by Paul R. Spitzzeri
For some eight decades, the Burbank Theatre operated under that name as well as the Follies on the east side of Main Street between 5th and 6th streets, though it started in the late 19th century as a venue for plays and, after about thirty years, became a burlesque theater and, later, a striptease joint. This is hardly an unusual evolution for theaters, whether built for live performance or later ones that were constructed for movies, especially as the areas in which they are located evolve into more seedy, less desirable areas.
Its namesake was Dr. David Burbank (1821-1895) was a native of Effingham, New Hampshire, situated on the border with Maine and he was raised in the latter state. After finishing his schooling, he studied dentistry and practiced in Waterville until 1853, when he migrated to Gold Rush California, though not to dig for the precious metal but to continue his profession. Burbank did so in San Francisco for a baker’s dozen of years before coming to Los Angeles in 1866.
Though he continued to offer his services as a dentist in the Angel City until 1872, Burbank was most focused on his new vocation as a rancher and farmer. Shortly after settling in the area, he acquired thousands of acres on the ranchos Providencia, recently owned by David W. Alexander, who has been profiled here previously, and San Rafael, specifically about 4,000 acres that were acquired from the Verdugo family by lawyer Jonathan R. Scott.
Before Scott’s death in 1864, however, William Workman, owner of the half of the massive Rancho La Puente and founder with his wife, Nicolasa Urioste, of the Homestead, became possessor of about 1,000 acres of that land, including a wheat field on the north side of the Los Angeles River as that watercourse turns westward after passing the northeast corner of Griffith Park.
In fact, east of today’s Interstate 5, Scott Road marks the boundary between Providencia and San Rafael with the line continuing through Brace Park and into the west end of the Verdugo Mountains separating Burbank from the Sun Valley area of Los Angeles. Workman seems to have taken ownership of the Scott wheat land, as he did with the vineyard of surveyor Henry Hancock near Elysian Park and a portion of the Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas, also from Hancock, in what is now Beverly Hills, just before Scott passed away.
Thanks to existing tax assessment records, we know that Workman retained possession of the Scott property through the assessment of 1867, at which time, it appears, he sold the tract to Burbank. Over the course of about two decades, Burbank amassed a small little empire of about 11,000 acres, on which he raised sheep and grew wheat and barley. Given the relative scarcity of water compared to the San Gabriel Valley, this was about what could be expected of the southeast corner of the San Fernando Valley.
While Burbank made his acquisitions just prior to the first boom that came to greater Los Angeles, this running from the late Sixties through the mid Seventies, before an economic downturn that was part of a national “Long Depression” that spanned from the Panic of 1873 through the end of the decade, he came to realize a major boon to his fortunes in the next big boom, which peaked in 1887-1888 during the administration of Los Angeles Mayor William H. Workman, nephew of the La Puente rancher.
At the end of 1886, Burbank sold most of his Providencia and San Rafael holdings for $275,000, a substantial sum to The Providencia Land and Water Company. With new towns springing up all over greater Los Angeles and given the tract’s position on the Southern Pacific Railroad line that headed towards the northern part of the state, it was an opportune time to subdivide the property for smaller farm tracts as well as a new townsite, named for the land’s owner of almost two decades.
At the end of March 1887, as the boom raged through the region, Burbank was part of the Providencia syndicate that included six other men, including Leman T. Garnsey, who was president of the Los Angeles and Redondo Railway and involved in the subdivision of the towns of Inglewood and Redondo Beach; Hugh L. Macneil, son-in-law of banker Jonathan S. Slauson and part of Slauson’s development of Azusa as well as involved at San Fernando, north of Burbank, and Ontario; and John Downey Harvey, uncle of former Governor John G. Downey, who had extensive real estate interests in the Bay Area as well as locally.
With his windfall, Burbank decided to raze the house he’d built earlier in the Eighties when that part of Main Street was all residential, though the great boom meant a rapid expansion of the business section of the Angel City to that district. In its place, in late April 1888, Burbank announced that he was to build a four-story structure of pressed brick, granite and terra cotta with a Chicago theater architect, J.M. Wood, expected to cost $150,000 and to include three large stores in addition to the 2,000-seat theater.
A detailed description in the Los Angeles Herald of 28 April was provided with the paper concluding that, with all of the structure’s magnificence, “Los Angeles is to be congratulated on such an acquisition.” A 13 July article in the paper proudly promoted the fact that the boomtown “has gained the reputation of being one of the best amusement centers in the United States” and boasted Childs’ Opera House, opened four years prior, and Hazard’s Pavilion, under the new name of the Academy of Music and where the Temple Auditorium was later constructed.
While the paper reported that “Dr. Burbank’s new theater is making rapid progress,” the 4 October edition of the Herald revised this by noting that “the big Burbank theatre is going on slowly, the foundations being all laid up.” The problem was that the boom had long peaked and the inevitable bust was at hand, so Burbank shelved the project and it was not revived for nearly another five years.
Notably, its renewal came during the year of the next big American depression of 1893 and in early May, the Los Angeles Express of the 5th stated that architect Robert B. Young was contracted to work on a new design for a more modest two-story edifice, with stores on the Main Street frontage. It was interesting, however, that Burbank requested a $7,500 “bonus” from the Main Street Improvement (or Development) Company towards the project, presumably under the proviso that the theater would be an economic boon to the thoroughfare.
