware, tinware, woodenware, etc."2 In 1900 Futrelle decided he wanted to retire and let Gideon take over his business, 3 but the plan was thwarted when Gideon unexpectedly dropped dead at his home a few months later at age 44.4,5
 | ||
| Ad for Futrelle's furniture store, 215 South First, 1899. Albuquerque Citizen via Newspapers.com. |
 |
| J. O. Gideon's adjoining store at 205 South First, 1899. Albuquerque Citizen via Newspapers.com. |
Unexpectedly thrust back into business at age 55, Futrelle decided to go all in and started building a new store on some land he had recently purchased at the corner of Second and Coal. By choosing a location a little outside the main business district, he hoped he would "be able to save to the customer what we are paying in high rents" while offering a larger stock.6 The Citizen reported that "W. H. Jenne had the contract for the building, and put the work through in a hurry." This would appear to be a bit of an understatement; the company moved into the new building on December 29, 1900, just two months (!) after Gideon died.7
 |
| Futrelle's new store at Second and Coal, January, 1901. Albuquerque Citizen via Newspapers.com. |
Futrelle's store was described in a 1902 profile in the Citizen: "Mr. Futrelle has two salesrooms, respectively 30x100 ad [sic] 28x60, but they are equivalent to four rooms, for each has a double floor, and the elevated platforms are as densely packed with stock as the main floors. The main room is devoted particularly to furniture, mattresses and bedding and the side room to stoves and other items of stock. Every foot of floor space is utilized either for stock or passage ways, and there is not a store of equal capacity in the city that has more actual stock in sight. ...[Futrelle] put up the building he at present occupies, and lives with his family on the second floor. It is a substantial brick structure, and one of the best buildings in the quarter in which it is located. Personally, Mr. Futrelle is a pleasant and courteous gentleman, with whom it is a pleasure to do business."8
Futrelle tried exiting the business again in 1905 because of "failing health".9 Evidently he got better, because he returned in 1907 to repurchase the store from its interim owner, and announced that he planned to "conduct the business more extensively than ever before."10 This was not just talk. In 1908, he built a new two-story building next to the existing one, with more room for furniture sales on the ground floor and boarding rooms, which he called the Hotel Denver, upstairs.11 An ad from that year included photos of both buildings, which were the only photos I was able to find.12
 |
| Futrelle's original building, bottom, and the recently completed addition, top, as shown in a 1908 advertisement. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
 |
| Futrelle's property on the1908 Sanborn map, showing the new addition under construction. Via Digital Sanborn Maps, full sheet available. |
 |
| Futrelle Furniture Co. advertisement, 1910. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
Things were going fine for a while, and then, as so often happens in these stories, disaster struck. Around midnight on April 12, 1911, a fire broke out in the Futrelle building and it burned to the ground in a matter of hours. Hotel guests still in their pajamas watched as the fire raged through the wooden building, consuming the huge stock of furniture and extremely flammable furniture polish with "astonishing rapidity". The Journal reported "Through the smoke and flames it could be seen that the building was of flimsy structure, thin brick veneered over a frame interior, and this fact added to the difficulty of fighting the fire." Shortly after 2 am the outer walls of the building collapsed into the street, and by 3:30 "the whole was a tumbled mass of burning wood and heated brick, with a few uprights standing where the building had been before, sentinels over the pire of a destroyed structure." Surprisingly, nobody was hurt in the fire. The total loss was reported at $50,000, but the building and stock were insured, so Futrelle didn’t take too much of a hit.13
The Futrelle Furniture Company didn't waste any time getting back on track. A temporary location was in business within two days after the fire,14 and a month later the company launched a "Great Fire Sale" to dispose of all the scorched merchandise that the firefighters had piled in the street on the night of the blaze. According to an ad in the Journal, the sale marked "an epoch in furniture selling long to be remembered as the most sensational selling event the city has ever known." This might have been over-hyping it a bit, but there were definitely some sweet bargains, like "Curtains that sold regularly from $1.50 to $7 a pair; slightly smoked, but not scorched; this week at the ridiculous price of 25c a pair."15 By this point, Futrelle was no longer actively running the company, and it officially became the Kapple Furniture Company in November, 1911, marking the end of his involvement.16
