Theaters of Marshall County

Theaters of Marshall County

by | May 14, 2026 | Business & Industry, Communities & Townships

The Gem Theater.

One big change that took place at the end of the 19th century was the rise of commercial entertainment, especially for the growing middle class. Workers began to have more leisure time, and electric lights in towns and cities made the evening hours available for fun pursuits.

Sports, live music and vaudeville shows flourished, but nothing revolutionized leisure time quite like the motion picture. As early as 1910, there were already almost 10,000 movie theaters nationwide, and the movies had become one of America’s most popular pastimes. In Marshall County alone, there was at least one movie house in most towns almost continually throughout the first half of the 20th century. Young people especially sought amusement, escape and freedom from parental control. The relatively inexpensive movie theaters gave them a place to go to experience something new with every film.

The last half of the 20th century saw a return to home-based entertainment that continues today. Television in the 1950s, videocassette recorders (VCRs) in the 1980s, then high-definition TVs, and most recently, the various streaming services, all led to the demise of local movie theaters.

However, in recent years, interest in iconic downtown movie houses has surged, and many communities have found creative ways to restore and repurpose those buildings. One thing remains clear – Americans still love their movies!

The first theater in Argos opened in 1912 as the Princess. A movie-goer could see one whole reel for a nickel. By 1926 the cost of a double feature had gone up to 10 cents for children and 25 cents for adults. Ernest Parren purchased the theater in 1937 and changed the name to the Lido, after a famous theater in Italy. It operated for just under a year under Parren’s leadership before he closed the doors, leaving Argos without a movie house for the first time in 25 years.

Anthony Bokas from Chicago purchased the Lido in March of 1939 and remodeled it extensively. On April 12, 1941, the new Lido reopened with the movie Fargo Kid, starring Culver Military Academy graduate, Tim Holt. The following day, Rosalind Russell and Brian Aheme came to Argos to celebrate the new Lido opening and to promote their film, Hired Wife. The theater operated as the Lido until 1944, when it changed hands and became The Cozy. During the 1950s, the Cozy also showed Spanish language movies for the migrant workers during the season.

 

Facade of the Cozy Theater in Argos.

Modern image of theater building.

The August 8, 1907, issue of the Bourbon Mirror reported that, “We (Bourbon) have a permanent motion picture theater in the room just north of Vink & Co.” For 5 cents, proprietors Ward and Kern promised exhibitions every night except Sunday. In May 1910 a new moving picture theater, the Gem opened. Either the Gem changed its name, or a new theater opened in October 1911 as the Navarre, showing “the choicest in picture dramas.” Local history teacher and coach Gene Rovenstine built the Comet theater in 1946. It was named for the Bourbon High School sports teams. The movie changed three times a week, and the cost to see the opening film, Our Hearts Were Growing Up, was 14 cents for children and 35 cents for adults.

The Comet was the scene of a daring burglary in 1950. A man from out of town parked near the back door and bought a ticket to the last show of the evening. Before the movie ended, he made his way to the basement and waited. After the staff left, the burglar came upstairs, muscled the safe to the back door and loaded it into the back seat of his car. Approximately $900 was stolen, along with the safe. A few months later the safe was found in a field near Lapaz. It had been emptied of cash and dumped.

The Comet Theater in Bourbon, undated.

About the closure of his business in 1957, Rovenstine later wrote, “The theater was interesting work which I enjoyed and prospered doing, until television reared its ugly head.” Many early theaters started out as opera houses and followed the trend into moving pictures, as was the case in the town of Bremen. Animated pictures were shown at the opera house as early as 1897. Wilbur W. Drake was owner and manager of the Majestic Theatre and got himself into trouble during his tenure for “Sabbath desecration.” He pled guilty to showing movies on Sunday and paid a $5 fine.

