Mecca Theatre

Hoffman Brothers of Detroit brought Saginaw a first class vaudeville house in the Palace during World War I. The genesis for the project is directly tied to the Saginaw Hippodrome Company’s stock sale and concept to build a new construction 1,600-seat Hippodrome in the city. By 1915, plans for the Hippodrome stalled due to a single property owner not selling a building on the proposed Hippodrome lot. So the quickest solution was to convert an existing building to a live venue.

Saginaw got its new showplace in a converted, 1880-built building. It was originally a printing press operation owned by Charles Peters and Joseph Seemann. The converted space opened on April 24, 1916. Designed by C. Howard Crane, the 1,000 seat theater featured a variety of vaudeville acts on opening night. Unfortunately, the theater’s policy didn’t wow audiences as people in Saginaw preferred films. The Palace was a major misfire switching to grind runs of exploitation films by late 1916. To make matters worse, the never-built Hippodrome property was the subject of a contentious lawsuit.

Mecca Theatres, which had the smaller 400-seat Mecca movie house that opened in 1914 and the Dreamland Theatre both in downtown Saginaw, took on the failed Palace renaming it the Mecca-Palace Theatre on July 19, 1917 with Jackie Saunders in “Betty Be Good.” Seat count was reduced to 798 for comfort and the policy became first-run feature films. The former Mecca was closed though would return as a movie house some years later.

Mecca Theaters Inc. later sold the Mecca-Palace to Butterfield / Paramount in 1926 and the Dreamland in 1927 exiting theatrical exhibition. The Mecca-Palace was converted to sound to remain viable. A streamlined makeover update the venue in 1933. The theater closed for the summer of 1935 for a major renovation that removed the last vestiges of the Palace as the box seating was removed and the original stage was ripped out for a new stage. On October 12, 1935 the “new” Mecca Palace Theatre opened with Bette Davis in “Special Agent”. On July 1, 1936, the “Palace” was dropped with the operation called the Mecca Theatre. The Mecca closed early in 1955 without being converted to widescreen projection. Butterfield Theatres altered the property for retail use guaranteeing that the building’s exhibition era was over.