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Building History

Montana theatrical promoter Sven A. Miller opened Seattle's new Alhambra Theatre, featuring variety shows, on 03/17/1884. For a short time, Miller successfully challenged the productions staged at Seattle's other main "box house," the Bijou, owned by James Smith, which opened on 07/01/1882. Miller became over-extended quickly, spending too much for the best entertainers, and skipped town about a month after opening. According to an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 04/22/1884: "About three months ago one S.A. Miller, a little Swede, arrived here from Montana and leased a lot on Second St. of Col. Squire, and contracted for the building which was completed and opened one month ago. He hired the best variety of talent and his theater was always well filled. Variety companies are always paid every Monday, A.M., and when they came on the 21st, no Miller. The news spread over town rapidly and many bills were found outstanding. He owed Hotaling Co. $1,070 for liquors, orchestra $150.00, troupe from $40.00 to $115.00--there were 19. He also owed bar keepers, scene shifters, property men, door keepers and other employees. It is supposed, he worried about the reopening of the Bijou and so kept all of the money he could get hold of. He changed it into large bills and is thought to have taken the Northern Pacific for Victoria with $3,000 or $4,000." (See Howard F. Grant, inThe Story of Seattle's Early Theatres [Seattle: University Book Store, 1934], p. 23.) Miller returned to the city, but failed to retire his debts and permanently lost control of his venue. John P. Howe, a producer and agent then picked up the theatre's lease, remodeled the building and reopened it in on 06/17/1884 as the "Standard Theatre." Howe, who aimed to produce wholesome productions suitable for all audiences remodeled the building, removed the private boxes and the extensive bar. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on 06/15/1884: "Under the new management there is no reason why decent and respectable people should not visit this theater. It is not in a disreputable part of town being almost between the two Arlingtons (hotels). In the Standard, Mr. Howe expects to play all the first class companies that come to Seattle until the completion of Frye's Opera House." The article indicated that the new theatre could accommodate 500 patrons on the lower floor and 300 in the gallery. (See Howard F. Grant, in The Story of Seattle's Early Theatres, [Seattle: University Book Store, 1934], p. 24.) Howe did not maintain his interest in the Standard very long; by 09/25/1884, he had turned the theatre into a roller skating rink. James Smith obtained the lease and booked lecturers and theatre companies that would not compete with his new theatre, the New Bijou, opened a month after the Alhambra in May 1884. Jack Conner and Fred Mackley ran the Standard as of 02/1887, again competing with Smith's Bijou. Their tenure running the Standard was brief, and they surrendered their lease to the New Yorker John Cort, around 11/1887. A former actor turned theatre impresario John Cort (1859-1929) operated the Standard Theatre #1 until about 1888, when, ironically, the building was leased to the Women's Christian Temperance Union's (WCTU) Seattle Chapter. This was Cort's first theatre in Seattle, and he would go on to build a successful theatrical circuit across the Pacific Northwest. By 1903, he controlled 37 theatres in the region. (See Eric L. Flom, Silent Stars on the Stages of Seattle, (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Incorporated, 2009], p. 19.) The WCTU remodeled the building considerably, but for little result as it burned in the Great Fire of 06/06/1889.

Building Notes

Grant, in The Story of Seattle's Early Theatres, (p. 23), noted the Alhambra's location to have been "2nd avenue South between Main and Washington streets." The first troupe to play at J.P. Howe's Standard Theatre was typical of the era, a racist black-face variety act, "The Boston Original Mammouth Double Uncle Tom's Cabin Company comprised "[of] twenty-five members. Ten colored plantation singers, two Topseys, two Marks, two trick donkeys, six mammouth blood hounds, the Jolly Coon Quartette and the Novelty Drum Corps." (See Grant, Story, p. 24.)

Demolition

The Alhambra Theatre #1 was razed..

PCAD id: 17057