1919 Season

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1919 Season Season
Leadership Will D. Harris (operating lessee)
Will D. Harris Amusement Company
Jacob F. Luft (manager)
Park Amusement Company
Joseph W. and Will J. Dusenbury
a.k.a. Dusenbury Brothers
The Olentangy Park Company
Season 21
Stock Manager Bafunno & Rice Producing Co.

Olentangy Park opened its 21st season on Sunday, April 6, 1919. A 12-piece jazz orchestra provided live music for the park's Dancing Pavilion.[1][2] Most of the park opened on Sundays at first with the theater and the swimming pool opened later in the summer. The park's official opening for daily operation happened on May 25. Admission was 5 cents at first, but doubled to 10 cents ($1.64 cents in 2022 dollars) with Harris claiming it was needed due to the war tax. Children were admitted for free.[3]

Originally, there was no musical stock at the theater this season because the new management company believed it would have been too expensive and a 15-piece special orchestra played live music for the park.[4] However, the president of the company and the theater manager later struck a deal for 14 weeks of comedy by the Bafunno & Rice Producing Co. [5]

Change in Management

Will D. Harris was the lessee-operator of the park when it opened for the season. He leased the park from J.W. and W.J. Dusenbury and their company, The Olentangy Park Company, which maintained ownership.[6] The park's operation was taken over by new management, changing the name of the Will D. Harris Amusement Company to the Park Amusement Company in mid-April. The operators involved in the new company included W. N. Ferguson, the president of Cedar Falls Oil Company, as president; and Jacob F. Luft, the treasurer of the Grand, Southern, and Olentangy Park theaters became the manager. Joseph Cleary, a well-known Columbus detective at the time, became the assistant manager.[7] Harris left Olentangy Park to focus on the Grand Theater to expand its motion picture program.[8][9]

Effects of the War Tax

On February 24, 1919, the U.S. Congress passed a revenue act requiring places of amusement to pay a tax on every admission, ride, and attraction ticket. The double in the gate cost to 10 cents was to help lower the need for other ticket price increases. A 1-cent (16 cents in 2022 dollars) tax was added to every 5 or 10-cent sale and a 2-cent tax was added for every 15 and 12-cent sale, and a 3-cent tax for every 25 and 30-cent sale and so on.[10] Harris paid a war tax for the two years prior, but did not raise prices, but felt it was needed for the 1919 season.

Rides and Attractions

Rides

Attractions

  • The Colonnade
  • Fun House
  • Museum of Ornithology
  • Swimming Pool
  • The Zoo

Music and Performances

Activities

  • Arcade
  • Billiards
  • Boating - Launches, Rowboats, & Canoes
  • Bowling
  • Dancing
  • Dining
  • Fishing
  • Fortune Telling
  • General Games
  • Picnics
  • Pony Rides
  • Swimming
  • Shooting Gallery

Theater Performances

On April 26, 1919, the North High School Thespians performed "Green Stockings," a play by A. E. Mason, at the theater.[11]

On May 17, the Patriotic League Glee Club presented a minstrel show directed by Lillian Sticklin and managed by A.C. Moorhaus.[12] Part of the performance featured women in bear suits presenting the Teddy Bear Glide.[13]

Three hundred participants from North High School performed the operetta, "The Conquest of Nations" on Saturday, May 24, the day before the park's opening for daily operation. This was the first time the operetta was performed in Ohio. The solos were performed by Ruth Heizer, Catherine Mackintosh, Pauline Dorn, Charles Medick, and Edgar Sprague. Ruth Caldrewood played as the Spirit of Fair Play, Martha Mathews as Utopia, and Katheryn Mathews as Columbia.[14]

Park Amusement Co. president Jacob Luft and the Olentangy Park Theater manager W.N. Furgurson agreed to have 14 weeks of musical comedies presented by Antonio Bafunno and Alonzo Rice and their own producing company. The season opened June 2 with "Review of Reviews." Bufunno previously directed the Musical Players at the Grand Theater and Price worked with the Henry W. Savage company and was known as a producer and manager of unusual talents. Price was in charge of the productions while Bufunno was the musical director and in charge of the orchestra. They created Bafunno & Rice Producing Co. for their work that summer. The cast had at least 35 members.[5]

Stock Performances

Dates Peformance Writer Genre Headliners Notes
June 2 - 8, 1919 "Review of Reviews" Comedy [5]
"Alma" Comedy
"A Knight For a Day" Comedy
"A Stubborn Cinderella" Comedy
"Madame Sherry" Comedy
"The Show Girl" Comedy
"Florabella" Comedy
"San Toy" Comedy

References

  1. ↑ "Park Opens Sunday." Columbus Evening Dispatch. 4 April 1919. Pg. 42.
  2. ↑ "The Big Park Opens." The Columbus Sunday Dispatch. 6 April 1919. Pg. 66.
  3. ↑ "Park Gate Charge Changed." Columbus Evening Dispatch. 12 April 1919. Pg. 12.
  4. ↑ "Olentangy Open Today." The Columbus Sunday Dispatch. 27 April 1919. Pg. 78.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Authors of Musical Comedy Success to Direct Coming Olentangy Stock." The Columbus Sunday Dispatch. 11 May 1919. Pg. 56.
  6. ↑ "Incorporate Park Company." Columbus Evening Dispatch. 16 January 1918. Pg. 9.
  7. ↑ "Cleary to Aid Luft." Columbus Evening Dispatch. 25 April 1919. Pg. 42.
  8. ↑ "Olentangy Park Taken Over By New Management." Columbus Evening Dispatch. 18 April 1919. Pg. 1.
  9. ↑ "No More Musical Stock." Columbus Evening Dispatch. 19 April 1919. Pg. 42.
  10. ↑ "Park Tax Problem." The Columbus Sunday Dispatch. 13 April 1919. Pg. 56.
  11. ↑ "Miss Rhae M'Carty." Columbus Evening Dispatch. 25 April 1919. Pg. 38.
  12. ↑ "Girls in Minstrel Cast." Columbus Evening Dispatch. 15 May 1919. Pg. 25.
  13. ↑ "Girls will Don Teddy Bear Suits for Minstrel Show." Columbus Evening Dispatch. 15 May 1919. Pg. 12.
  14. ↑ "North High to Give Patriotic Operetta." Columbus Evening Dispatch. 22 May 1919. Pg. 6.
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