As for Futrelle, he was now 66 years old but apparently still needed a new project. I guess he had had his fill of furniture selling by this point because he decided to try something completely different with his now-empty property: a theater. Once again, he didn't waste time; the building was said to be "progressing rapidly" just three months after the fire17 and was ready for its grand opening on November 9, 1911.18 The new theater, to be called the Orpheum, was announced in the Journal with the headline "Newest Playhouse 'The Orpheum' Entirely Safe… Beautiful Futrelle Theater Unique in Construction With Absolutely No Danger of Fire or Panic." Perhaps this was a bit of a suspiciously specific denial, but the public would surely have been wary after what happened to the previous building, and theater fires were a very real concern at the time. Besides, Futrelle really had gone all out as far as fire safety was concerned. The building was of reinforced concrete construction with "no woodwork exposed anywhere except the doors and window frames" and had a row of five large exit doors along the side of the auditorium which could be opened instantly in an emergency, allowing the whole theater to be emptied in a minute and a half.19
Inside, the main auditorium was "eighty by fifty feet without a post in it", and the Evening Herald reported that "the pitch of the inclined floor assures a clear view of the stage from every part of the house."20 There was a single tier of seating with room for about 1,000 patrons and a "commodious" stage with hand-painted scenery by John Herboth, a local artist.18,19,21 The theater was equipped with the latest "automatic" seats made by Hardesty Manufacturing in Ohio, which could rotate independently and folded out of the way when not in use.19 On opening night the place was packed with a "record-breaking audience" and the Journal reported that it "gives every promise of being popular".18
 |
| The Orpheum around 1912. The poster in front is advertising something called "A Cowboy for a Day". Via New Mexico Digital Collections. |
Like other theaters at the time, the Orpheum showed a combination of movies and live Vaudeville entertainment. The concept of multi-reel narrative feature films was still very much in its infancy, so the movie program would generally consist of 3-4 assorted single-reel shorts running about 15 minutes each.22 The subject matter varied widely and usually included both narrative and documentary films. A typical Orpheum bill from 1912 lists four shorts: Jews in Poland ("Intensely dramatic"), Dog Detective ("Don’t fail to see the almost human intelligence of this animal"), Flanigan’s Family Outing ("Screamingly funny"), and Bull Fight ("Thrilling with all the cruel features eliminated").23 Films about current events, like the Titanic,24 the Panama Canal,25 and the Mexican Revolution26 were also popular. A film about the 1913 Dawson mining disaster was advertised as "showing it in every detail, from the explosion to the burials, and the life saving crew in action. … Bring the family."27 Another similar type of entertainment was the "illustrated song," which was a musical performance accompanied by a slideshow of related images. These were often shown between reels with the audience invited to sing along.28
The Vaudeville shows also encompassed a variety of content, which might include traveling headliners like Prof. Gilbert, "the greatest trick violinist on the American stage today", 29 the mysterious "lady in black (not a fake)" who "will reveal past and future",30 or "Dolly Dimples, the educated horse".31 Other slots on the bill would be filled by house performers—often including the manager's own family members, like David Clifford's children Leon and Virginia,32 or later the Hart Sisters.33 On slow nights, the management might try to attract patrons with giveaways or special events like an "amateur night" for local performers. This was not without its peril, though; the Journal reported on a 1913 incident where a woman attempting a Spanish dance was "beaned" with a lemon from the audience and could not continue.34
 |
| David Clifford's children Virginia and Leon, seen here in 1911 aged 9 and 11, respectively, performed frequently at the Orpheum. Albuquerque Journal via Library of Congress. |
 |
| Advertisement for a show at the Orpheum, 1912. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
