The Palace Theater is a historic movie palace in downtown Canton,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Constructed during the heyday of the movie palace in the 1920s, it has been named a

historic site A historic site or heritage site is an official location where pieces of political, military, cultural, or social history have been preserved due to their cultural heritage value. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have been rec ...

. The 21' x 46' screen is the largest in Canton as of 2019. It contains a

Kilgen Kilgen was a prominent American builder of organs which was in business from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. History The Kilgen family The Kilgen family's history of organ making supposedly dates to the 17th century, when Sebastian Kilgen, ...

theater organ A theatre organ (also known as a theater organ, or, especially in the United Kingdom, a cinema organ) is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films, from the 1900s to the 1920s. Theatre organs have horseshoe-shaped arrangements o ...

which is still playing to this day, thanks to an eight month restoration effort in 1992. Only a few dozen such organs are still operational at their original sites.

History

John Eberson John Adolph Emil Eberson (January 2, 1875 – March 5, 1954) was an Austrian-American architect best known for the development and promotion of movie palace designs in the atmospheric theatre style. He designed over 500 theatres in his lifetime, ea ...

, a prominent architect specializing in movie palaces, the Palace is an

atmospheric theater An atmospheric theatre is a type of movie palace design which was popular in the late 1920s. Atmospheric theatres were designed and decorated to evoke the feeling of a particular time and place for patrons, through the use of projectors, archi ...

that opened in November 1926. Money for its construction was donated by a Canton industrialist, Harry Ink, whose firm became prosperous by producing "Tonseline", a medication for sore throats; the Tonseline logo was a giraffe with a bandaged throat,Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 2.

St. Clair Shores St. Clair Shores is a suburban city bordering Lake St. Clair in Macomb County of the U.S. state of Michigan. It forms a part of the Metro Detroit area, and is located about northeast of downtown Detroit. Its population was 59,715 at the 2010 ...

: Somerset, 1294. and such a giraffe was included in the interior design.Moore, Gay Morgan.
Canton
'. Charleston:

Arcadia Arcadia may refer to: Places Australia * Arcadia, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney * Arcadia, Queensland * Arcadia, Victoria Greece * Arcadia (region), a region in the central Peloponnese * Arcadia (regional unit), a modern administrative un ...

, 2009, 57. In its early years, the Palace hosted a wide range of events: besides ordinary films, it hosted

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

performances and other stage productions, and numerous community events at the Palace placed it at the center of Canton society. Built of brick with elements of

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

, the Palace is a rectangular

Churrigueresque Churrigueresque (; Spanish: ''Churrigueresco''), also but less commonly "Ultra Baroque", refers to a Spanish Baroque style of elaborate sculptural architectural ornament which emerged as a manner of stucco decoration in Spain in the late 17th ...

building with a garden-themed main auditorium; its ceiling features elements designed to convey the sense of night and dawn, together with numerous stars, and the auditorium has a capacity of 1,509. The facade is divided into sections of varying width, two on each side of a vertical sign rising above the rest of the building; all sections rise to numerous pinnacles. A central marquee shelters the zone under the vertical sign and beneath the two sections adjacent to the sign. Windows are placed near the base of the two sections on the sides of the facade.

Historic status

The Palace was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1979, qualifying both because of its architecture and because of its place in community history. Its historic status has been employed during events such as a 2012 fundraiser, during which its operators sought to raise more than $1 million to fund improvements to its utilities and its facade.

Present day

The theater's

Wonder Organ is used to accompany

silent films A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, whe ...

. The

Mansfield, Ohio Mansfield is a city in and the county seat of Richland County, Ohio, United States. Located midway between Columbus and Cleveland via Interstate 71, it is part of Northeast Ohio region in the western foothills of the Allegheny Plateau. The ci ...

paper '' Richland Source'' described volunteer organist Jay Spencer as "well known in Canton" for his skillful silent film performances. Another paper called the organ "a showpiece all by itself". Besides ordinary theater events, the Palace has hosted ghost hunters seeking the spirit of a young woman who was murdered in the theater in the 1930s. Due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, at least 56 events were canceled in 2020. Some silent films were

streamed Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

online to over 14,000 people. The films were screened in an empty theater outside of the technical director and organist. The theater makes use of 228 volunteers for over 4,000 volunteer hours.

References

External links

Theater website
{{National Register of Historic Places 1926 establishments in Ohio Theatres completed in 1926 Atmospheric theatres Buildings and structures in Canton, Ohio Cinemas and movie theaters in Ohio Concert halls in Ohio John Eberson buildings Movie palaces Music venues in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Stark County, Ohio Reportedly haunted locations in Ohio Terracotta Tourist attractions in Canton, Ohio Theatres on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio