A. P. Way, born in Curwensville on July 26, 1868, became Curwensville's youngest merchant by age twenty and built a lifelong theater career after leasing the Academy of Music there in 1895. By 1899 he leased the Fuller Opera House in DuBois, and after DuBois was left without a theater from 1901 to 1902, he and Charles Patton formed a partnership in the spring of 1902 to build a new opera house, the Avenue Theater. Way, known as "Mr. Theater," came to dominate theater in the area, operating venues in DuBois, Brookville, and Punxsutawney and developing the Central Pennsylvania Circuit to book acts for his theaters and others nearby. Married to Sara E. Drucker on May 18, 1902, he was also active in community affairs, promoted youth sports, served on the board of directors of the DuBois Fair Grounds Association, and was identified with DuBois enterprises for more than 65 years before dying on April 24, 1962, at age 93. The Avenue Theater opened on September 29, 1902, with the musical comedy "The Messenger Boy" after construction by A. D. Orner on a modern building with parquet floors, about thirteen hundred seats plus box seats, parlors, smoking rooms, toilet rooms, and furnishings and scenery intended to be as near fire-proof as possible. Considered one of the finest theaters in the state, it hosted hundreds of Broadway productions; in the 1920s opera gave way to vaudeville, then silent films, and later sound pictures, entertaining thousands over more than 75 years until television hurt the theater industry. After closing for two years, demolition of the Avenue Theater began on April 7, 1980, for a downtown redevelopment project. Efforts to provide more senior citizen housing in DuBois led Mayor Mark Vrahas and others to form the non-profit Council of Human Dignity of DuBois, with the Rev. J. Daniel Dymski as first board chairman, and the group pursued financing beginning in 1978 for a new high-rise housing facility. Grants and approvals followed in 1979 and 1980, the DuBois Housing Authority agreed to manage the building, and construction began on October 13, 1980, on St. Michael Terrace at 111 West Long Avenue. Built after demolition of the Avenue Theater and neighboring buildings, the seven-level, fire-resistant complex contained 100 one-bedroom apartments and 2 two-bedroom apartments, cost more than $4,000,000, was dedicated on January 31, 1982, and welcomed its first residents on February 15, 1982.