Part 507: Henry C. Tryon and the Scenery for Frazer’s Hall, 1870
Tyron was associated with Allen’s Globe Theatre in Chicago during 1870. That same year, he was contracted to produce the the drop curtain and scenery for Frazer’s Hall in Lawrence, Kansas (The Daily Kansas Tribune, 28 Dec, 1870).
Frazer’s Hall stage was located on the third floor of a business building. Located at 59 Massachusetts Street, it was next door to the famous Eldridge Hotel. The hotel occupied the southwest corner of Massachusetts and Seventh (now Winthrop) streets.
The first Eldridge House, built in in 1858, was burned by Quantrill’s Raiders on August 21, 1863. This group consisted of pro-Confederate partisan guerillas, also called bushwhackers, who fought in the American Civil War. Missouri and Kansas were subject to Confederate bushwhackers and anti-slavery Jayhawkers who competed for control in the region. The town of Lawrence was a center of ant-slavery sentiment.
In the summer of 1863 Quantrill’s Raiders, numbering approximately 400 men, brutally descended on the town of Lawrence in the early morning, looting and burning the town of 3,000. By the end of their raid, they had killed approximately 180 men and boys, leaving the town in a sad state of smoldering ruins. However, the proud City of Lawrence quickly rebuilt and adopted the motto “from ashes to immortality.”
During the reconstruction, Col. Eldridge used an original cornerstone from the burned Eldridge House for his new hotel. By the next month, a three-story building was under construction. In November, the roof was put on and by the next month the first floor was completed and ready for occupation. The new hotel was complete with five storerooms for lease on the first floor. The Eldridge House re-opened with a reception of guests on September 27, 1864. The next evening the proprietors celebrated the opening by giving a ball at Frazer’s hall. Renters in the new building included Merchant Tailoring, H. H. Ludington’s saloon, a Bazaar store, Drake & Crew’s bookstore, and B. W. Woodward’s drug store. For the next few decades, the Eldridge Hotel was known as one of the best hotels west of the Mississippi; this benefited the small performance venue known as Frazer’s Hall next door.
The Eldridge Hotel was three stories high with a frontage of one hundred feet on Massachusetts Street and one hundred and seventeen feet on Seventh Street. The first floor was used principally for stores with the hotel office and the main entrance on Massachusetts street and the kitchen in the rear. The sixty-four rooms in the upper stories included sleeping rooms and parlors. The rooms were reported to be large, airy and well lighted; everything was tastefully furnished with high ceilings.
In 1866, the Eldridge Hotel was sold to George W. Deitzler for approximately $50,000, with Deitzler retaining the “Eldridge House” name. Deitzler renovated the building and soon leased i to E. A. Smith and E. C. Stevens. Stevens had worked at the Planter’s Hotel in Leavenworth, Kansas, for several years and had the experience for this new endeavor.
It is in 1866, that the first advertisements for Frazer’s Hall appear in the “Daily Kansas Tribune.” On April 29, 1866, “A Grand Concert of Vocal and Instrumental” was advertised at at Frazer’s Hall (page 1). We learn that the venue’s manager is N. C. Pope (May 1866). Frazer’s Hall advertised, “Magnificent and Genteel Comedy Performance By Experienced and Excellent Actors” (Daily Kansas Tribune, May 18, 1866, page 1).
The Leavenworth Theatre played in Frazer Hall, March 18-24, 1867, presenting “Honey Moon, ” “The Lady of Lyons,” “Ten Nights in a Bar Room,” “Richard III,” “Ingomar,” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The Lord Dramatic Company played the hall December, 1869, and by January 1870, the New York Theater Company performed “Daughter of the Regiment.” It was after the production of “Daughters of the Regiment” that Henry C. Tryon was contracted to paint a new drop curtain and stock scenery for the venue.
The new scenery by Tryon for Frazer’s Hall consisted of a painted front draperies, tormentors, and seven sets of scenery representing a garden, palace, landscape, kitchen, prison, parlor, plain chamber, street, and a complete set of wings and borders; a standard collection for the times.
To be continued…
