Muscogee County GaArchives Photo Person.....Springer, Arthur ,Wife & Dau. ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 April 23, 2007, 11:21 pm Source: Special Sesquicentennial Supplement II Columber Ledger -Enquirer Name: Arthur ,Wife & Dau. Springer Photo can be seen at: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee/photos/springer12652gph.jpg Image file size: 69.2 Kb Springer Opera House: It Came in Full Glory By Mary Margaret Byrne & Clason Kyle The finest opera house between New York and New Orleans . . . a distance of many thousand buggy wheel' turns. . . was incomplete that evening of February 21, in the Year of Our Lord, 187l. But the 600 who assembled for the "grand amateur concert by the ladies and gentlemen of Trinity Church," hardiy noticed. They were quite swept up in the grandeur of the theatre, described by The Enquirer as giving "the illusion of a palace on stage." For a community that had been the site of the last land battle of the War Between the States, the Reconstruction period had been one of easy adjustment, marred only by the celebrated Ashburn case in 1868, a contest between carpetbaggers and local citizens. Culturally, the golden years of Columbus had been those just before the clash between the states. Operas . . . a week's stand by one company far out sophisticated any of the recent visits by the Metropolitan to Atlanta, for being presented were "La 'Somnambula," "La Traviata," "Norma," and "II Trovatore" . . . plays, minstrels, visiting river showboats, lectures and the circus were avidly attended by the citizenry. According to Columbus music historian Dr. Katherine Hines Mahan, "the four theatres and other halls in the city seemed small and primitive, and $40,000 had been collected for an opera house," but the guns of Fort Sumter were to delay its construction for more than a decade. When the Springer came, it came in full glory. .1,250 seats, two balconies, boxes with chandeliers over each, a full stock of scenery and an orchestra, a marble floored lobby, frescoed walls and "odd paper." The Opera House had been built by Francis Joseph SPRINGER, who before the war had emigrated to Columbus . . with a stop in Cincinnati, Ohio, before he got here . .from his birthplace in Alsace. Eighteen seventy-one could hardly be considered a boom time in Columbus or anywhere else in the South. . it was just six years after Appomattox . . but Mr. Springer somehow got enough money together to build a beautiful and elaborate structure, especially for a little river town such as Columbus was then. The Springer's builder brought European ideas of comfort and elegance to his new structure, and just as important, he brought considerable business acumen. He placed his Opera House in the center of a commercial complex that included his wholesale grocery business, the Springer Hotel and rental space, apparently banking on profits and rents to keep the theatre going during lean times. A week after the amateur preview, the celebrated Katie PUTNAM hopped into town, and officially opened the Springer in the title role of "Fanchon, the Cricket." Her troupe played all week to full houses, with oldy one unscheduied incident. Katie's "Brass Band" was playing in front of the Opera House and frightened Mr. James P. ADAM' mule so that it bolted and destroyed his wagon. According to The Columbus Enquirer, Mr. Adams successfully sued ticket seIler MATHEWS for $80. More scheduled animal acts, such as those seen in the Barnum and Bailey Circus of 1872" and celebrated soloists, including the world-acclaimed violinist Ole Bull, returned time and time again. During the 1870's and '80's the theater season lasted from October to June. As unique as Barnum's Tom Thumb was, another Tom, the Midland-born blind child of a slave, called "Blind Tom," created as much of a sensation, at the Springer and throughout the world. Blind Tom astounded the crowned heads of Europe and other appreciative audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. .This grangely gifted pianist made sevagal fortunes for each of his three masters with his incaedible musicality. The London Times once reported be could play a different air with each hand while humming the third. He died in 1908, and is buried on the Frederic W. DISMKE estate, Westmoreland, probably on land once owned by his mothers master, General James N. BETHUNE. But the question of Blind Tom's final place is an intriguing one, and he may actually be buried in the BETHUNE family plot in Linwood Cemetery. The plantation owners and cotton merchants who had See SPRINGER, Page S-12 Continued From Page S-10 been the steady patrons of the Springer and of the theaters that had preceded it soon noticed a change in the shows appearing there. More prevalent were Swiss bell ringers, female minstrels, and Buffalo Bill. These attractions reflected the more plebian tastes 01 the mill hands rather than those of the mill owners. However, the classics weren't totally abandoned. Theodore THOMAS, famous as the founder of the Chicago Symphony and his symphony orchestra appeared at the Springer in 1872 and several times thereafter. Edwin BOOTH, the great tragedian and brother of the assassin of Lincoln, returned here in 1876 for the first time since the Civil War, and played "Hamlet" at the Springer. In happier times, he and his erratic, brilliant brother, John Wilkes BOOTH, had visited this "Lowell of the South" and had been the guests of the elegant and intellectual Moses family at their plantation, Esquiline, during appearances in Columbus. The younger Booth was dead before the Springer opened its paneled doors. .but he bore a memento of Columbus into the hereafter. The Enquirer reported, during an engagement of Booth's here, that he received a gunshot wound in a quarrel with the stage manager of Temperance Hall, the principal theater before the construction of the Springer. The assassin played Shakespeare in Columbus a feW weeks before the Ford Theater tragedy. Modern . . . at least to the late 1870's. . . classics