Mount Union borough

The Shapiro Theater in 1917

The Shapiro Theater in Mount Union opened on Tuesday night, 30 January 1917, with the musical comedy Sweethearts. The Harrisburg Telegraph called it the new $50,000 theater. Three months before, the film trade paper Moving Picture World had put the investment at $25,000 and announced an opening for 1 November 1916. In December it expected an opening about Christmas.

In February the Telegraph said that Shapiro had opened a drugstore in the theater building and would also open a restaurant and a hotel. In March the officers of the Public Library Association were arranging a benefit show in the theater.

By 2 June a recruiting office had opened in the theater, and the Telegraph reported eight enlistments on the first day and several more every day after. On 15 June the High School held its class day exercises there. On 21 September a parade for twenty young men bound for Camp Lee, Virginia, was followed by a rally in the theater, and about 1,200 people crowded in to hear patriotic addresses.

In November the Telegraph announced a patriotic mass meeting in the theater, where Congressman Simeon D. Fess of Ohio would speak on behalf of the National War Work Council. On Thanksgiving Day the Royal Hawaiian Singers played there before about 1,000 people.

Checked against the record. The opening date and the name of the show come from the Harrisburg Telegraph of 3 February 1917, which reported that the new theater opened Tuesday night. The Tuesday before that dateline is 30 January. We read that page image. The Telegraph's $50,000 and the Moving Picture World's $25,000 disagree, and we give both with the paper that said each. The two 1916 opening announcements come from the Moving Picture World, read from its page images. The other 1917 events come from the Harrisburg Telegraph. Still open: the Mount Union Times of 2 February 1917 would give the full account of the opening and the seating, and we could not open it. The library benefit and the November meeting are told as the paper announced them, because we did not find a report that they took place.

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