Parkites, from early mining camp days to today, have put theaters and entertainment venues as a priority. Before formal theaters found their way into Park City, performances by locals could be found in the various fraternal halls and the Ontario School.[1] Society Hall, built in 1883, hosted a variety of plays. Park City had its own Opera House, where theatre companies, and even champion prize fighters, performed.[2] The Dewey Theater, opened after the fire in 1898, began showing “moving pictures” in 1908. The Orpheum Theater opened in 1916 on Lower Main. And when the Dewey Theater collapsed in 1916, the Egyptian Theater was built on the Dewey Theater spot in 1926.
Though the Park City mining camp became a thriving, permanent town, the bust that eventually followed the boom of western mining towns came for good in the 1950s. As Park City set to reinventing itself, a theater once again resurfaced. The Silver Wheel Theater, the remodeled and renamed Egyptian Theater, was used to remind citizens of the economic heydays of Park City.
Credit: Park City Historical Society & Museum, Himes-Buck Digital Collection.
At Bonanza Day, the May 11, 1963 event that saw the ground breaking ceremonies of the Treasure Mountains Resort and related celebrations, the Silver Wheel presented its first event, a “magnificent Stage Show.”[3]The theater hosted The Evans Quartet (who had been featured on the Lawrence Welk Show, Carnegie Hall, and the Seattle World’s Fair), “a Comedienne who will lay you in the aisles,” and the movie Five Weeks in a Balloon.[4] The celebrations were “a great success from start to finish,” and the event proved, the Park Record reported afterward, “that when people want to work together in a common cause, they can accomplish wonders.”[5]
As the 1960s marched on into the 70s and 80s, the Silver Wheel Theater was a staple for entertainment. Wilford, “one of the last of the old-time spectacular magicians,”[6] appeared at the theater in June 1966. In February 1977, The Silver Wheel Theater also hosted the Park City’s Winter Run 77, a variety show complete with dancing, singing, brief comedy routines, and quick one-lines.[7] And perhaps most memorably, melodramas became a regular production at the theater over the years. In 1980, Nan Chalat at The Park Record reviewed the currently showing melodrama, noting, “These days life is seldom a simple matter of black or white and it is a delightful relief to spend an evening jeering at a real live rotten-to-the-core villain, then watching him get his own at the hands of our indestructible hero (Yea!).”[8]
Today, of course, the Silver Wheel has been restored back to the Egyptian Theater and continues Park City’s long tradition of entertaining shows.
[1] The Park Record, 1882-07-01, Utah Digital Newspapers.
[2] Treasure Mountain Home, page 69.
[3] The Summit County Bee Park Record, 1963-05-09, Utah Digital Newspapers.
[4] The Park Record, 1963-05-09, Utah Digital Newspapers.
[5] The Park Record, 1963-05-16, Utah Digital Newspapers.
[6] The Park Record, 1966-06-16, Utah Digital Newspapers.
[7] The Park Record, 1977-02-10, Utah Digital Newspapers.
[8] The Park Record, 1980-01-24, Utah Digital Newspapers.