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HitiiGOCK comwi HISTORICAL- SOCIEEk ^ / V
8KTEEN-A?The Daily Herald, Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi Co
THE OSOINACH OPERA HOUSE of Bay St. Louis, built over the second Bay Mercantile Company store. For nearly a decade it booked .and billed the traveling road shows until it burned in 1907, the same year this picture was taken. It was located just west of where the Merchants Bank now stands.
The Nostalgically Remembered Opera House at Bay St. Louis
Back in the annals of Bay St.land went heavily in debt to con-Louis one encounters repeated re-'struct it on the second floor of his! ferences to its love of the theatre, Imammoth new store. And for!
and to the historic buildings used for its dramatic presentations.
There was the old Beck?s Hall, at the corner of Union and Hancock, and the old Fireman?s Hall at the corner of Union and Second, the latter of which housed a feed store on the ground floor and a dance hall and improvised theatre on the second floor. At both of these places the local literary and
several years it was a great success, booking and billing many of; the fine road shows then touring; the country.	j
It is interesting now to scan the: names of the actors of that long forgotten era of the stock com-. !panies that played Bay St. Louis! and suddenly encounter the name of Cecil B. deMille, now the Hollywood tycoon, then just a minor
dramatic societies held their read- member of a traveling troop of ings and presented their dramatic)Jght opera singers. Asked years
sketches. Beck?s Hall was later demolished and the Fireman?s Hall was destroyed by fire.
These were followed by the popular Woodmen of the World Hall ? a spacious new building that was used as a town hall for all theatrical presentations, dances and civic meetings. During the Nineties a little theatre group was formed, headed by two men by the name of Grainer and Riley. Grainer was the business manager and Riley the matinee idol ? and under ?heir direction and supervision Bay St. Louis local talent put on a series of plays in the Woodmen Hall that packed the house and hung out the Standing Room Only sign.
REDOUBTABLE PIONEER
And then that redoubtable pioneer John Osoinach who founded the Bay Mercantile Company, decided at the turn of thf- century to give his fellow townsmen a real opera house
inter if he remembered the occasion, he replied that he most certainly did. He especially remembered playing what he called that brand new Osoinach Theatre and especially remembered the appreciative and music loving Bay; St. Louis audience.
But in the same year that Cecil deMille played Bay St. Louis, the Osoinach Theatre burned down in the November 1907 conflagration that also consumed the Clifton Hotel and the St. Joseph?s Academy. After that the legitimate stage began to slowly lose its loyal following ? not so much because the theatre of which Bay St. Louis was so proud had been destroyed, but because the silent movie had been born.
Two years before the Osoinach Theatre burned down the first nickelodeon was opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A new form of entertainment had arrived.