Majestic Theatre
119 S. Broadway,
De Pere,
WI
54115
119 S. Broadway,
De Pere,
WI
54115
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A May, 1914 Sanborn map of De Pere reveals a small moving picture theater about the middle of the 100 block of South Broadway. The Sanborn has the address of 647 for that lot, but the even-numbered side of the block shows some addresses in the 600 range and some in the 100 range. The town was apparently in the process of renumbering its lots, and hadn’t gotten to the theater’s lot yet. But directly across the street from the theater was a store with the number 118, so the theater was probably 119. The building was too small for 300 seats, but there was plenty of room for expansion.
As for the name, it might have been called the Majestic even than. De Pere was skipped by the 1914-1915 AMPD, but the July 1, 1910 issue of The Nickelodeon has an item about the opening of a new theater at De Pere called the Dreamland and said that its manager, J. A. Speaker, was also the manager of the Majestic. So we have evidence that De Pere had a Majestic Theatre as early as 1910, and that the building at 119 S. Broadway was occupied by a movie theater as early as May, 1914. I’ll keep looking for confirmation, but I suspect it’s very likely the case that the Majestic was here by 1914 and probably even earlier.
The picturesque, cottage-like front the Majestic Theatre has in the old photo has been removed from the building, but I believe that part of the theater is still standing. It now has the address 121 over the door of the totally modernized front, but there is a setback above the entrance, beyond which you can see what was probably the end wall of the auditorium.
In the vintage photo, the end wall, which then had a checkerboard pattern, was taller than it is in modern street view. This makes me suspect that the change in seating capacity from 300 in the late 1920s to 450 by the mid-1930s might have been accomplished by extending the auditorium upward and installing a balcony. The upper part of the auditorium must have been removed, along with the picturesque front, when the building was converted to retail use.
The 300-seat Majestic and the 400-seat Pearl were the only theaters listed for De Pere in the 1927 Film Daily Yearbook. By 1935, the Majestic was being listed with 450 seats.