Majestic Theatre

50sSNIPES on July 5, 2022 at 8:00 am

On January 27, 1904, Samuel Schwartz (familiarly called “Sam”) said in a statement that he would build two places, his own theater and his own hotel. The theater and the hotel that he plans that his hotel and theater will be located at the southeast corner of County and Water streets. He said in the statement that “he have thought for sometime that Waukegan needed a down-to-date theater and a hotel and as he can at the time.”

Unlike most theaters back then, he said that his theater and hotel between it will have a store on each side of the main entrance and below the street level contains a bowling alley and a billiard hall. At the time, the name of his structure hasn’t been named yet. Less than a month later, he named the theater the Schwartz Theatre named after his last name. This was shortly before the theater being leased by Messrs. Rowland, Clifford and Wingfield of Chicago and had over $1,000 paid over on the contract. He said that he wants to have a term for ten years and was for $21,000. He wants it built by local Waukegan contractors.

After construction, the Schwartz Theatre (or Schwartz Opera House) then opened its doors in the middle of 1904, but its grand opening date was lost.

Shortly before Ned Langer opened his new airdome in 1911 off the corner of Genesee and Water streets, he began taking over operations at the Schwartz Theatre that April. For a short period of time, the Schwartz Theatre was renamed Schwartz-Orpheum Theatre by advertisements at a time for some unknown reason, but the Orpheum name was dropped soon after Langer left Waukegan for Dayton, Ohio and later Neenah, Wisconsin. It was the former spare place whenever severe weather strikes at Langer’s Airdome which was located down the street to the Schwartz Theatre.

The Schwartz Theatre closed in May 1913 and was remodeled into the Majestic Theatre which opened on October 4, 1913.

The Majestic Theatre continued to run live presentations and special events as late as 1935.