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Register of the Swain Marysville & San Francisco Theatre
Collection,
1857-1928
Mss88
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Title: Swain Marysville & San Francisco Theatre
Collection,
Date (inclusive): 1857-1928
Collection number: Mss88
Creator:
W.B. & Margaret Swain
Extent: 0.25 linear ft.
Repository:
University of the Pacific. Library. Holt-Atherton Department of
Special Collections
Stockton, CA 95211
Shelf location: For current information on the location of
these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
Language: English.
Collection is open for research.
[Identification of item], Swain Marysville & San Francisco Theatre
Collection, Mss88, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University
of the Pacific Library
The Swain Family operated a planing mill, a theatre and a bank in
Marysville throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Their
Marysville Theatre, erected in 1865, was designed by Harry Majors and built by
W.C. Swain for $30,000. The flood of 1875 damaged the building and it was use
for a time as a dance hall. Swain remodelled it in 1886, introducing sloping
floors and other improvements. W.B. Swain, son of the builder, was interested
both in acting and in theatre management. His father began leasing the building
to him in 1889 and the latter operated it until it burnt down, together with
the family mill, in 1904.
Theatre in Marysville enjoyed a particularly vigorous life between 1886
and 1910 due to an accident of geography. Trains from San Francisco bound for
Portland, Oregon arrived in Marysville at five p.m. The train did not leave for
Portland until midnight and many Portland-bound troupes found it a simple
matter to mount an evening performance in Marysville while on their way north.
It would have been impossible for them to have done this in Sacramento because
they could not have made their Portland connection on the same day.
In 1908, Frank Atkins built a new theatre on the site of the Swain
planing mill. This theatre, also known as the Marysville Theatre, burned in
1926.
The scrapbook which forms the chief element of these papers was created
by W.B. Swain. It contains theater programs, reviews and Swain's notes about
attendance and the performances at Marysville between 1886 and 1908. One of the
Swains also collected a smaller number of San Francisco theatrical programs and
newspapers dating from the same period.