Jacob Beck and the Beck Theater

Jacob Beck was born in Hostenbach, Germany, in 1856. In 1870, at the age of fourteen, he left Germany for the United States, working for a while in the Pennsylvania coal mines. Shortly after marrying Mary Peters in 1882, the couple moved to Whatcom County, Washington. By 1900, Beck was a prospering businessman, owning a block of buildings in downtown Whatcom, later Bellingham. Members of the City Council talked to him about building a Cultural Center.

The Beck Theater, located at 1312 Dock Street (now Cornwall Avenue) took two years to complete, at the cost of $150,000, with Beck mortgaging virtually everything to finance the loan. The theater was built of Chuckanut sandstone. The foyer had red hangings with gold trim and fringe. The style of the interior was Louis XIV. Total seating capacity was 2200.

The theater opened Dec. 13, 1902, with a comic opera, "Foxy Quiller". The theater took in $25,000 that first night, with box seats selling for $100, orchestra seats for $10, balcony seats for $5, balcony circle $2.50, gallery $1.50. Some seats were auctioned off as high as $1,500.

The theater soon began attracting the original companies of many of the finest Broadway productions. The Barrymores, Enrico Caruso, John Philip Sousa and Helen Keller entertained audiences at the theater. In 1909, "Ben Hur" was staged, and four huge horses raced abreast across the stage in the chariot race scene and left room to spare.

However, the theater soon became unprofitable. By 1913, vaudeville acts gradually replaced the theatrical road shows. Jacob Beck died in 1914. In 1915 the upper balcony was removed and replaced with a film projection booth, and the Beck Theatre was renamed the American Theatre.

The theater was sold by the Beck family in 1960, for a sale price barely more than the original cost. The building was razed to build J.C. Penney and Woolworth stores.

Jim Warwick

Warwick was born in England in 1879, and moved to Bellingham Bay with his family in 1887. He worked in Bellingham theaters for over 50 years. Warwick started out in 1897 as a stage hand at the Lighthouse Theater, and also worked for a time at the Bellingham Theater in the Bellingham Hotel. In 1902, Warwick was hired as stage manager of the brand-new Beck Theater. He continued working there after the Beck Theater changed its name to the American Theater in 1915. When motion pictures came in, Warwick became a projectionist, a job he continued until the 1950s. Warwick passed away in 1967, at the age of 87.

The Grand Theater

The first Grand Theater opened on March 27, 1905, at 127 West Holly Street. It would be one of Bellingham’s most popular vaudeville houses. In 1912, the theater would be torn down to make way for the new J.J. Donovan Building that was built on the site. A new Grand Theater was erected at the same time, behind the Donovan Building, at 1224 Commercial Street. An entrance to the theater was maintained on Holly Street at roughly the location of the original Grand. The new Grand Theater would feature motion pictures.

The J.B. Wahl Department Store was the first tenant of the J.J. Donovan Building and the Wahl family would be closely associated with the Grand Theater’s future. In 1930, the Howard Hughes-run Hughes-Franklin Theater chain bought the Grand, changing the name to "Our Theater." In 1933, the Wahl family bought the theater back and re-established the name as the Grand. The Wahl’s owned the Grand Theater until 1972 when it was sold to Rainier Bank, which demolished the building two years later.

The Collection

The Beck Theater Collection is a collection of 773 black and white images of vaudeville performers from across the nation who performed at the Beck and Grand Theaters in Bellingham. The images were collected by Jim Warwick, and donated to the Museum by a Mary Simmons. The fact that Warwick had his fingers in other theatrical pursuits in Bellingham is evident by looking at many of the inscriptions, which allude to the Grand Theater, rather than the Beck Theater.

Sources:
Duff, Nellie Brown. "Jim Warwick Has Been With Theaters for 54 Years" Bellingham Herald, January 1, 1952: 6.

Koert, Dorothy. A History of Whatcom County Theater
(Lynden, WA: Lynden Tribune, 1979)

	Booth-Gordon Trio, Comedy Cyclists. n.d. halftone. Photograph by Hubertz.
	Louise & Dick Hamlin, Comic Couple. n.d. photograph by Barnes.
	Christopher the Magician, photographer unknown, n.d.
	Unknown ballerina, photograph by Hall's Studio, Broadway, New York, n.d.
	Larry Sutton Attila, A High Class Novelty Presenting Their Original Specialty, "A Welcome Intruder", n.d.

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