Chappell Theatre

The main claim for fame of Chappell’s movie house was that it was the launching pad for arguably the greatest trombonist of the Jazz Era in Jack Teagarden. Teagarden, known as “King of the Blues Trombone”, played his first public performance with his piano-playing mother, Helen, at Chappell’s former opera house turned Lyric Theatre in 1918.

F.Y. Yost built the Opera House and his adjoining residence opening in 1907 likely with a ten-year leasing agreement on the opera house. The venue experimented with motion pictures as part of its mix. In 1917, the opera house was sold to James Haire who moved to mostly films with live music. Next operator and newspaper operator H.A. Talbott established the Lyric Theatre as a money maker that would last another 50 years.

The Lyric Theatre got a major facelift in 1922, converted to sound under S.L. Hestbeck and would get an Art Deco look in 1934 which modernized the look of the Lyric Theatre. Its final major change was a more streamlined approach which included a new lobby and widescreen projection in order to play CinemaScope films in July of 1954. The theatre continued into the 1960’s.

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