Lyric Theater

What caused the first fire in 1874 at this building?

Construction on the building that became the Lyric Theatre began in 1874, and was completed in 1876. The official name of the building was Centennial Hall, but the theater originally operated under the name Paul’s Opera House. Thomas Paul was the builder and original proprietor of the theater, and the building was designed by his son, John T. H. Paul. The younger Paul was born in 1856, so if he had taken any formal training as an architect by 1874 it must have been very limited.

A description of the building published in 1882 said that the auditorium of the opera house was on the third floor, and that it seated 500. The original building was only 100 feet deep, and modern satellite view shows a building about 160 feet deep which appears to have an auditorium at the rear, with a stage house, so an entirely new auditorium must have been added at some point. The Moving Picture World item about the 1917 fire I cited in my earlier comment refers to the “…new Lyric Theatre building….” so perhaps the new auditorium had been added before that fire. I have no idea what was done with the original auditorium on the third floor.

Maryland’s Motion Picture Theaters, by Robert K. Headley, (Google Books preview) says that the Lyric suffered another major fire in 1921 and was subsequently rebuilt. If the new auditorium had not been added before or after the 1917 fire, then it was probably done after the 1921 fire. According to The Fire Insurance Press of November 30, 1921, the fire the previous May had done $30,000 worth of damage to a building with an estimated value of $45,000:

“The Lyric Theater Building, Frostburg, Md., burned for five hours in the morning of May 17, 1921, for several of which the firemen could not locate the fire, on account of the faulty construction of stone walls under the building. The eight persons in the building escaped without injury, but there was $30,000 damage out of a possible $45,000.”