The Majestic was the scene of the only known theater shooting in Marshall County history. On an October evening in 1917, there were about 260 people in the theater when a 16-year-old boy, who had just stolen a revolver, attempted to show it off to a friend. The gun accidentally fired, hitting a young boy across the aisle in the leg. Worried that children would be trampled in a rush to the door, Manager Drake rushed in and yelled for everyone to sit down. The victim went to the hospital and the shooter went to the “calaboose.” Sometime between 1920 and 1930, the movies shown at the theater, now called the Gem, became questionable in decency and taste. It finally closed in 1932. The new Bremen Theatre reopened in the same building two years later, offering only “first class, clean, talking pictures.” In December 1982, Jim and Sue Holliger of Goshen purchased the Bremen Theater, which had, once again, been closed for a couple of years.

Bremen Theater showing Little Women, ca. 1949.

In September 1913 Billy Link bought a building lot in Culver for $675 and built a brick two- story building. The first floor housed a drug and novelty store, and the second floor was a movie theater. By 1919, Link expanded into the Liberty Theater, located on Scott Street. Known as “Culver’s Temple of Mirth,” it was remodeled from Hayes Garage into an 800-seat auditorium. Featuring two shows nightly, it was billed as “a big city show – all for twenty-five cents, plus war tax.”

The Home Theater on South Main Street was first owned by John Osborn and showed silent films. Ruth and Martha Werner played the piano. Osborn offered a free serial film to children after school. The catch was that they had to come back later to learn the fate of their heroes. The theater opened in 1914 and closed in 1930. A 1979 survey also listed a Star Theater located on the southeast corner of Main and Washington streets which opened in 1917 and closed in 1920. It was owned and operated by Milton Robinson, who also ran a bakery.  In August 1931 the New Palace Theatre opened. It was located across from the train depot and had been completely remodeled. The grand opening featured Will Rogers in Young As You Feel. The New Palace Theatre later became the El Rancho, owned by Everett Hoesel. The El Rancho theater has changed hands a few times since then, but is currently closed.

El Rancho Theater with cadets, ca. 1957.

It’s always worth your while to come in the see the rest of the Museum, located at 123 N. Michigan St., Plymouth, open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.

George Switzer – Plymouth to Paris

George Switzer – Plymouth to Paris

by | May 6, 2026 | Plymouth, Visitor Stories & Oral Histories

1918 Plymouth High School Basketball Team, Switzer on left.

George Switzer was born in Plymouth in 1900. He was a talented artist and at age 16 was chosen to illustrate the book, Centennial History of Indiana, by Judge John Kitch. George went on to graduate as the president of his class and studied psychology at the University of Illinois. He distinguished himself there as president of the arts and psychology fraternities, and as art director of campus publications. His first design business was launched when he successfully bid against Chicago firms for the decorations used in the college dances.

From college, George worked as a Bible salesman, where again, he excelled by doubling the business in 16 months. His desire to work in an artistic way led him to accept a job as an industrial designer. His work in Chicago led to an offer from an advertising firm in New York where he designed everything from envelope stickers to messengers’ uniforms and delivery trucks. Having made his name, Switzer opened his own office in 1929 as a designer and consultant. He subsequently worked for 65 American companies, and shortly opened an office in Paris, France. He designed a variety of things including letterhead, sausage labels and a Rolls-Royce automobile body. Switzer was instrumental in organizing the 1937 Exhibitions on Modern Packaging and Materials show in New York. He also promoted packaging shows in the U.S. and France. He won several awards for his designs internationally as well as stateside.

