Sioux City Municipal Auditorium
Encyclopedia
The Sioux City Municipal Auditorium, more recently known as the Long Lines Family Recreation Center, is a 3,500-seat multi-purpose arena
in Sioux City, Iowa
, USA
. The fifth in a line of major indoor venues built in Sioux City, it was designed by Knute E. Westerlind in 1938 and finally completed after many delays in 1950. Originally independent, the auditorium is now a part of the Tyson Events Center along with Gateway Arena
, built in 2003.
residents at the confluence of the Big Sioux River
with the Missouri River
held their ceremonies, performances, and sporting events primarily outdoors, without need of specialized structures. The fourth Treaty of Prairie du Chien
in 1830 forced them to leave Iowa, and forty years later the new White
residents built the first in a series of five major indoor venues for Sioux City: the Academy of Music of 1870, the Peavey Grand Opera House of 1888, the Old Municipal Auditorium of 1909, this one completed in 1950, and Gateway Arena of 2003.
The Academy of Music was located between Pierce and Douglas Streets on the southern side of Fourth Street. Designed by local architect H.O. Ball and erected by the firm of Sharp and Beck, it employed cast iron columns, a brick exterior, and terra cotta
. The first floor included the city post office and commercial space, with an 800-seat performance space on the second floor. As the city's only large hall, it held high school graduations, theatrical performances, concerts, and speeches, including at least two by Susan B. Anthony
speaking on behalf of women's suffrage. The building ended its life as part of the growing Davidson Brothers Department Store, and was demolished in 1910 to make way for a better structure for the store.
The Peavey Grand Opera House was built in 1888, and "this elegant facility replaced the Academy of Music as the city's cultural center". The limitations of the Academy of Music were clear by 1881, but it wasn't until it was combined with the desire for a new chamber of commerce building that it became a viable project. Architects James W. Martin and Oscar Cobb joined forces to design the resulting Romanesque revival building with a mansard roof, located on the northwest corner of Fourth and Jones Streets. A bank and a drug store occupied either side of the theater lobby on the first floor, while the chamber of commerce, local weather bureau, real estate and other offices filled the upper floors. The opera hall itself was in back, and seated over 1300 in lavish style. During its heyday, Sarah Bernhardt
, "the most famous actress the world has ever known", and Edwin Booth
, the greatest Hamlet of the 19th Century, each played the Peavey. After 1909 the hall was no longer in demand, and the deteriorating hall was eventually relegated to Hans Esperson's auto repair garage, while the elegant front offices housed the seedy Grand Hotel and Harry Zanfes' Cafe. The whole thing went up in flames on November 3, 1931.
The Old Municipal Auditorium of 1909 was built on the southwest corner of Seventh and Douglas Streets, directly across Douglas from the site where construction would begin seven years later on the outstanding Woodbury County Courthouse. Designed by architect George W. Burkhead, this was the first of the buildings dedicated exclusively to the performance hall. Its most distinctive features are the pediment high over the main entrance, above the brick cornice, and prominent keystones over the entrances. It was undistinguished architecturally; soon after its construction, The Western Architect characterized it as "an ugly, barn-like structure dignified by the name of 'Auditorium'." Since 1955 the building has served as the television studio for KCAU-TV
(original call letters KVTV).
The Old Municipal Auditorium of 1909 was no longer meeting the needs of Sioux City by the 1930s, but the Sioux City Auditorium was a long time in coming. Originally designed by architect Knute E. Westerlind in 1938, it took nearly 12 years to complete. In the election of 1938, city voters approved a $590,000 bond referendum, but the city postponed action in an ultimately fruitless bid to secure federal assistance. Finally issuing the bonds in April 1941, the basement was dug and pilings driven before World War II
shortages caused the project to grind to a halt in 1943. Work resumed in 1947, but only after the electorate approved an additional $975,000 bond referendum. Post-war inflation, cost over-runs, poor planning, and other problems resulted in the need for a third bond referendum, this time for over $1.4 million on April 26, 1949. Ultimately costing more than $2.7 million, the new facility was dedicated on September 9, 1950.