such as "East Lynne" and "Ten Nights in A Barroom" were presented often, and on January 27, 1880, Joe JEFFERSON appeared in his most famous role, that of the sleepyhead Rip Van Winkle. Jefferson was one of the first of those "final tourers," who kept reappearing season after season, much in the fashion of Bernhardt and Garland. James O'NEILL, father of the playwright Eugene O'NEILL, played the Springer in his famous role as "The Count of Monte Cristo." Mrs. John DREW, the grandmother of the Barrymore clan, was the first of that theatrical family to grace the stage of the Springer when she starred in "She Stoops to Conquer." Perhaps the most famous Anglo-Irishman to visit America was the playwright- poet wit-raconteur, aesthete-esoteric Oscar O'Flahertie Wills WILDE. On his 1882 lecture tour of the United States, which included even the silver mines of the Comstock Lode, Wilde enjoyed immense popularity in Columbus when he lectured at the Springer. The town's good ladles tossed sunflowers. . . the only ones blooming then. . .in his path, so that his dainty feet never touched rude earth. WILDE's charms were lost on some, however. The editor of The Enquirer recorded that he personally had napped during the lecture on interior decoration . . . Wilde's famous "House Beautiful." In the years to come, the Springer was to have other lecturers, notably the silver-tongued William Jennings BRYAN and the golden-throated Franklin Delano ROOSEVELT. The Springer has seen almost every kind of presentation and for just about every purpose. Even the aforementioned "Ten Nights In A Barroom" was once given to benefit victims of a yellow fever epidemic in Brunswick, Georgia. Certainly the Opera House was filled. . . by males, at least,. . . on the evening that John L. SULLIVAN, the boxing champion, gave an exhibition there in the 1890's. Opera was popular in Columbus, from its earliest days until the turn of the century. Dr. Mahan says that Jacob Grau and his troupe performed three operas here, including a version of "Faust" in which Faust escapes and lives happIly ever after! Black-faced minstrels were so popular that hardly a week passed that at least one evening was not devoted to this bill of fare. The famous Al G. FIELD, one of the minstrel world, and who required an entire train to bring his troupe to town, was a great favorite here for over 20 years. The celebrated actor Otis SKINNER. . . who has an equally celebrated actress- daughter named Cornelia . . . appeared at the Springer in a play called "Villon , the Vagabond....He was followed a couple of years later by an actual "horse opera" in which the advertisement read ". . . 25 people, 10 horses, 20 foxhounds." Band music was popular locally ,from the city's earliest days, and the grandest band of all, of course, was the aggregation under the magic baton of John Philip SOUSA. It played the Springer more than once. Another household name was that of George M. COHAN, "Mr. Yankee Doodle Dandy" himself, who appeared here in both "Toast of the Town" and "45 Minutes From Broadway." Personalities such as Marie DRESSLAR and De Wolf HOPPER trod the boards just prior to World War I, offering dramatic changesof pace to the rather steady diet of Victor HERBERT, Franz LEHAR and Straus operettas. After the turn of the century, the famed Scots comic, Sir Harry LAUNDER, sang "Roamin' in the Gloamln,"and Metropolitan Opera diva Geraldine FARRAR, who was later to scandalize an Atlanta audience n "Zaza," sang "Carmen." The Springer continued as a legitimate theater until well into the 1920's, but then the Great Depression made itself felt. The "road" - lifeblood of the Springer and other theaters like it across the country - was dealt a mortal blow. The bullding became a movie house, and began its long slide into near- oblivion. The beautiful "'Fritzi SCHEF, the famed violinist Fritz KRIESLER, the nationally acclaimed Denlshawn Dancers, the "Beggars' Opera," direct from London, briefly pumped professional life into the theater, but not for long. The age of the silver screen had come and it spelled doom to touring "live" shows. For some 30 years, the Springer was a movie house. But in 1954, while further uptown Columbusites were marveling at 3-D, even triple features were not enough to keep its doors open, and the Springer closed. In addition to that competition, a new entertainment medium, televlson, was bringing the make- believe world of theater right into the living room, and for free. The building stood deserted and vacant. Its fate seemed certain . . . demolition. February of 1964, the month of the Springer's 93rd birthday, marked perhaps the lowest ebb ot its fortunes.The buildlng was slated for certain destruction. Plans had been announced to raze it and erect a multi-story office building on the site. Time, It seemed. had run out. But then a number of things began to happen. Robert PORTERFIELD, founder of the famous Barter Theater of Virginia, visited Columbus that spring, saw the Opera House and came away with high praise for its history and potential. And a Columbus businessman, the late Robert M. LEWIS, Jr., became interested in the project Mr. Lewis began to discuss the Springer with other businessmen and civic leaders, and the idea of a last attempt to save the historic structure was born. Time was short. The wrecker's ball was ready to swing. Bobby LEWIS asked a group of influential Columbus people interested on the Springer to meet with him. This group explored ways by which the historic building could be saved, and if saved, restored to use. Finally, meetings, discussions, and plans began to bear fruit. The owner of the Springer property, Empire Mills Inc., consented to a purchase agreement by which Mr. Lewis and the group, by now known as the Springer Opera House Trustees, would raise the sum of $19,000 cash within 90 days, with the $100,000 balance to be paid off over a 15-year Interval. Trustfee LEWIS started the ball rolling by putting up $5,000 himself as earnest money. The Trustees, 