George passed away in 1940 following surgery for mastoiditis. His funeral was conducted in the Presbyterian church, and he is buried at Oakhill Cemetery. The print obituaries in the Museum’s archive summarize his life well, but it is the extra artifacts in the file that tell the real story. An article from a New York newspaper shares several nuggets about George:

“He still drawls, he still says mebbe for maybe. He might have been a farmer, except for one summer when he was nine years old, he ‘rented a piece of land from grandfather. I hoed and planted and watered all summer. The other kids were playing baseball or swimmin’. I kept careful books and at the end of the summer I had made 37 cents for four month’s work. I never wanted to be a farmer after that…’

“His interests range all over the earth: from re-designing ocean liners ‘so that folks will feel more like they are out on the seas that pirates used to roam over, instead of safe and sound in an apartment hotel…’ From that field, his interests range to ‘working out an art program for high schools…I am experimenting with it back in my hometown sort of…it’s based on a pretty simple idea that sounds sort of screwy when I say it, but here it is: Just teach kids that every place they leave, ought to be made more beautiful for their having been there.’”

 

Christmas Card by George Switzer.

George never forgot his hometown and remained close to his Plymouth family throughout his life. Our archive includes letters to his aunts and an amazing collection of hand-made Christmas cards. His designs are as imaginative and fresh now as they were when created in the 1920s and ‘30s. Each year George created a sophisticated work of art, very much in the art deco style of the day. He used metallic papers and inks, embossed detail, intricate folds and handwritten verse. In these days of digital greetings, these pieces of art are all the more charming.

This is just one file in the Marshall County Museum’s archives, and one more story of a life that made an impact. We are privileged to preserve these items to tell our collective story! Come visit this holiday season. The Museum is open located at 123 N. Michigan St., Plymouth, and open Tuesday – Saturday, 10-4.

Family Searches for Long Lost Nephews

Family Searches for Long Lost Nephews

by | Apr 30, 2026 | Plymouth, Visitor Stories & Oral Histories

Herbert M. Cunningham’s gravesite.

The Plymouth Republican of April 23, 1908 had an interesting article about a Maine family searching for long lost nephews in Indiana. The boys were sent to Indiana on an orphan train. The Orphan Train movement (1853–early 1900s) was a massive social welfare experiment that relocated over 120,000 to 200,000 orphaned, abandoned or homeless children from crowded Eastern cities—primarily New York—to foster homes in the rural Midwest.

About 20 years earlier, the father of the boys, William Morey, died and their mother, Lillie Dean Morey, was in very poor health. Lillie was sent to a sanitorium where she later died. Her brother, D.L. Dean, was unable to care for the boys, having a family of his own, so he placed them in a Boston orphanage who promised to take very good care of the brothers. Before long, the Morey brothers were shipped west on the Orphan Train. The Dean family were not told of their whereabouts.

The Morey brothers, William and Herbert, were both taken in by a Mr. Cunningham in Plymouth, who intended to keep Herbert and find another home for William. In 1908, Cunningham said that William had been shifted from home to home and “had a hard time of it.” At first William made his home with Preacher Clark in Plymouth. He later spent time with Sam Swaysgood, and then John Cook, living west of Plymouth. He returned for a time to Preacher Clark and finally went to Peter Brown in Michigan City.

Dean remained interested in his nephews and as time passed and he prospered, he began to seek information about them and their whereabouts. He found out “in a roundabout way” that William was working for a farmer in Michigan City named Peter Brown. He determined to take a trip to Indiana and look for his missing family. In 1908, the Deans visited Peter Brown in Michigan City. He indicated that William Morey had left his employ two years earlier, and he did not have a new address for him.

While they did not locate William, they did receive a clue about where to find Herbert. Upon visiting him in Plymouth a few days later, they found a young man close to turning 21. Herbert had a good home with the Cunninghams and was satisfied with his present lot. He did not know of the death of his mother, nor that he had an uncle and aunt living until shown a clipping from a LaPorte newspaper.

Herbert Cunningham went on to fight in WWI and was discharged to the Veteran’s Home in Marion, IN, with a diagnosis of Constitutional Psychopathic State. This diagnosis covered a wide range of problems, including shellshock. In 1920, Herbert was living in South Bend with his foster sister.

