|
Contact Us: Phone: 660-882-6076 Email: mrytheatre@yahoo.com |
|
Ways to help out: Interested in donating? Click here to learn more. Interested in volunteering? Click here to learn more. |
Main and Vine Streets, Downtown Boonville
For almost 150 years Thespian Hall has captured the vision, the imagination and the essence of the community in which it was built.
The roots of Thespian Hall go back to 1838, when a remarkable thing happened in the frontier town of Boonville. That year, sixty leading citizens founded an all-male dramatic group called "The Thespian Society," which enjoyed wide community support that was unique in its day.
By 1855, the Thespians were ready to build a permanent structure as "...a monument to the liberality and good taste of our citizens..." It took two years to complete the four-story high Greek Revival building. The Odd Fellows, Masons and City government occupied the second floor with its 18-foot ceiling. The Thespians, incorporated now as the Boonville Library, Reading Room and Thespian Society, used the first floor for their productions and the basement as their reading room. Thespian Hall opened July 3, 1857, with a grand ball, with dedication ceremonies held on Independence Day. Boonville's home for the arts began its long life as a catalyst for community involvement and civic pride.
During the Civil War, Thespian Hall filled many needs, from quartering the Federal Troops to serving as a hospital for soldiers. The unity created by the Thespian Society began to disintegrate and sometime during the War the Society ceased to exist.
The Hall's ownership was transferred to J. L. Stephens, once a Society member, and Boonville became known as the "best little theatre town in Missouri" as well-known performers from Eddie Foy to black pianist "Blind" Boone played the Hall. The Turn and Gesang Verein, one of the athletic and singing societies which flourished in the areas of heavy German settlement, was a major occupant of the building, sponsoring many of these events.
By 1898, Thespian Hall had lost much of its charm and some debated "removing this historic building..." Owners Lon Vest Stephens (Governor of Missouri, 1897-1901) and his brother W. Speed Stephens decided to renovate the Hall instead and, in 1901, opened it as the Stephens Opera House with a stage house added at the rear of the building. The main floor had been slanted, cutting into the former reading room, and an orchestra pit, box seats and curved balcony completed the modernization. A new era began, with Boonville a stopping point for many major touring companies, only to end in 1912, when the nickelodeon began the Hall's transition to movie house.
The second and most serious threat to the building occurred in 1937 when Fox Mid-West Theaters, owners of the building, announced plans to tear down Thespian Hall and replace it with a "modern movie palace." Concerned local citizens, led by historian Charles van Ravensway, called a public meeting and formed the Thespian Hall Preservation Committee. This group mounted a statewide preservation effort, one of the first of its kind in Missouri. This well-orchestrated campaign saved Thespian Hall and, for the next 38 years, it continued as a movie theater.
In 1975, the Friends of Historic Boonville acquired the theater as a gift from the Kemper Foundation of Kansas City. With the help of the Foundation and the community, the Friends have worked to restore the building, making Thespian Hall once again a home for the arts. The Hall, oldest theater still in use west of the Alleghenies, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969. Because of the vision and hard work of the Friends, not unlike the Thespian Society which built it, Thespian Hall is an historic building still making history.
While the interior reflects the 1901 Stephens Opera House era, the exterior is being returned, as nearly as possible, to the original 1857 appearance. The brick front "plaza", landscaping, post and portico lamps, and lettering atop the entablature were added in 1981 and 1982, based on historic photographs.
Missouri River Youth Theatre is proud to call Thespian Hall home, and all of our young actors and actresses are thrilled to have the opportunity to perform for you on the stage of this grand old theater, becoming a part of its history!
614 East Morgan, Boonville, Missouri
Open for tours, information & genealogy:
Weekdays - 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Weekends (May 1 - September 30)
Saturday - 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Sunday 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
For information on Group tours or research -
Call toll free, 1-888-588-1477
Fax: 660-882-9194
E-mail: friendsart@mid-mo.net
Until its closing in 1978, the Old Cooper County Jail was the oldest continuously used county jail in the state of Missouri.
In 1846, the County Commissioners published a notice to build a county jail to the following specifications: ..."a house two stories high, with two rooms and an passage on each floor. The rooms are to be 14 X 15 feet and the passage 6 feet X 30 feet long. The foundation is to be 2 1/2 feet thick and built of large rock, 2 1/2 feet broad and 3 feet in length" ... there is to be a partition wall 30 feet in length. All walls from the foundation up are to be rock in the same dimensions. All rock should be of good sound limestone, all other materials to be well seasoned and of the best quality, work is to be done in the best manner, finished in a workmanlike style, a plan of this house can be viewed in the office of the County Clerk." The contract was awarded William Spiers, using hand labor supplied by his slaves. The large limestone blocks were quarried in the old City quarry which was located at the end of Rural Street. The 2 large rooms on the first floor had rings protruding from the walls to which prisoners were shackled. Slaves being held to be sold at the City auction block on Main Street were also held in the room.
In 1871 the second story was fitted with the iron box cells that remain today. At the same time a hallway and a two room addition made of brick were added as the first floor of the Sheriff's office and residence.