For over 50 years, the auditorium routinely hosted graduations, concerts, and sporting events, including the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra
and (since 1972) the Sioux City Musketeers
ice hockey
team. Until 1982 it served as the home arena for the Briar Cliff College
Chargers. Among those appearing on its stage were Elvis Presley
, Robert Plant
, Richard M. Nixon, John F. Kennedy
and Van Cliburn
.
In 2001, the Sioux City Symphony moved to the newly restored Orpheum Theater, and in 2003 the venue was replaced for large concerts and sporting events by Gateway Arena
. However, the auditorium remains annexed to Gateway Arena, and together the pair are known as the Tyson Events Center. A historical preservation group wanted to maintain the history of the arena and decided to use it for recreation, naming it the Long Lines Family Recreation Center. Among other attractions, the center offers volleyball and basketball courts, a batting cage, and a climbing wall; and hosts weddings, receptions, and other events.
Moderne
, a style in vogue in the 1930s when it was originally designed. In keeping with Moderne style, Westerlind employed smooth brick walls, rounded corners, glass block windows, patterns of horizontal lines, and openings that appear "cut into the building". However, Westerlind, a protege of prominent Prairie School
architect William L. Steele
, brought a Beaux-Arts approach to determining its massing, symmetry, proportions, and details. In this divergence of style with approach, he was in keeping with his mentor, since Steele often brought a Beaux-Arts sensibility to his fundamentally Prairie School compositions.
The building is rich in details, including relief sculptures of stylized Native Americans on the northern exterior, and a number of terra cotta
panels on the southern exterior, each depicting a person involved in a sporting event. There are inscriptions above the entrances: the one on the east reads "There is No Greater Conquest Than That of Self", while the one on the west reads "Art at Its Highest and Nature at Its Truest are One".
Arena
An arena is an enclosed area, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theater, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators. The key feature of an arena is that the event space is the...
in Sioux City, Iowa
Sioux City, Iowa
Sioux City is a city in Plymouth and Woodbury counties in the western part of the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 82,684 in the 2010 census, a decline from 85,013 in the 2000 census, which makes it currently the fourth largest city in the state....
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The fifth in a line of major indoor venues built in Sioux City, it was designed by Knute E. Westerlind in 1938 and finally completed after many delays in 1950. Originally independent, the auditorium is now a part of the Tyson Events Center along with Gateway Arena
Gateway Arena
The Gateway Arena is a multi-purpose arena inside the Tyson Event Center, located in Sioux City, Iowa is sponsored by Tyson Foods and Gateway, Inc.....
, built in 2003.
History
For countless generations, the Native AmericanNative Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
residents at the confluence of the Big Sioux River
Big Sioux River
The Big Sioux River is a tributary of the Missouri River, long, in eastern South Dakota and northwestern Iowa in the United States. The United States Board on Geographic Names settled on "Big Sioux River" as the stream's name in 1961....
with the Missouri River
Missouri River
The Missouri River flows through the central United States, and is a tributary of the Mississippi River. It is the longest river in North America and drains the third largest area, though only the thirteenth largest by discharge. The Missouri's watershed encompasses most of the American Great...
held their ceremonies, performances, and sporting events primarily outdoors, without need of specialized structures. The fourth Treaty of Prairie du Chien
Treaty of Prairie du Chien
The Treaty of Prairie du Chien may refer to any of several treaties made and signed in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin between the United States, representatives from the Sioux, Sac and Fox, Menominee, Ioway, Winnebago and the Anishinaabeg Native American peoples.-1825:The first treaty of Prairie du...
in 1830 forced them to leave Iowa, and forty years later the new White
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
residents built the first in a series of five major indoor venues for Sioux City: the Academy of Music of 1870, the Peavey Grand Opera House of 1888, the Old Municipal Auditorium of 1909, this one completed in 1950, and Gateway Arena of 2003.
