Eagle Theatre
W. Main Street,
Council Grove,
KS
66846
W. Main Street,
Council Grove,
KS
66846
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The KHRI says the theater at 108 was the Electric, but this may have been an AKA. There are only two theaters on the April 1914 map, and the other one has to have been the Princess.
I think this has to have been the theater at 108. It was located in a building constructed between 1900 and 1908, when the map shows a theater there. It doesn’t appear to have had anything to do with the FOE, and the second floor was used by the masons as an expansion of their lodge hall next door, which was built in 1883. The theater is still shown on the 1914 map, but the 1922 map shows a bakery there. The building today has no entry, and is part of the antique store in the old masonic lodge.
Houses called the Eagle Theatre more often than not shared quarters with lodges (aeries) of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, which was founded in 1898 by six Seattle theater owners, including John Cort and the Considine brothers. In the early years a very large percentage of its members were associated with the theater business.
I’ve searched the FOE web site but the order apparently no longer has a chapter in Council Grove. I’ve also used Google street view to examine the old buildings along Main Street, but see none with an FOE on the parapet, which they usually did have. It has probably been demolished, or at least had its upper floor removed and lower floor modernized, as I see no two-story buildings on Main Street that look like they have been significantly altered.
If somebody can find the address of the FOE’s aerie in Council Grove they’ve most likely found the location of the Eagle Theatre.