BLOOMINGTON - From 1872 until 1891, Durley Hall, located on the northeast corner of Main and Jefferson streets just off the Courthouse Square, was one of Bloomington's leading venues for live theater. In an age before motion pictures, big-city theater companies arrived via railroad to perform before local audiences for engagements of one night or more.

Such entertainment proved popular with all classes, and the Durley stage played host to everything from risqué can-can dancers to Shakespearian tragedies.

Construction of the three-story building was financed by David Davis, the U.S. Supreme Court justice from Bloomington. Davis named the building for his friend William Durley, one of the city's earliest residents who lived and died in a small house on the corner lot.

The architect was French-born Alfred E. Piquenard, whose body of work includes the Davis mansion and the current statehouses of Illinois and Iowa. Like many such halls or opera houses (as theaters were often called), the Durley occupied the upper floors of a multi-story commercial building or block. When the 1,200-seat hall opened, its only competitor was Dr. Herman Schroeder's Opera House, located a half block south on Main Street.

Durley Hall's "parquette," or main floor, sloped downward toward the stage. The seats were upholstered and bolted to prevent "noise or confusion" from scuffling chairs during performances. The raised first gallery (or "dress circle") offered cushioned benches while patrons in the back gallery had to make do with bare wood.

The theater opened on Dec. 12, 1872. By that time, Bloomington was attracting national touring companies and talent from the East Coast. These troupes specialized in sentimental and sensational melodramas, "spectaculars" heavy on costuming and scenery, farces, light operas, minstrel shows, and pantomimes.

The Durley's first national attraction was John E. Owens, the "far-famed comedian" and "delineator of the pathetic drama." Reserved tickets for the Dec. 16-17 performances were $1 (or more than $18 today, adjusted for inflation), while gallery seats went for 50 cents.

It seems that each month brought its share of the exotic or peculiar (at least to 21st century sensibilities) to the Bloomington stage. English-born Lydia Thompson, the "Peerless Queen of Burlesque," shocked the faint of heart with a March 1873 Durley Hall performance in "Blue Beard." The Pantagraph noted that Thompson's scanty costume was one of "tropical simplicity."

Nineteenth-century audiences were familiar with many of the biggest names in American theater. In November 1873, Elizabeth Bowers, an actress with a national reputation (though her career was on the downswing) appeared in "Lady Audley's Secret," an adaptation of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's somewhat scandalous Victorian novel. Bowers' commanding performance, reported the local press, was met with "frequent outbursts of applause."

By the mid-1880s, "dime companies" began dominating small- and medium-size city theater. These national touring companies, such as Col. J.H. Wood's Dime Entertainments and the Farrar and Florence Boston Burlesque Opera Company, would charge 10 cents for general admission (20 cents for reserved seating), and remain in town for one or two weeks, sometimes performing two shows a day.

Even with the ascendancy of dime theater, traditional companies still stopped in Bloomington. In April 1890, Edwin Booth, the older brother of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, was at Durley Hall for "Macbeth." This was but one of several Edwin Booth appearances in Bloomington over the years. "As Macbeth, Mr. Booth surpassed anything he had done in this city," The Pantagraph said, "no loud words, no forcible gestures, but a quiet intensity that thrilled the people more than any noise could have done."

In early 1891, a new Grand Opera House opened on East Market Street. Unlike Durley Hall or Schroeder's, the Grand was a stand-alone building, and for the next two decades it dominated the local theater business.

Durley Hall was lost in the great downtown fire of June 19, 1900. From its ashes arose "The Durley," a three-story, $65,000 retail and office building. Wilcox Brothers' dry goods, millinery and dressmaking business occupied the main floor. Woolworth's became a tenant in the early 1910s.

Fire struck again in February 1939, leaving little except the load bearing walls of the first floor. Leaving nothing to waste, owner George Holder "reconditioned" the surviving shell into a one-story building, which remains standing today (though the facade has undergone significant changes). Woolworth's was there until the mid-1970s.