The other rooms of 1925: five houses the nomination counts and does not name

THE CITY'S THEATER PLANT AT THE TIVOLI'S OPENING

When the Tivoli opened, it did not open into an empty town. The nomination's own framing is the census of the moment: in 1925 the population of Mishawaka was 22,000; approximately five other vaudeville theaters were in operation in the city at that time, and another six theaters were open in nearby South Bend. Of Mishawaka's five, the nomination names two by their survey descriptions — the Century and the Temple, above — and describes the rest only as a class: built in the 1910s or earlier, nearly all seating 1,000 or less. The names, addresses and courses of the remaining houses of 1925 are not carried in the record reached, and the file prints the count with the names missing rather than supplying names the record does not give. A city of twenty-two thousand supporting some six picture and vaudeville houses in 1925 is itself the fact the count establishes: moviegoing in Mishawaka before the palace was not one room's business but a downtown trade, distributed across small converted houses of a few hundred seats each, within walking distance of the factories and of each other.

Across the river, the comparison the nomination itself draws is with South Bend's two great rooms — the Blackstone of 1921 at 2,200 seats and the Palace of 1922 at 2,700 — both larger and more opulent than anything Mishawaka had, and both carried whole in that city's theaters record. The Tivoli's backers built, in the nomination's account, precisely to answer them: not only a first-class facility for Mishawaka, but one that would rival the theaters in South Bend. Entertainment independence — the phrase the Tivoli's manager used on opening night — names the gap the five small rooms could not close: until 1925, a Mishawaka audience that wanted a palace had to cross the river to sit in one.

Sources:

1. National Register nomination, Tivoli Theater (1997) — the 1925 census of houses: approximately five other vaudeville theaters operating in Mishawaka, six in South Bend; the Blackstone (2,200 seats, 1921) and Palace (2,700 seats, 1922) as the larger rivals; the backers' stated intention to rival South Bend.
2. The South Bend theaters record of this history — the Blackstone and Palace/Morris courses whole, boundary-printed here.