Dawn Theater

The earliest motion picture show in Hillsdale County was in a tent on the present site of the post office, probably around 1907 or 1908. One-reel silent movies were also shown at the Dutcher Funeral Home on South Howell Street in the block that holds the Hillsdale County Community Foundation. Those early movie theaters were called Nickelodeons and showed “three good reels and a song” for a nickel.

In 1918 William Westfall, along with Mr. and Mrs. George Brookins, bought the Barker Garage, an auto repair shop, planning to convert it into a theater that would be managed by George Brookins. Their motto could have been “Go Big or Go Home” because their plans were truly lavish. After rerouting the stream that ran behind the building, excavation was undertaken to create a slope from the back seats to the front seats. An additional trench provided for the orchestra pit, stage and fly space above it where backdrops and the curtain could be lifted out of sight. The stage was rigged out with the latest gadgets, including colored lights on dimmers. 

The theater was named after the daughter of a good friend of Mr. and Mrs. Brookins and cost about $30,000, a whopping sum. Anticipating massive crowds, various seating options were offered based on how much a person wanted to pay. In addition to the hand-cranked movie projector, the balcony also had non-reserved seating for patrons. There were two suspended boxes on the sides of the theater for 12 patrons each and seven smaller boxes with seating for six patrons each. Two floor boxes seating 17 people each were under the balcony, with a stage box on each side on the main floor for eight people apiece. Patrons paid 20 cents for general seating, and 25 to 30 cents for box seats, depending on the size of the box. Reserved seat patrons were treated to a check room and Ladies Lounge.  

The new owners had every reason to believe that patrons would flock to their venue. A theater was a boon to a community, providing entertainment with traditional oratories and vaudeville acts, as well as silent films. Unfortunately, the Dawn’s September 4, 1919 opening was marred by a major problem.

In silent movies the exaggerated motions of the actors and the written dialogue on the screen were accompanied by organ music. A skilled organist could create a heightened sense of drama or enhance the comedic action. A broken part on the organ removed this essential component. The part had been sent to Philadelphia to be repaired and the grand opening delayed a day. That should have allowed a replacement part to be milled and returned to Hillsdale, but a steel strike threw off the timing. Madge Widger, hired to play the piano as Roland Schafer and Frank Perkins sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” and other songs, was then supposed to play the organ for the movie. The broken organ part kept Madge at the piano for the feature film … and it just wasn’t the same.

The Hillsdale Daily News valiantly reported the positives about the opening. The theater “looked very attractive and the appearance was enhanced with many flowers.” The full bill of entertainment was listed. Along with the songs were an invocation and address, with Oh, Boy!, billed as a filmusical comedy, shown on the screen. Tactfully not mentioned by the paper was that, with a capacity of 800 seats, only a total of 750 people attended the two shows on opening day.

An impressive theater experience meant to draw both large audiences and professional entertainment to Hillsdale remained elusive. On September 20, 1919, the first play, “Robin Hood,” was performed, with no formal dressing rooms provided for the actors. Interesting to contemplate is the reaction of the professionals preparing for their performance amid the Tasker Monument Works, located just to the south of the Dawn.

Not reaching the level of success for their venture that they had hoped, Westfall and Brookins sold the theater to Nick Pappas, who hired a younger brother to be the manager. In his enthusiasm (and naiveté), young Mr. Pappas approached a local printer with the idea of having fresh eggs from a market imprinted with a slogan for the Dawn: “This egg may be bad, but the shows at the Dawn are always good.” After being told that a printing press exerts a downward pressure of 500 pounds per square inch he scuttled the idea. That boondoggle may have hastened the end of his tenure as manager. He was replaced by Larry Hayes, grandfather of Larry Hayes, Jr. and Parke Hayes. Hayes’s wife briefly managed the theater after he died in a Detroit hotel fire. George Brookins took over again, both as owner and manager, on December 8, 1923. Then he sold the Dawn to Colonial-Majestic of Jackson, which sold it to W.S. Butterfield in 1925. Butterfield was the president of Bijou Theatrical Enterprises, and he installed Fred Goodwin as the manager. Under Butterfield’s ownership a Wurlitzer theater organ was purchased for $5,000 and then shipped to Hillsdale on October 15. It was the Cadillac of organs. The Rudolph Wurlitzer Manufacturing Company of New York built this distinctive American musical instrument that became a cultural icon. With its accompaniment, a silent film reached thrilling excitement, amplifying the over-acting of the distressed maiden, the evil of the villain, the manliness of the hero and the broad humor of comedies. 

The Dawn Theatre organ was on the small side as far as organs went, but it was still a huge piece of machinery, with hundreds of moving parts. The organ console was in the orchestra pit, with two organ chambers on either side of the proscenium and a three-horsepower blower tucked away in a basement enclosure. The weight of the entire instrument was about two and a half tons.

The advent of sound pictures made the theater organ unnecessary. The Hillsdale Collegian, a Hillsdale College newspaper, reported in 1944 that the Wurlitzer organ was gifted to the college from the Butterfield Theaters, Inc. and was moved to Central Hall. There it was used for chapel services, teaching organ students and recitals by faculty, students and local organists.

In 1973 local organ enthusiast Jerry Jordon heard about the organ’s presence in a Hillsdale College storage facility and purchased it from the college. Jordon was in the refrigeration business and had a hard time getting away for vacation. His new organ was the impetus for a major reclamation effort of the barn on the family property behind their house at 240 E. Chicago Rd in Jonesville, Mich. They decided to turn it into a vacation home in the back yard. Jordon’s wife, Clara, and sons, Randy, age 14, Ricky, 12, and Robbie, 9, added a kitchen, a play area with ping pong and pool tables, a serving bar and a free-standing fireplace. The organ would be installed in a loft. Before any of the fun stuff could be done, however, the less-glorious tasks of removing years of accumulated horse manure, replacing rotten wood and removing junk needed to happen. 

