To the left is an article which details the sale of The Pastime Theater in La Grande, Oregon. Although the theater is said to "have had a pleasing run of business since the doors were opened", the proprietors La Fontaine and Dozier decided to part ways with it after about eleven years of operation under them. An amusing aspect of this particular article is the misspelling of La Fontaine's name as "La Fountain" as it is spelled correctly in an official Pastime advertisement on the same page of the La Grande Evening Observer. Something else that sticks out immediately is the different ways by-which the theater is referred. It is called an "Electric Playhouse" and an "amusement building" which is an intriguing look into how theaters were seen around the turn of the century. When I saw the term "amusement building" in particular I thought of amusement parks in the modern day and how people go to them for exciting experiences that are not available at their homes. Theaters were evidently seen as a new kind of amusement park in the 1900s as the proliferation of film into households would have to wait some decades. This ties into the dime museums we discussed in class as these were places to go where people could see novel things and be entertained in ways that were still relatively new. On the other hand, the integration of opening acts which tied older forms of entertainment into theaters can be seen with the advertisement for The Marvelous Beno who opened for the Pastime Theater for a brief time in 1909. The Marvelous Beno was part of a traveling circus company and performed various acts at the Pastime for free admission. With this being after the acquisition of the theater by John Wilson, it is fascinating to see how he went about drawing more customers to the theater. People would come to see the circus performance and would inevitably leave informed of the theater's existence along with the pictures being shown at the theater in the future.
