Majestic Theatre
458 Connecticut Street,
Gary,
IN
46402
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Gary real estate developer V.U. Young opened the Majestic Theatre in March 1909. It was the first of many theatres that Young would own and or operate over the next 39 years. The Majestic Theatre was carved out of a 60-ft x 125-ft building on Connecticut Street north of Fifth Avenue, a somewhat obscure location as it was two blocks east of the city’s main street. The structure appears in the 1908 Sanborn as the Casino Roller Skating Rink. The 1911 Sanborn shows it as the Majestic Theatre with 800 seats, a stage, and shallow side balconies. Within a few years of its opening Young would team with long-time business partner C.J. Wolf to build and or operate better theatre on or near Broadway so the Majestic Theatre had a relatively short life and closed in 1914. By 1915 the building was once again a skating rink. It is now a parking lot.
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The Casino skating rink mentioned in the Overview was a wooden structure that burned to the ground on December 7, 1908. It was owned by Young & Vossler, a local real estate business, and Dr. C.H. Long. Young & Vossler and Long erected a new brick edifice on the same site that became the first building in the city to be constructed as a theater. The resulting Majestic Theatre opened March 15, 1909, to a sold-out audience of local dignitaries. The Majestic Theatre was leased to the F&H Amusement Company and operated by a veteran F&H manager who was transferred to a new post on January 1, 1910. V.U. Young, of the Young & Vossler real estate concern, began managing the Majestic Theatre on January 2, 1910. Young would build, own and/or operate theaters for the next 38 years.
The theater was leased to F&H Amusement for five years. Unless terminated early the five-year term would have run until March 15, 1914. It seems likely that the Majestic Theatre closed in 1914 after which it became a skating rink.