11 in number, immediately launched an intensive campaign. This involved "cocktail party coercion, duns at dinners and being obnoxious at balls," as one Trustee observed, all on behalf of the Springer, as the city's leading citizens were canvassed for belp in raising the sum in time to meet the deadline. The appeal was two-fold. First, the Springer Was an historic and beautiful structure, an integral part of the heritage and unique flavor of Columbus. To lose it would assuredly diminish the quality that makes Columbus different from other towns, and would mean that a beautiful and irreplaceable landmark had disappeared.To preserve it, and even more, to restore it, would add another dimension to community life, for the hallmark of a mature and sophisticated city is its ability to keep viable the best of its past and to weave that past into the framework of its future. Second, the Springer had been and could again be a fine theater. The Columbus Little Theater, in operation since the mid-1950's, was without a permanent home. It had presented its productions in grammar and high school auditoriums, in the lobby of an office building, at the Columbus Museum of Arts and Crafts, in the Fine Arts Building at the Fairgrounds. It needed both a permanent headquarters and a showcase for its productions. The Trustees, as interested in live theater as in preservation, were as anxious to provide a home for the Little Theater as to save a threatened historic structure. Happily, in saving the Springer, they could do both. The Trustees became a board of the Columbus Little Theater, now the Springer Theater Company. The $19,000 was raised in the required time. . . and then the real work of restoration began. The Springer, as one Trustee was fond of pointing out, "had to be looked at with eyes of love." The mother of another of them put it somewhat less romantically. Threading her way gingerly through a junk-filled lobby, climbing gamely over broken seats, dodging a torrent of water pouring in from a hole in the roof, she sighed. looked around and said, "Only young people would attempt a project like this!" (The average age of the Trustees was under 40.) "Not knowing that it (restoration) is impossible, they will do it!" February of 1965, tbe Springer's 94th birthday, was far different from the year before. The auditorium was filled with scaffolding and construction people and. . .frequently. . . fascinated Trustees, who at times could hardly tear themselves away from their project. The work of restoring and renovating went on all spring and summer. The Theater Company presented the musical comedy "Lil' Abner" in the spring of 1965 in the half-finished auditorium. The production was in the nature of a "progress report" to Columbus . . . there was no great curtain, painting was unfinished, bare electric light bulbs shone where later crystal chandeliers would glow. But Columbus had a chance to see what was going on, and left convinced that the Springer would live again. Enormously morale-boosting, as well as of great practical help was the interest shown in the project by Abe FEDER, one of the world's top lighting experts. His long and successful career in the theater stretches back over thirty years, and has lighted such shows as Camelot and "My Fair Lady," as well as such nontheatrical undertakings as the Los Angeles County and the Billy Rose Sculpture Garden of the National Museum of Israel. FEDER learned of the Springer project through his friendship with one of the Trustees. He interrupted his busy trans-Atlantic schedule several times for visits here the during the restoration, and his enthusiasm and suggestions made out of his wealth of experience and aid were invaluable. The grand opening took place October 6. 1965, and not only did the Springer reopen in style, it reopened with an original musical production of one of the best known novels of the Victorian era, "St. Elmo," written by a Columbus native. Augusta Evans WILSON. The black-tie premiere was a night to remember. Chandeliers sparkled, the deep red of the great curtain repeated in the carpets and theater seats, myriad tulips lights outlined the graceful curve of the balconies. Members of the dressy and excited audience saw themselves reflected in the huge gilt-framed pier mirror dominating one end of the lobby as they passed through. It was a gala and glamorous evening, culminating in a champagne reception following the final curtain. This the Springer had been saved from demolition and was once again a functioning theater. A total of 13 years have passed since that gala night, and the Springer has enjoyed many other such evenings. Restoration - wholeheartedly supported by countless citizenry, foundations and corporations - has continued. Heating and air conditioning has been installed; the first balcony has been opened; lobby and rest-room facilities have been installed on the second floor; themuseum-lobby area downstairs has been enlarged; a $250.000 workshop has been added to the east of the Opera House; the facility has been proclaimed the State Theater of Georgia by none other than Jimmy CARTER, who was Governor of Georgia at the time; the entire mortgage has been paid off; several hundred thousand dollars has gone ino stage and,lighting equipment, the front entrance gallery has been restored and additional improvements add up to a figure close to $1,500,000. However, to those who have had a personal part in it - from backstage work to sitting in the audience, from contributing talents to contributing sizeable sums of money - the saving of the Springer has been and continues to be an exhilarating project. What has been preserved thus far - and more yet remains to be done - is a repository of history that also provides an elegant showcase for the lively arts. Special Sesquicentennial Supplement II Ledger- Enquirer, Sunday, April 23, 1978. S-10 & S-12. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee/photos/springer12652gph.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 18.6 Kb