Copyright © 2020 by Wendy Waszut-Barrett
In February 1920, Thomas G. Moses wrote, “Went to St. Louis and closed the deal for $3,000.00 for the boardwalk show.” Upon his return to Chicago, he wrote, “I started a model for the board-walk show for a St. Louis party. They want to put it up at the St. Louis Coliseum.” At the time Moses was working at the Chicago Studios and had painted scenery for a similarly themed event in Chicago. The St. Louis project was planned for the week of April 5 to 14.
On January 21, 1920, the “St. Louis Star and Times” announced, “For the first time since the world has been free of war and rumors of war St. Louis society women and girls are planning a great bazaar to be given at the Coliseum Easter Week…The entertainment will be in the form of an ‘Atlantic City Board Walk,’ something on the order of a recent bazaar given in Chicago. It will resemble the fashion show given at the Coliseum a year or so before America entered the war in 1917 and will be the first large affair disassociated from war charities of our own on other nations since 1915” (page 11).
Of the Coliseum decorations, the article continued, “The interior of the great edifice will be draped to represent Atlantic City – with seas on one side, the boardwalk in the center and the booths and shops on the other side. There will be every sort of amusement afforded in the booths. Visitors may stroll in the fashionable parade up and down the bard walk or may ride in the chairs, which will be imported for the occasion from Atlantic City.”
The show was for the benefit of the teachers’ endowment funds at Washington University and Smith and Bryn Mawr Colleges. The “St. Louis Post-Dispatch” noted, “An effort is being made through various means in all parts if the country to raise $4,000,000 for Smith College and $2,000,000 each for Bryn Mawr and Washington University. In the interest of this movement the ‘Board Walk’ entertainment has been given in a number of large cities. It is said to have netted more than $90,000 for the fund in Chicago recently” (20 April 1920, page 3).
Moses was intimately involved with the Chicago board walk, having also painted a large panorama for the event. Of his board walk design for St. Louis, the article continued, “Everything which can be accomplished with artificial scenery has been done to transform the interior of the Coliseum into a duplication of Atlantic City’s famous Board Walk. A canvas curtain of blue, representing the sky has been suspended all around the hall so as to cut off the view of tiers of seats and in front of the boxes there will be a setting representing the ocean. The board walk extending from one end of the arena to the other will be 42 feet wide, with sand on either side to simulate a beach.”
One week before the event, the “St. Louis Post-Dispatch” reported the arrival of scenic decorations for the Coliseum: “Three carloads of scenery will be required for the boardwalk spectacle to be given at the Coliseum next week for the benefit of the salary endowment fund for Washington University, Smith and Bryn Mawr College. The scenery, which represents the board walk at Atlantic City, arrived yesterday from Chicago. Fifteen carloads of sand will be used for the ‘beach.’ A number of pretty girls in bathing costumes will decorate the beach” (28 March 1920, page 56).
The event began on April 5 with a large Atlantic City board walk parade, consisting of thirty-five autos and floats that traveled through business streets. The “St. Louis Star” reported, “The walk itself is 42 feet long, and is flanked on each side with sand, to represent a beach. There will be a restaurant, amusement featured and a dance pavilion in addition to the shops” (page 3). The “St Louis Post-Dispatch” announced, “Carnival Crowd Fills Shops at Board Walk. Even most out-of-way booths at Coliseum do rushing business and record for one night’s receipts is apparently broken” (11 April, page 3). The newspaper article described, “Those who attended for the first time were surprised at the beauty of the show as a spectacle. The scores of girls in quaint and fetching costumes, the gay coloring of the shops and the artistic displays in some of them, the very largeness of the show, were impressive to many who saw it for the first time.
The largest source of revenue was from the advanced ticket sales of 28,000 tickets totaling $12,000. Program advertisement space bringing in an additional $9,200. On April 18, 1920, the “St. Louis Post-Dispatch” reported “Board Walk Receipts Count Passes $74,000.” It was the candy shop that ended up taking in the most money, $3,602.0” (page 3).
In the end it was successful, but quite a noisy affair. One reporter wrote, “But one thing that was everywhere – pervasive, baffling, unescapable- was noise. A band at each end of the place and an orchestra in the basement; the megaphone bellowing of amateur ballyhoo men; the constant querulous chorus of girls selling ice cream, flowers, face powder, toy balloons and chances on every kind of character of commodity form pearl necklace to a prize heifer, combined to make a veritable babel” (St. Louis Star, April 18, 1920).
To be continued…