The organ’s full designation was the Wurlitzer Hope Jones Unit Orchestra. Powered by a three horsepower Spencer turbine with a 12 volt generator for active current, the organ had four ranks, or sets of pipes, consisting of vox humana, string, flute and trumpet. The 292 pipes ranged from 1 inch to 16 feet long. In addition to its musical use, it was supplied with sounds to coordinate with the pantomime of the movie: a door or telephone bell, thunder, fire gong, steam whistle, klaxon horn and horses hooves. During the two-year remodeling of the Jordons’ barn, Randy took organ lessons so he was ready to join his father playing their rebuilt Wurlitzer. The rafters shook when the two played a duet!

The Jordons’ “vacation home” became more than a temperature-controlled family retreat and get-together space. It also became a space for meetings of Clara’s clubs and the host for the Bicentennial Car Club celebration, as well as one of the stops on the Bicentennial Home Tour on May 15, 1976.

Jeff Horton bought the Wurlitzer organ from Jerry Jordon in 2004 and then stored the parts in a protected building. He donated the organ to the Friends of the Dawn Theater in May 2022. The Friends then moved it to the Chicago-based J.L. Weiler, Inc. workshop in June 2022 to be reconditioned and brought back to working order.

Many people worked at the Dawn through the years, but Harland W. (Steve) Owen became an institution there. On June 26, 1927, he was hired originally as a substitute projectionist by Fred Goodwin, the manager, because the regular guy was “goofing off.” Owen witnessed history in the making during his time at the Dawn. In addition to the movies, there were fan dancers and theater troupes of 10-12 actors brought plays to the stage. Tiny dressing rooms were (finally) built for them along the south wall, with a more substantial one on the north side of the second floor. 

In the early 1960s Ross Garver, the manager of the Dawn, died and Steve Owen replaced him. Through the years Owen had his finger on the pulse of what movies would go over well in Hillsdale. He knew that most people wanted a family type of movie where they could have a few good laughs. Owen said, “I feel there is far too much sex and violence, especially too much crime.” He made sure that all the Disney films were scheduled. In 1977 he needed to take a leave of absence, a hiatus that turned into  retirement. Margaret Morrow temporarily took over the management of the theater until Mrs. Alice Esterline from Litchfield was hired as manager by the GKC Cinemas. On her staff were her husband Tom and Tom Beard. 

In December 1996, shortly before Christmas, Alice Esterline canceled the Hillsdale Daily News advertising for movies. It was the end of an era, and the Dawn stood empty for two years. 

Alerted to the sale of the theater in 1979 by George Kittle of North Adams, who worked for the GKC Cinemas, Todd Huffman and Jeff Emery bought it and reimagined the entertainment it could provide. Huffman and Emery both grew up in Hillsdale, as teens bemoaning the lack of things to do. They had big plans, including a dance night for middle and high schoolers, another for college-age people, concerts, matinee movies, music videos on large screen televisions, an arcade with pool tables, Fooz-ball, air hockey, pinball and other video games and a large dance floor. They would lease it for events, while the balcony could be rented for smaller functions. There was an overwhelming amount of work to do to ready the new venue that Huffman and Emery called The Roxy. It was slated to reopen on September 4, 2019, exactly 100 years after its inauguration, followed by a Jeopardy Challenge on November 11, moderated by Bob Flynn.

Like George Bookins and William Westfall in 1919, Huffman and Emery’s grand vision failed to generate the response they anticipated. The theater stood empty until October 2008, when new owners purchased The Roxy and returned its original name. Julie Games, Jeff Horton and David Kaman bought the building for $80,000, hoping that a multipurpose venue would encourage people to come to downtown Hillsdale in the early evening and help other businesses to thrive. They began with an informational meeting where they also hoped for an influx of investment to help with a renovation that would return the interior to its 1930s look. Games and Kaman were not owners by 2013 when Jeff Horton and his co-owner and wife, Marcy, gave up their dreams for the Dawn, joining the list of people with big plans who came up against the reality of little community interest.

The tax increment finance authority (TIFA) wanted to buy the Horton-owned Keefer House, also having a rough go at being reborn. The Hortons were agreeable to that only if TIFA also purchased the Dawn. Both buildings together cost $410,000. TIFA felt that the multi-year transformation of the Keefer into a hotel of about 35 rooms for roughly $3 million would be a benefit to the college parents coming to the city for special weekends while creating a clientele for local businesses. Plans for the Dawn weren’t formed, but it continued to be available for rent. 

In June 2016, with a governmental unit owning the buildings, grants could be pursued to begin their reclamations. TIFA received a $1.3 million grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) and pledged to cover any amount over that to $1.5 million. In November 2018 an auction was held as part of fund raising. Contents of the Dawn, including tables, chairs, kitchen equipment, glassware, etc. were sold. In the end, TIFA had to pledge $400,000 from its own funds in order to reassure MEDC that there was buy-in from the city for the project. Although none of the three bids for construction were at or below the estimated cost of renovation, Foulke Construction was awarded the contract. In April 2019 the Michigan Strategic Fund approved a Community Block Grant for the Dawn of $1,415,000, including administrative costs. By July construction finally began with the removal of materials containing asbestos.

In the end it was the Friends of the Dawn Theater, formed in February of 2020, who finally brought the rehabilitation and reopening of the Dawn over the finish line, hoping it would finally become an important entertainment venue. It reopened as a legal, tax-exempt, non-profit Michigan corporation in July 2021.