As with Wood’s plan, Young provided for an auditorium that would seat 2,000 persons and the cost was projected at some $80,000, while the Herald in its 14 June edition reported that the Main Street firm had a meeting during which it was stated that there were ten new business structures to be built on the thoroughfare between Temple and 6th streets through the end of the year.
This included edifices for the Turn Verein Germania, the International Order of Odd Fellows, the German-American Savings Bank, the Bullard Building (replacing Jonathan Temple’s Market House, long used as the county courthouse as well as county and city offices), buildings by John Downey, James W. Hellman, and Samuel Meyer and, of course, the Burbank Theatre.
The 18 October edition of the Express included a significant amount of detail about the new venue, which was nearing completion and was said to be “a model of neatness and convenience.” Its builder was hailed for taking on a project that was “boldly begun and bravely carried on . . . under not the most encouraging circumstances in the world.” Hired to manage the theater was Fred Cooper, a veteran of the Park Theatre and who hired a company for a production to be mounted sometime around the middle of November.
As to the venue’s elements, the paper observed that,
The lobby and foyer are both long and large and will be appropriately decorated. Besides these conveniences there is a conservatory for ladies. It is already partially decorated in a very attractive manner and will supplied with appropriate furniture, fountain with goldfish, palms and other decorative plants. The ladies toilet will be in a separate apartment . . .
Both incandescent and gas-lighting will be used. The seating capacity is 900 in the gallery and 1027 down stairs, a total of nearly 2000 . . . The stage is forty-two feet deep, thirty-seven feet wide and twenty-seven feet high . . . Much of the scenery has already been painted, including the drop-curtain. The nature of the latter will not be divulged until the opening night [but had typical advertising while “painted in the most artistic and beautiful manner] . . . A good orchestra of ten pieces will furnish the music, under the leadership of Frank Bean, a well-known musician of San Francisco.
The Burbank’s opening day was on 27 November, with the Express calling the theater “a handsome, cosy [sic] new play house” and “an overt demonstration of Los Angeles pluck and energy.” The line of customers stretched down the street and “the commodious vestibule was thronged with people, and they jostled and joked until the curtains of the large box office were pulled up, when three cheers were given for that moment.”
While it was suggested that the paint was still drying, the paper praised the women’s conservatory as “a pleasing innovation” with no peer for “such a pleasing and comfortable adjunct.” It took a full hour to get all 2,500 persons seated (there were obviously special opening night accommodations for nearly 600 patrons!) as “most of the auditors walked about inspecting the place” and only favorable comments were heard.
Noting that the view from the stage was one of a “parterre of beauty and bravery,” the Express was effusive in gushing that “Dr. Burbank has erected a theater which is not only pleasing from an aesthetic point, but fulfills all the technical requirements of a perfect temple of histrionic art.” While Young was new to theater design, it was reported that Cooper simply told the architect, “I’ll give you the idea; you do the planning.”
It was added that there was no bad seat in the house while “the acoustic properties are excellent” and Young was praised for both the arrangement and comfort of the former, while, with the latter, “every syllable . . . can be heard in any part of this great auditorium.” The paper did one have one complaint, however:
Only one objectionable feature presented itself last evening, and that was the presence of the pertinacious and persistent peanut boys. Whatever revenue accrues from this industry would not be missed if dropped, as it would attract people who think this cheapens the house. It is not in consonance with the surroundings. People who attend performances do not like to have the life worried out of them by pesky little urchins who travel all over the auditor in their wild endeavors to make a sale. These boys should be relegated to the foyer, anywhere but the auditorium.
The orchestra, which was under a different conductor, W.F. Webb, “discoursed music of a better quality than was expected at a popular price theater” and after an opening selection, speeches were offered in praise of Burbank and Wood and, while the owner shyly avoided making any remarks, Mayor Henry T. Hazard, owner of the aforementioned theater to the west across from Central or Sixth Street Park, now Pershing Square, “praised the indomitable energy of Dr. Burbank in commencing an enterprise when banks were suspending and a financial wreck imminent.”
The Burbank was only open a little more than a year when its owner succumbed to a sudden heart ailment said to be brought on by overwork and strain and died on 21 January 1895 at age 73. The Express of the following day recorded that,
He took a special pride in his theater, and was there nearly every night, and enjoyed a presentation as heartily as any auditors. He was enterprising, vigorous, and withal had a most amiable and pleasant disposition . . .
Dr. Burbank had the most sanguine expectations respecting the possibilities of the growth of the city, and was a champion of Los Angeles all the time. He built his theater during a stormy financial period, when all other improvements were stagnating, and during the panicky times declared his faith in the future of this town. Under the most adverse circumstances was this theater built, and the city owes a good deal to this courageous little man, who was never discouraged. In fact his act went a good ways towards stemming the financial disaster.
Ownership was retained by his widow, Clara Kauffer, their only child, Flora, and her husband, John W. Griffin, a former constable. While the family and then a corporation established from their interests continued this for decades, a new operator was found as the 19th century came to a close.
This was the young Oliver Morosco, who came from San Francisco and its vibrant theatrical scene to make his debut in Los Angeles with the Burbank. We’ll pick up the story from 1899 in part two, so check back for that.