The Palace Theatre: the vaudeville palace that became the Civic's home

Dedicated January 25, 1915 — the Civic Theatre's house 1957–1969

"One of the most beautiful playhouses in the middle west": The Palace Theatre, at 126 East Washington Boulevard at the corner of Clinton Street, was dedicated on January 25, 1915. It cost $200,000 to build, seated 1,700, and was devoted at its opening exclusively to vaudeville, then in its heyday; its first patrons found a white marble staircase and a lobby fountain spilling into a goldfish pond. The design is credited in Cinema Treasures' architect index to the Chicago firm of Rapp & Rapp. The Palace was the city's leading vaudeville house, and the trade press followed its ownership: in September 1923 Exhibitors Herald reported W. C. Quimby — already owner of three Fort Wayne houses — buying half the stock of the Palace's holding company and leasing the remainder for twenty years, in a deal said to involve $500,000. In 1930 RKO took the house over (the 1933 city directory lists it as the RKO Palace Theatre), closed it in 1931, and it reopened, still the Palace, on December 24, 1933.

The razing that didn't happen, and the Civic years: On April 23, 1957, the News-Sentinel reported, the building's owners announced the Palace would be razed to make room for a parking lot; it was then the second-oldest theatre in the city. It was not razed. That same year the Fort Wayne Civic Theatre, displaced from the demolished Majestic, moved its operations into the Palace — a 1957 photograph shows the Civic Theatre sign going up over the Palace sign — and the old vaudeville house became a legitimate stage again. Cinema Treasures dates the formal renaming to the Civic Playhouse Theatre to 1965. The company played the Palace until 1969, then spent three seasons in the small Maiden Lane building before moving into the new Arts United Center in 1973, a story told in the Arts section. The Palace building was demolished sometime after the Civic's departure; the block at Washington and Clinton is now the Civic Center Parking Garage serving the Grand Wayne Center.

Sources:

1. ACGSI, Allen INGenWeb, P named places, copying the News-Sentinel, "This Day in History: April 23" (April 23, 2018) — 126 East Washington Boulevard, the January 25, 1915 dedication, the $200,000 cost, 1,700 seats, vaudeville at the opening, and the April 23, 1957 razing announcement; the block's present use as the Civic Center Parking Garage, from local history discussion (2022).
2. Cinema Treasures, Palace Theatre, Fort Wayne — the January 25, 1915 opening, the 1930 RKO takeover and 1931 closing, the December 24, 1933 reopening, the 1965 renaming as the Civic Playhouse Theatre, and the later demolition; Cinema Treasures' architect index for George W. Leslie Rapp — the Palace among the Rapp & Rapp houses.
3. Exhibitors Herald, September 15, 1923, quoted in Cinema Treasures discussion — Quimby's 1923 purchase of half the Palace holding company's stock and twenty-year lease of the rest, the $500,000 consideration, and the Palace as the city's leading vaudeville house then playing stock.
4. Fort Wayne Civic Theatre, "A Brief Historic Overview," as quoted in Cinema Treasures discussion and carried in Arts — the company's 1957 move to the Palace and the 1969 departure for Maiden Lane; Beatty and Robb (2006), as cited in the University of Saint Francis Jefferson paper — the Palace's marble staircase and goldfish-pond fountain.