In 1921 Herbert married Mary Cannon, and they had a son, Rex, in 1922. He was apparently still struggling with mental health issues, as he was sent to Longcliff, later named the Logansport State Hospital, in 1929.  By 1930, Herbert was back at the Veteran’s Home in Marion. At some point he was transferred to the Veteran’s Hospital in Dayton, OH, where he died on September 18, 1969.

    This is just one of the fascinating stories contained in our archives. Our library is available from Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 AM until 4:00 PM. The Museum is located at 123 N. Michigan St. in Plymouth. Call us at 574-936-2306.

    The Great Culver Bank Robbery of 1933

    The Great Culver Bank Robbery of 1933

    by | Apr 30, 2026 | Crime, Culver, Fame & Infamy

    Culver State Exchange Bank, undated.

    Edited by Sue Irwin

    On May 29, 1933, at 9:05 a.m., the Culver State Exchange Bank was robbed. Seven men pulled up in front of the bank in a large Chrysler, later reported as being stolen. Six of the men got out of the Chrysler wearing masks and brandishing sawed-off shotguns and a machine gun. Five of them entered the bank, while another stayed outside as a lookout, and the seventh kept the car running.

    Someone in the bank pressed the burglar alarm while a man across the street, seeing the action unfolding, leaned out of his second-floor window to alert all within earshot that the bank was being robbed. Col. H.C. Glascock, an officer at Culver Military Academy, was in town and alerted military personnel at CMA through the switchboard operator. Within minutes, Col. Robert Rossow, commandant of the academy, had an armed posse in two automobiles racing into town.

    Oliver Shilling, the son of the bank president at the time, realized what was happening and took aim from a filling station across the street and fired two shots into the car, mortally wounding the driver. As the other five men and the lookout exited the bank a minute later, they took two bank employees to act as shields, shoved the dead driver aside and took off, forcing the hostages to ride on the running boards of the car until they reached the edge of town.

    The hostages jumped off at the earliest opportunity, and the robbers headed west on Route 10, with a local doctor and another man giving chase. The driver of the Chrysler wasn’t familiar with the roads and didn’t get far before he wrecked the car. The pursuit car was forced to stop, and the robbers stole it, leaving the doctor and friend to tend to the dying driver. The robbers turned north, but again encountered trouble when the car got off the road and came to a stop in deep sand. They finally got the car moved only to get it wedged between two small trees, forcing them to leave the car and seek hiding places in the swamp and woods nearby to await darkness.

    That didn’t work out, though, since the hastily gathered posse (including a couple of South Bend police officers who were in Culver attending a funeral) and the Culver Military personnel found the car and surrounded the area. Five bank robbers were apprehended – one of them was up a tree, two others lying on their backs in shallow water with just their noses sticking out and money floating all around them. One man claimed innocence, saying he was simply seining for minnows and had fallen in, startled by the commotion.

    It took four and a half hours after the robbery to catch five of the six robbers. The sixth man was apprehended four months later in Chicago. The amount stolen was $12,645. Of that, $9,376 was recovered.

    A few interesting details surfaced in the days and weeks following the robbery:

    • Four telephone operators were kept very busy handling about 180 long-distance and local calls pertaining to the robbery.
    • B. gun sales to young Culver boys rose considerably.
    • A farmer from Starke County was observed among the crowd at the swamp with an old muzzle loader, ramrod and powder horn.
    • Five U.S. Springfield rifles came up missing after the capture.
    • The muddy wet money found in the swamp was dried, cleaned and put back into circulation.
    • True Detective Magazine featured the story in the December 1933 edition.

    Did you know that we have nearly all of the county newspapers in digital form? Stop in at the Museum for your research needs! We are open 10-4 on Tuesday through Saturday.

    High School Construction Disasters

    High School Construction Disasters

    by | Apr 29, 2026 | Argos, Bourbon, Disasters, General History, Inwood

    Inwood Schoolhouse south side view, undated.

