Thespian Hall

Believed to be one of the oldest surviving theaters west of the Allegheny Mountains, Thespian Hall brought culture to the frontier town of Boonville. In 1838 sixty leading citizens founded an all-male dramatic group called the Thespian Society, which used an old log building, a store, and a courthouse for its activities. In 1854 the Thespians purchased the lot at Main and Vine Streets for $500, and in 1855 they incorporated as the Boonville Library, Reading Room, and Thespian Association. To raise the money needed to erect a building, they collaborated with the city government, the Masons, and the Odd Fellows, creating a Greek Revival structure that opened to the public with a grand ball on July 3, 1857. City offices and lodges occupied the second story. During the Civil War, both sides used the hall at various times as a barracks, horse stable, and hospital. The Thespian Society disbanded, and the hall passed into the hands of an original incorporator, Col. Joseph Lafayette Stephens. Those who leased the hall included a skating rink operator and the German Turn and Gesang Verein Society for plays, music, and athletic events. By April 1901, as talk arose of demolishing the aging building, the Stephens family instead announced plans to add a modern stage house and remodel the interior, with J. L. Howard of St. Louis as the architect. On October 5, 1901, it reopened as Stephens Opera House with a new sloping floor and horseshoe balcony. Around 1912, accommodations were added to permit moving pictures accompanied by live piano music, though vaudeville and plays still used the stage. Renamed the Lyric Theater in 1915, the building was purchased by Fox Midwest Theaters in 1929 and fitted out for talkies. By 1936 Fox proposed replacing it with a modern movie house, but historian Charles Van Ravenswaay rallied concerned local citizens in a statewide preservation campaign, with Bertha J. Hitch of Hannah Cole Chapter, DAR, chairing the committee in one of Missouri's first efforts of its kind. The hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969, and in May 1975 the Friends of Historic Boonville acquired the theater as a gift from the Kemper Foundation of Kansas City.

Boonville, Missouri · United States