The Orpheum was a big success, at least at first. Within a month of its opening it was drawing large crowds; on some nights over 2,000 people showed up, resulting in more than half being turned away.35,36 For perspective, this was nearly 20% of the city population at the time. One notable event was a "Big Free Matinee" sponsored by the Journal which was open to all children under 14. The theater promised to take good care of the kids with extra ushers on hand and "a chorus of ten girls who will dance and sing for the edification of the children".37 The afternoon’s main entertainment, strangely, was two reels of the Italian film Dante’s Inferno, which a modern-day writer described as being filled with "a prodigious amount of horrific and morbid images".38 No one seems to have publicly complained about the suitability of the film for small children, but there may have been grumblings around town because Clifford, the manager, published a column a couple of weeks later defending the educational value of film and condemning "attacks on moving pictures by persons whose minds are biased by unfounded prejudice."39
 |
| A crowd of children gathered for the Big Free Matinee on Thanksgiving day, 1911. Via New Mexico Digital Collections. |
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| Still from Dante's Inferno: "The Gluttons tortured by eternal rain". Via Medium. |
Despite the initial success, the theater quickly began to struggle. Clifford quit the business after just three months,40 kicking off a rapid succession of different managers, some lasting as little as two weeks.41,42 By early 1915, both the Orpheum and the adjacent Hotel Denver, which Futrelle had rebuilt as well, were out of business and were sold at auction.43 The new owners had a different vision for the property. They removed the seats, installed a Wurlitzer organ and a new maple floor, and reopened it as a roller rink.44,45 The rink offered nightly skating as well as special events like "rube" or "cowboy" costume nights, holiday parties, and dancing.46,47
 |
| Ad for the Orpheum skating rink, 1916. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
The dances must have been the most lucrative, because the management eventually ditched the skates and turned the Orpheum into a full-time dance hall. Dancing was offered two nights a week with a live band, with advertisements promising the "coolest hall and smoothest floor in town".48 In 1918, the Journal reported that "The Orpheum possesses what is generally conceded to be one of the largest and best lighted dance floors in the city" and warned that "no disorderly characters will be tolerated".49 Rowdy patrons were one matter, but the real enemy, as always, was fire. The Orpheum had its first (but not last) run-in with that in 1918 when the Superior Lumber Company, which was just across the alley on First Street, went up in 100-foot-high flames. Some blamed it on kids playing with matches; others suspected arson, since both fire companies seemed to have been diverted to faraway locations with fake calls just beforehand. In any case, the lumber yard burned to the ground, but the Orpheum and Hotel Denver were only "slightly burned"—it turned out the thick concrete walls were just as fireproof as Futrelle had promised.50 The dance hall may have escaped the fire but it was still facing financial difficulties, and went out of business the following year.
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| Dancing at the Orpheum, 1917. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
And with that, I'm going to drop the curtain and take a brief intermission, because this post is already very long. But don't worry, the rest of the story will be coming soon!
Sources
1. "W. V. Futrelle Is Dead After Being Ill 2 Weeks." Albuquerque Journal, October 6, 1913. Via Newspapers.com.
2. "Business Changes and Removals." Albuquerque Citizen, June 20, 1898. Via Newspapers.com.
3. "Local and Personal." Albuquerque Journal, June 5, 1900. Via Newspapers.com.
4. "J. O. Gideon Dead." Albuquerque Journal, October 26, 1900. Via Newspapers.com.
5. "Fairview Memorial Park: Surnames Ga-Gn." Interment.net.
6. "Announcement." Albuquerque Journal, December 6, 1900. Via Newspapers.com.
7. [W. V. Futrelle & Co.] Albuquerque Citizen, December 31, 1900. Via Newspapers.com.
8. "W. V. Futrelle: Wholesale and Retail Furniture." Albuquerque Citizen, October 13, 1902. Via Newspapers.com.
9. "Futrelle Sells Out Furniture Business." Albuquerque Journal, May 9, 1905. Via Newspapers.com.
10. "Futrelle Furniture Co." Albuquerque Citizen, March 16, 1907. Via Newspapers.com.
11. [W. V. Futrelle has let the contract.] Albuquerque Journal, May 2, 1908. Via Newspapers.com.
12. "Futrelle Furniture Co" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, October 7, 1908. Via Newspapers.com.
