An Oklahoma Theatre Renewed

The community of Miami comes together to resore an old favorite

by Janet Brett

In 1929, it took 330 days to build the theater, but it has taken the Friends of the Coleman 18 years to restore it to its former glory. It has truly been a labor of love.

The theater was originally built by George Coleman, who moved to Miami to dig water wells and struck it rich by discovering the second largest deposit of lead and zinc in the world. By the early 1920s, the Coleman family was making a million dollars a month. With all his new wealth, Coleman built a mansion in Miami and homes in California and Florida. He also built a small 600-square-foot theater in Miami called the Glory Be.

According to Barbara Smith, the theatre’s executive director, Coleman’s connections soon brought new opportunities to Miami that were too big for the Glory Be to hold.
 
“Mr. Coleman loved vaudeville, the theater and movies,” she said. “He became a close friend of  Bing Crosby, who at the time was performing on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit. Coleman signed up the Orpheum to come to Miami the following year, but the performers had reservations about the small size of the theater. Coleman told them, ‘I’ll just go home and build another one.’ And that’s exactly what he did. He spared no expense.”

At least in Coleman’s tale, “if you build it, they will come,” was a true adage.

“All the great stars of the day came: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, the Marx Brothers, Will Rogers, Sally Rand and Cary Grant,” Smith said. “Everyone performed here.” 

When Coleman died in 1945, his widow decided to leave Miami, and she turned the theater over to a movie house company. The company modernized the theater, removing most of the original Louis XV style fixtures and fittings, and for the next 40 years the Coleman showed nothing but films.

During the eighties, as more and more multiplex theaters sprang up, the Coleman fell on hard times. In order to remain competitive, the movie company decided to follow suit and build make the Coleman a multiplex too. Fortunately, they ran out of money before they were able to wreak further destruction on the theatre.

Luckily, the Coleman family heirs stepped in in 1989 and decided to donate the theater to the City of Miami, for whom it was something of a mixed blessing at first.

“They couldn’t afford to restore this old albatross,” Smith said, “and they considered tearing it down. But the people of Miami had grown up with this theater; its doors have never been dark since it first opened. Several generations remembered having their first date here, their first kiss and even a marriage proposal, so they said, “No—we’ve got to save it!” 

In order to preserve the theatre, the City of Miami created a public/private partnership with a board of seven volunteer trustees. The trustees soon discovered the extent of the damage, and the monumental task that faced them. The Mighty Wurlitzer organ had been sold. The 2000-pound chandelier that once graced the center of the auditorium had disappeared. All the carpets, silks and paneling had been ripped out, and the gold leaf had been painted over. Most of the crystals on the remaining chandeliers had vanished, as had all the beautiful furniture. And, on top of all that the roof leaked.

“Water was running down the walls, and the plaster was falling off,” Smith said, “but we were still in business. We still showed movies, and if it rained the audience sat under the balcony.”

The original seven trustees began work by forming a group called The Friends of the Coleman, which now has around 400 members. The Friends made a long list of all the things that needed to be done, and help started pouring in from every direction.

“Over the years we have received grants and donations from many quarters, including Northeast Oklahoma Electric Cooperative, and we appreciate them very much,” Smith said. “Our very first grant was from the State of Oklahoma to do the roof, and we’ve just kept marching down the road from there.”

Time, research and a lot of luck was what it took to find many of the Coleman’s original artifacts. It took eight years to track down the Mighty Wurlitzer.

“The organ was sold by the movie company to BillyJames Hargis, the television evangelist, who later sold it to a collector, Jim Peterson of Burleson, Texas,” Smith said. “That’s where we found it. We bought it back from Jim on condition that he was the only one to work on it, and 12 years later, he still comes twice a year to service it.”

The brass framework of the 2000-pound chandelier was discovered in the stables at the Coleman mansion in 2000, but all the glass and crystals were missing. After a great deal of research, the Friends of the Coleman located an artisan in Columbia, Missouri who had the skills to restore the glasswork. 

“Then the children in the local elementary schools saved their aluminum cans to enable us to buy all the crystals,” Smith said. “When we hung the chandelier back up on our 75th birthday celebration in 2004, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”

Through sheer hard work and dogged determination, these volunteers have replaced most of the original stained glass and have reproduced copies of the custom-made silk panels and carpeting. They were even able to replace the seats using the original 1929 design, since the company who made the original seating was still in business and still retained the pattern.

Smith did point out, however, that a few changes were in order.

“We had them made to the original pattern, but like Americans, they’re wider and softer now than in 1929,” she said. “Back then there were 1600 seats in here; today we have 1100.”

Despite all that they have accomplished, the Friends have more to do. The next phase of their project is to restore the ballroom, which occupies the whole top story of the theater. Once completed it will be used as a multi-purpose function room for weddings, conferences and meetings, as well as a community center.

The Coleman Theatre is now host to a wide range of events throughout the year including live theater, music, ballet, opera and silent movies accompanied by the Mighty Wurlitzer. A full calendar of events is available on their website, www.colemantheatre.org.

Future generations owe a debt of gratitude to the citizens of Miami and the Friends of the Coleman for their foresight in preserving such an important and valuable piece of history.

The Friends do not charge for tours of the theatre, which are available from Tuesday – Friday, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., and on Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon, but donations are needed and appreciated. For bus and group tours advance reservations are recommended.

Coleman Theatre
www.colemantheatre.org/
 (918) 540-2425
The Coleman Theatre
103 N. Main Street
Miami, Oklahoma 74354