![]() Its chief virtue was an 84-foot-wide, 50-foot-deep stage, which was spacious enough to accommodate all manner of traveling shows as well as grand opera (Verdi's "Aida" was the first to be performed). Even so, the auditorium was quite large, seating up to 2,500 people for events. One newspaper described its walls as "barren" and about the only decorative effect was a coffered ceiling. Designed with grossly inadequate exits, the theater turned into a death trap, the victims either suffocated by smoke or trampled to death by the fleeing crowd.īuilt on a tight budget, the new auditorium was a rather bare-bones affair inside. 30, 1903, at least 602 people had died in the most lethal building fire in American history at the newly built Iroquois Theater in Chicago. Much was made of these exits and other safety features in newspaper accounts when the auditorium formally opened in February 1905 - and for good reason. Two arched openings to either side of the colonnade held exit doors positioned at the bottom of wide staircases designed to allow quick egress from the auditorium's balcony and gallery. The columns framed five entry doors and a row of windows above. The Minneapolis Symphony (now the Minnesota Orchestra) performed in the auditorium from 1905 to 1930.Īs designed by the Minneapolis architectural firm of Bertram & Chamberlin, the auditorium building offered an impressive front on 11th Street featuring six colossal Doric columns executed in creamy terracotta and set against a simple brick background. I don't know how many individual life insurance policies were sold to reach the magic mark (a relatively small number of wealthy customers may have purchased the bulk of them), but by late 1904 the deal was done and work began on the auditorium. (now known as ReliaStar and a subsidiary of Voya Financial Inc.) agreeing to the arrangement. ![]() Strange as it sounds, the scheme worked, with the Northwestern National Life Insurance Co. His proposal was to cut a deal with an insurance company, promising to sell $2 million worth of new policies in exchange for the company building an auditorium at a cost of $150,000 or more. Smith came up with a seemingly outlandish idea. But money for the project proved hard to come by until late 1903, when a businessman named Fred G. Minneapolis civic leaders began looking for a way to build a public auditorium, primarily for concerts and theatrical performances, in the early 1900s. Although it survived until 1973, the first auditorium had a short run in its original form and was known for many years as the Lyceum Theater. on what is now the site of Orchestra Hall. The first, a building constructed in 1905 by means of a most unusual public/private partnership, was on 11th Street near Nicollet Avenue S. But that building, erected in the 1920s, was actually the city's second auditorium. Most Twin Citians of a certain age are familiar with the old Minneapolis Auditorium, which stood where the Convention Center is today.
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