13. "Denver Hotel Destroyed by Fire." Albuquerque Journal, April 12, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
14. [Since Our Store Has Burned] (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, April 14, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
15. "Five Days of the Futrelle Furniture Co.'s Fire Sale" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, May 21, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
16. "It's the Kapple Furniture Co. Hereafter." Albuquerque Journal, November 1, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
17. "Futrelle Theater to Be Up-to-Date." Albuquerque Journal, July 8, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
18. "Orpheum Theater Thrown Open to Play-Goers." Albuquerque Journal, November 10, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
19. "Newest Playhouse 'The Orpheum' Entirely Safe." Albuquerque Journal, October 22, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
20. "Futrelle Theater Is Rapidly Assuming an Imposing Proportion." Albuquerque Evening Herald, August 12, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
21. "Albuquerque's New Play-House." Albuquerque Journal, October 8, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
22. Keil, Charlie and Singer, Ben, ed. American Cinema of the 1910s: Themes and Variations. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2009, pp. 10-17.
23. "Orpheum Today Only" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, October 20, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
24. "Titanic Pictures Will Be Here Sunday." Albuquerque Journal, April 27, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
25. "Interesting Talk at Orpheum." Albuquerque Journal, January 5, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
26. "Mexican Revolution Pictures" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, November 6, 1913. Via Newspapers.com.
27. "Dawson Disaster Pictures Shown at Orpheum Tonight." Albuquerque Journal, April 8, 1914. Via Newspapers.com.
28. "A 'Forgotten' Part of the Program: Illustrated Songs." In: Abel, Richard. Americanizing the Movies and “Movie-Mad” Audiences 1910-1914. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006, pp. 127-140.
29. "New Vaudeville This Week at Orpheum." Albuquerque Journal, April 17, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
30. "The Mysterious Lady in Black, Orpheum Monday." Albuquerque Journal, April 5, 1914. Via Newspapers.com.
31. "Orpheum" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, May 6, 1913. Via Newspapers.com.
32. "Talented Children of the Stage." Albuquerque Journal, December 10, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
33. "New Company at Orpheum." Albuquerque Journal, October 20, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
34. "Gets Warrant for Man Who Threw Lemon at Wife." Albuquerque Journal, April 22, 1913. Via Newspapers.com.
35. "More Than Thousand Are Turned Away at Orpheum." Albuquerque Journal, December 5, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
36. "Two Thousand at Orpheum Show." Albuquerque Journal, December 6, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
37. "Morning Journal Will Be Host to the Children of Albuquerque at Special Thanksgiving Matinee." Albuquerque Journal, November 29, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
38. Ettleman, Tristan. "The 1911 Dante’s Inferno Film Is a Hellish Delight." Medium, February 25, 2018.
39. Clifford, David. "The Moving Picture and the Child." Albuquerque Journal, December 17, 1911. Via Newspapers.com.
40. "Manager Clifford Retires from Orpheum." Albuquerque Journal, January 28, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
41. "Orpheum Theater in New Hands." Albuquerque Journal, March 14, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
42. "Notice!" (advertisement) Albuquerque Journal, March 30, 1912. Via Newspapers.com.
43. "For Sale" (advertisement) Albuquerque Journal, March 21, 1915. Via Newspapers.com.
44. "Skating Rink at Old Orpheum Theater." Albuquerque Journal, November 21, 1915. Via Newspapers.com.
45. "Masquerade Ball." Albuquerque Journal, November 25, 1915. Via Newspapers.com.
46. "An Old-Fashioned 'Rube' Skating Party" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, February 2, 1916. Via Newspapers.com.
47. "Big Cowboy dance tonight" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, March 8, 1916. Via Newspapers.com.
48. "Dance" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, July 19, 1919. Via Newspapers.com.
49. "Orpheum Dance Hall Will Reopen Under New Management." Albuquerque Journal, April 1, 1918. Via Newspapers.com.
50. "$50,000 Loss in Fire at Superior Lumber Company." Albuquerque Journal, September 2, 1918. Via Newspapers.com.
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