By 1872 an addition of a second floor of two rooms and a hall were added to the Sheriff's home. Later in 1872, another addition on the first floor was a kitchen with a porch on the west. A cistern, a fence and a brick "two hole" privy were added by 1873. A brick smoke house (summer kitchen) was added by 1875, although none of these buildings remain. The brick addition served as the Sheriff's home until the mid 1960's when a jailer was hired to live in the structure and the Sheriff's office was moved to the Cooper County Courthouse.
Jail Stories...
Without a doubt the biggest "outlaw" to grace these walls was Frank James. Frank was brought to the Jail and "booked" for robbing the train at Otterville, in southwest Cooper County. This was one of two charges he had to face in Missouri after Jesse was killed. James was brought here and "booked" for that crime in the front northeast room of the house side, which served as the Sheriff's office. However, after being charged, the Sheriff took Frank to supper while a group of local business men raised James' bond money. (A copy of this bond can be found in the Friends Archives on the second floor of the residence side.) James returned to town twice for trial. Once, the Judge was ill and the last time, the witness had disappeared, so the charges were dropped.
The final hanging that occurred in the barn is also a top tale. Lawrence Marby, who was raised in Cooper County and another young man (both were only 17) held up and shot a man in Sedalia. The man died during the holdup as a result of a gun shot wound. Marby always said he was innocent. The trial was moved to Cooper County on a change of venue from Pettis County. Marby was found guilty on the testimony of the other boy - he was sentenced to be "Hung by the neck until dead." Two years later the sentence was carried out on January 31, 1930. The executioner was from Joplin, MO and this was his fifty-second hanging. He was pronounced dead by the coroner, Dr. T. C. Beckett, twenty minutes later.
The Barn
The Cooper County Commissioners saw the need for a stable in 1878. Cooper County Commissioner Robert McCullough ordered the barn built in one month for $149.99 (In 1971 the Friends of Historic Boonville paid Cooper County $1.00 to keep the barn from being torn down and then spent about $10,000.00 restoring the structure.) The barn met the Sheriff's needs and even became a garage at one point. In 1930 the barn became the site of the last public hanging of a juvenile. See story about the hanging under "Jail Stories." In restoring the barn, the Friends replaced and stabilized the brick foundation, replaced the exterior siding, the stairs to the loft, the standing seam metal roof and re-opened the trap door used in the hanging. The back yard of the jail served as an "exercise area" for inmates and at least 8 other hangings occurred on gallows built right up next to the south exterior wall.
Fourth and Chestnut Streets, Boonville
What makes the Hain House special is that it is a typical, 19th century single family dwelling, built and owned by an average Boonville family - this plus one other fact, that since its construction 170 years ago, it has been owned by one family, the Hains.
The history of the Hain House begins in 1836 when George Hain, a Swiss immigrant, arrived in America. He came to this country because he heard that it was a land where every person, regardless of station in life, had the same opportunity to succeed. This was the dream of the common man and George Hain brought that dream with him to Boonville.
A blacksmith and horticulturist by trade, he purchased the property at Fourth and Chestnut Streets in July of 1936. He then constructed a two-room house of horizontal hewn walnut logs with a vertical log, notched and pegged, joining the two sections together. The house also had a loft reached by climbing a boxed stair which divided the two lower rooms.
In 1843, George Hain married Sophia Aull, herself a Swiss immigrant, and they started the family which would occupy this typical Missouri home for the next 140 years.
As the Hain family grew, so the did the residence. The Hains had three sons, William, George John, and Henry, and one daughter, Caroline. Sometime between 1843 and 1849, they built a small one-room structure about 20 feet east of the original house. This was joined to the main house when the space between was enclosed to make an additional room (c. 1855-60). Between 1860 and 1870, another wooden room extended the house to the east. The Hains also built a long southern-gallery style porch facing south, with an entrance into each room it touched. By 1870, the picket fence around the property completed the homestead.
George Hain died on September 11, 1877, leaving everything to his wife, providing that she did not remarry. In 1887, she did remarry, the provisions of the will were carried out, and son George John Hain purchased the home for $1,500.00.
George John Hain and his wife, Mary, had five children: Viet Aull, Fannie Marie, George John Jr., Alice and Agnes. Hain was a successful Boonville merchant, owning and operating "The People's Store" until he retired in 1918. Sometime prior to 1895, he replaced the end wooden room with a two-room brick structure. In 1908, he added the brick sidewalk around the property. He died in 1927, and Mary in 1935. She willed the house to her daughters, Alice and Agnes. The sisters lived together in the home until Alice died in 1959. Agnes lived there alone for 22 years, the last Hain descendant to reside in the house. The house was sold in 1981 to the Crosby Kemper Foundation of Kansas City, which gave it to the Friends of Historic Boonville. With the support of the Foundation, the Friends have worked to stabilize the structure. The yard, now the Hain Memorial Garden, is open for public use. The Friends are developing plans that include creating a house museum.
The Hain House stands as a symbol of the success of the American dream. The preservation and restoration of the Hain House provides all of us with a vital link to that past and challenges us to remember the determination and will that is such an important part of our heritage.