    People have been promoting education in Marshall County almost as long as the county has existed, going from just a few students in isolated one-room schoolhouses, to our current large, modern buildings. The path has not always been smooth. In addition to the varying attitudes and opinions of the taxpayers over the years, accidents and natural disasters have had their impact as well. Following are a few examples. Excerpts have been lightly edited.

    Inwood Schoolhouse Tragedy

    The Town of Inwood’s school building apparently needed a new roof before the start of the 1911 school year, but the effort ended tragically. The August 31 edition of The Weekly Republican newspaper covered the accident.

    “Hueston C. Kramer, the Plymouth tinner, was perhaps fatally injured at about 1:45 Monday by falling from the roof of the public schoolhouse at Inwood. Mr. Kramer was at work putting a tin roof on the building when in some way he fell to the ground, a distance of two full stories, landing on his head on the cement sidewalk below. He sustained a broken shoulder blade and severe injuries about the face and head. It is thought that he can live but a short time at the best.

    No one witnessed the accident, but Doctors Kaszer and Loring were immediately summoned. The injured man was carried into the basement of the building and everything possible was done for him. He has remained in an unconscious condition since the time of the accident.”

    The 28-year-old Kramer died three hours later.

    Bourbon Township Consolidated School Corp.

    In 1928 the Bourbon Township Consolidated School Corporation built a new addition to their existing building. The work started in October and was slated to be completed by spring of 1929. Students were dismissed for Christmas break on December 21, and seven days later the building, including the new addition, went up in flames. In the process, the school learned a very expensive lesson. According to the Bourbon High School Chronicle 1884 – 1963,

    “The building was a total loss of $125,000, with only $50,000 in insurance. The fire was discovered about 1:15 a.m. by Ernest Hurford. He hurried back to town and turned in the alarm to the Bourbon Fire Company. Help was immediately called from Plymouth and Warsaw.

    “The blaze started on the upper floor in the room of the Latin teacher. It was thought it might have started with the electric wiring. The flames spread rapidly through the center of the building and to the south end…. At 4:00 a.m. the water supply failed. The town pumps filling the standpipe could not supply water at the same rate as it was being used on the fire and the firemen had to wait until it was replenished. By dawn the fire had gutted the building.”

    Argos Builds A New School

    The wave of school consolidations in the 1950s led to the need for a new school building in the town of Argos. Incoming students from Green and Walnut townships quickly rendered the Argos K-12 building too small, so in 1957 construction began on a new school. As work was progressing on the gymnasium, 23 steel support trusses suddenly collapsed, injuring three workmen.

    The Culver Citizen of June 12, 1957, described the event. “The heavy girders collapsed in chain reaction fashion at the site of the construction of a $1,000,000 school and gymnasium of the recently organized Argos Community School.

    “One of the injured workmen, Robert Treber, 31 years old, Argos, is in fair condition…. He suffered several fractured ribs and facial and arm cuts. The others injured, Antal Marton, 35, Culver, and John Brewer, 31, Argos, were treated for minor injuries and released.”

    An investigator sent in to determine the cause of the collapse concluded that one of the girders had been dropped and sustained some damage, but was installed anyway, and an attempt to straighten it in place had been made. It was also noted that the joists were curving away from the starting end, some bracing clips were broken at the welds and one of the wires connecting the first joist to the end of the column failed. It could have been much worse than it was.

    Laville Junior-Senior High School & Palm Sunday

    And sometimes no amount of human intervention can stop a disaster. The new Laville Junior-Senior High School was still under construction in April 1965 when the Palm Sunday tornados struck Marshall and St. Joseph counties. The April 12 South Bend Tribune reported, “…the north wall of the gymnasium was badly damaged, and some damage was also done to an east wall. Building material was scattered throughout the area.” Regardless of the setback, the new consolidated school opened on time.

    The MCHS staff is hard at work on an upcoming exhibit highlighting the public high school buildings of Marshall County. Details will be coming soon. The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. at 123 N. Michigan St. Call us at 574-936-2306 for more information.