Majestic Theatre

Opened 24 October 1904 – demolished 1957

Founded: The Majestic Theatre, at 216 East Berry Street, opened on 24 October 1904. It seated 800 and was the first theatre in Fort Wayne equipped with full electric lighting. Professional performances commanded $3 tickets.

What it did: The city's house for touring professional theatre and vaudeville in the years when live performance was the nation's main dramatic entertainment. As the movies drew those audiences away in the 1920s, the decline of the touring stage planted the seed of the Civic Theatre at the Majestic: on 21 August 1933 the Old Fort Players leased the house for seven years.

Course: In 1940 the troupe became the Fort Wayne Civic Theatre, bought the building (taking a mortgage that year), and made the Majestic its home — 231 productions were mounted there across the Civic's years in the house. A separate thread in local listings ties the Majestic name to a Capitol Theatre at 172 West Berry, said to be a renaming by 1941; theatre researchers dispute that association, and the documented Majestic of record is the 216 East Berry house carried here.

Fate: The city condemned the building. In 1957 the Civic Theatre moved out — temporarily into the Palace Theatre — and the Majestic was demolished for the new Wolf & Dessauer building, on the site of today's Citizens Square; the ground is now the Citizens Square parking lot. The History Center preserves the Majestic's brass ticket-window grille.

Sources:

1. The History Center, collection record and post of 24 October 2023 — the opening date, the address, the lease, the 1957 demolition.
2. Fort Wayne Civic Theatre history (fwcivic.org) — the 1940 purchase and the 231 productions. Heritage High School Lantern yearbook (1976), Allen County–Fort Wayne Historical Society — the first full electric lighting.
3. ACGSI Allen County place pages — the condemnation, the Citizens Square site; Cinema Treasures, Majestic and Capitol Theatre pages — the disputed 172 West Berry association.