March Theater
21 E. Main Street,
Vermillion,
SD
57069
21 E. Main Street,
Vermillion,
SD
57069
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Address is wrong. Not sure why there is no information in the listing, but the city hall seems to have been built between 1903 and 1912, replacing an older 3 story version with a smaller footprint. It might have been a remodel of the older structure, which had been built between 1883 and 1892. That also had an opera house. The 1912 map just calls it an opera house, but the 1923 map shows the City Theatre. The 1905 Cahn guide gives a capacity of 775, and calls it the Grand Opera House. It’s not clear if the new building then existed, but 350 seems very low for such a big building.
The proper address is 21 E Main, which is now the site of a nasty ‘70s or '80s bank building.
Nice old photo of The MARCHS vertical sign.
It’s too bad they knocked that building down. That was a very nice Colonial Revival facade. Liebenberg and Kaplan’s undated work on the building must have involved only minor alterations as far as the exterior was concerned if it was done before that photo was taken.
The archives of the architectural firm of Liebenberg & Kaplan list an undated theater project at Vermillon under the name March. The photo of the theater linked by ken mc above does look like their earlier work, but seems quite old fashioned for the opening date of 1935. Perhaps this was an older building that was converted into a movie theater?
The November 30, 1946, issue of Boxoffice has an interesting item datelined Vermillion: “George March is the new owner of the March Theatre here. He purchased the house at an auction.”
There was a March Brothers theater circuit, headquartered in Vermillion, in the 1960s. Perhaps that had something to do with the name of this theater.
Here is an undated photo of the March:
http://tinyurl.com/2ypfw8