The Butler County Historical Society has launched “The Theaters of Butler County,” a multi-media exhibition showcasing the historical theaters, movie houses and area residents who had careers on Broadway, in the film industry and on world opera stages.
The pictorial exhibit shows many of the long lost stage and movie theaters of Hamilton including the Globe Opera House, Eagle, Bijou, Jewel, Rialto, Palace, Grand, Paramount, Princess, and Jefferson theaters. Featured Middletown theaters include the Paramount, Broadway, Airdome, Eagle, Gordon, Dreamland, and Sorg Opera House.
The exhibit includes information about the automobile drive-ins and theaters that operated in Mason, Oxford, Miltonville, Seven Mile, Shandon, Bunker Hill, Reily, Trenton and Somerville.
“I was surprised that so many small villages in the county had what they called their ‘opera house,’” said Kathy Creighton, executive director of the Butler County Historical Society. “It reflects the value that county residents placed on entertainment in their lives.”
Notable personalities with roots in Butler County include the McGuire Sisters, Fanny Hurst, Ray Combs, Agnes Moorehead, Perley Poore Sheehan, Julia Gaylord, Frank Simon, Dean Miller, Edward Martindel, Harry Turberg, Stella Weiler Taylor, and Delore Beatrice Duncan Marmaduke.
The exhibit also features artifacts, including the gowns, capes, canes and accessories worn by people who attended the theater during the 1880s through the turn of the century.
Of special interest among the clothing exhibited is a dress worn to Pike’s Opera House in Cincinnati for a performance starring Junius Brutus Booth on April 14, 1865, the night before Booth’s brother assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.
The recently opened exhibit replaces the society’s popular exhibition related to the 1913 Great Miami River flood. The new exhibit will run through the summer months and is free to the public.
The theater exhibit is housed in the Butler County Historical Society, 327 North Second St., Hamilton. It is open to the public Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The Butler County Historical Society is a private non-profit formed in 1934 to preserve and interpret the county’s rich heritage. It owns and operates the Benninghofen House, a high-Italian style home filled with the furnishings of a wealthy family during the Victorian Era. Group tours of the theater exhibit and Benninghofen House Museum can be arranged by calling 513-896-9930.