Chautauqua Auditorium (Boulder, Colorado) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Chautauqua Auditorium
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The Chautauqua Auditorium
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| Location | Boulder, Colorado |
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| Built | 1898 |
| Architect | F.E. Kidder and E.R. Rice |
| NRHP reference No. | 74000562 |
| Added to NRHP | January 21, 1974 |
The Chautauqua Auditorium is a special wooden building in Boulder, Colorado. It was built in 1898 for the very first season of the Colorado Chautauqua. Over the years, it has been a popular place for many different events. People have come here to listen to talks, enjoy music, and watch movies.
This historic building is located at the Colorado Chautauqua. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. This means it's recognized as an important historical site. When it was added, it looked almost exactly as it did when it first opened on July 4, 1898.
Contents
History of the Auditorium
Building It and Making It Better
Construction of the Chautauqua Auditorium began on May 12, 1898. It was finished just in time for the opening of the first Chautauqua season on July 4, 1898. When it was new, the wooden building had dirt floors covered with sawdust. People sat on simple pine benches.
In 1918, the middle part of the dirt floor was replaced with concrete. At the same time, some of the old pine benches were swapped for 586 "opera chairs." These were more comfortable seats.
By the 1970s, the building was getting old and needed a lot of repairs. Luckily, two things helped save it. First, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Second, the Colorado Music Festival decided to make the Chautauqua Auditorium its main home. These events led to a big renovation. Broken seats were fixed, the roof was repaired, and loose wooden boards were reattached or replaced.
Even with all these changes, the main design of the building stayed the same. The amazing sound quality inside, called acoustics, also remained just as it always had been. Even in 2006, you could still see daylight peeking through small cracks in the walls. But don't worry, the roof was fixed, so you couldn't see the Moon or stars anymore!
Famous Speakers and Talks
The Chautauqua Auditorium has hosted many important people. They came to share their ideas and inspire audiences.
- Henry Watterson, a famous speaker from Kentucky, gave a talk on the very first day, July 4, 1898.
- William Jennings Bryan, a well-known politician, first spoke here on July 12, 1899. He returned later in 1905.
- In 1900, speakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties gave speeches for their presidential candidates.
- Senators Robert M. La Follette and Benjamin Tillman visited in 1907.
- The famous speaker Billy Sunday spoke to large crowds many times, including in 1909, 1924, 1925, and 1931.
Great Music Performances
The Auditorium has also been a stage for many wonderful musical acts.
- The Kansas City Orchestra played many evening concerts in the first year, 1898.
- Louis Richar's Band from Chicago performed concerts every year from 1903 to 1906.
- John Philip Sousa and his famous band played here in 1904.
- In 1910, the Chicago Operatic Company presented special "costumed recitals from grand opera."
- The Williams Jubilee Singers, known as "the best troupe of colored singers in the world," gave very popular shows almost every year from 1911 to 1917, and then again in the 1920s and 1930s.
- Madame Marie Rappold from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City attracted the biggest crowd of the 1917 season.
- Miss Frances Ingram, an opera singer, was very well-liked in 1917 and 1920.
- Ernest Davis, a tenor from the Boston Grand Opera Company, performed in 1920.
- Alberto Salvi, called "the world's greatest harpist," performed almost every year from 1926 to 1932.
Movies at the Auditorium
Even though the Auditorium was mainly for talks and live shows, it also showed motion pictures right from the start. In 1898, movies were very new and still being experimented with. On July 21, 1898, the Chautauqua program featured "Edison's Genuine Projectoscope." This showed scenes from the war with Spain. The person showing the movie brought their own equipment until 1918.
From the beginning, two or three movies were shown each year. In 1913, the Chautauqua season was special because it was the first time the Edison Kinetophone was used in Boulder. This was an early attempt to show movies with sound.
In 1918, the Chautauqua Auditorium got its own movie projector for silent films. The movie industry had grown, so it made sense to invest in the equipment. After this, many more movies were shown. Since the Chautauqua didn't have enough money to show brand new movies, they showed "second-run" movies that were good for families.
Movies with sound, called Talkies, started in 1926. By 1929, all movies had sound. The Chautauqua Auditorium updated its equipment to show these new sound movies. The number of movies shown each summer kept growing.
The projection equipment was updated again in 1937 when Technicolor movies started to appear. In 1948, a new, much bigger movie screen was put in. It was 16.5 feet tall and 22 feet wide!
By the early 1970s, the movie equipment was very old. It was upgraded in 1979, making the movies look and sound much better. However, with the rise of home VCRs (video cassette recorders), showing family movies stopped in 1995.
As of 2006, the only movies still shown at the Colorado Chautauqua are part of a silent film series that began in 1986.
Amazing Sound Quality
Right from its first season in 1898, people noticed how great the sound was inside the Chautauqua Auditorium. The all-wood building made the sound special. People even compared it to other famous places like the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. Many performers loved how their music sounded in the Auditorium.
In 1977, Giora Bernstein chose the Chautauqua Auditorium for the Colorado Music Festival. Even though the building needed repairs, he loved the way sound echoed inside the wooden structure.
The musician Michelle Shocked once described the wooden inside of the building in a funny way. She said, "Now I know what my pick feels like when it falls in my guitar." This shows how much the wood makes the sound special.
See also
In Spanish: Auditorio de Chautauqua para niños