The Academy of Music was located between Pierce and Douglas Streets on the southern side of Fourth Street. Designed by local architect H.O. Ball and erected by the firm of Sharp and Beck, it employed cast iron columns, a brick exterior, and terra cotta
Architectural terracotta
Terracotta, in its unglazed form, became fashionable as an architectural ceramic construction material in England in the 1860s, and in the United States in the 1870s. It was generally used to supplement brick and tiles of similar colour in late Victorian buildings.It had been used before this in...
. The first floor included the city post office and commercial space, with an 800-seat performance space on the second floor. As the city's only large hall, it held high school graduations, theatrical performances, concerts, and speeches, including at least two by Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
speaking on behalf of women's suffrage. The building ended its life as part of the growing Davidson Brothers Department Store, and was demolished in 1910 to make way for a better structure for the store.
The Peavey Grand Opera House was built in 1888, and "this elegant facility replaced the Academy of Music as the city's cultural center". The limitations of the Academy of Music were clear by 1881, but it wasn't until it was combined with the desire for a new chamber of commerce building that it became a viable project. Architects James W. Martin and Oscar Cobb joined forces to design the resulting Romanesque revival building with a mansard roof, located on the northwest corner of Fourth and Jones Streets. A bank and a drug store occupied either side of the theater lobby on the first floor, while the chamber of commerce, local weather bureau, real estate and other offices filled the upper floors. The opera hall itself was in back, and seated over 1300 in lavish style. During its heyday, Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
, "the most famous actress the world has ever known", and Edwin Booth
Edwin Booth
Edwin Thomas Booth was a famous 19th century American actor who toured throughout America and the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespearean plays. In 1869 he founded Booth's Theatre in New York, a spectacular theatre that was quite modern for its time...
, the greatest Hamlet of the 19th Century, each played the Peavey. After 1909 the hall was no longer in demand, and the deteriorating hall was eventually relegated to Hans Esperson's auto repair garage, while the elegant front offices housed the seedy Grand Hotel and Harry Zanfes' Cafe. The whole thing went up in flames on November 3, 1931.
The Old Municipal Auditorium of 1909 was built on the southwest corner of Seventh and Douglas Streets, directly across Douglas from the site where construction would begin seven years later on the outstanding Woodbury County Courthouse. Designed by architect George W. Burkhead, this was the first of the buildings dedicated exclusively to the performance hall. Its most distinctive features are the pediment high over the main entrance, above the brick cornice, and prominent keystones over the entrances. It was undistinguished architecturally; soon after its construction, The Western Architect characterized it as "an ugly, barn-like structure dignified by the name of 'Auditorium'." Since 1955 the building has served as the television studio for KCAU-TV
KCAU-TV
KCAU-TV is a television station in Sioux City, Iowa, broadcasting digitally on VHF channel 9 as an affiliate of the American Broadcasting Company.-History:...
(original call letters KVTV).
The Old Municipal Auditorium of 1909 was no longer meeting the needs of Sioux City by the 1930s, but the Sioux City Auditorium was a long time in coming. Originally designed by architect Knute E. Westerlind in 1938, it took nearly 12 years to complete. In the election of 1938, city voters approved a $590,000 bond referendum, but the city postponed action in an ultimately fruitless bid to secure federal assistance. Finally issuing the bonds in April 1941, the basement was dug and pilings driven before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
shortages caused the project to grind to a halt in 1943. Work resumed in 1947, but only after the electorate approved an additional $975,000 bond referendum. Post-war inflation, cost over-runs, poor planning, and other problems resulted in the need for a third bond referendum, this time for over $1.4 million on April 26, 1949. Ultimately costing more than $2.7 million, the new facility was dedicated on September 9, 1950.
For over 50 years, the auditorium routinely hosted graduations, concerts, and sporting events, including the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra
Sioux City Symphony Orchestra
The Sioux City Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Sioux City, Iowa. Its home is the Orpheum Theater.-History:The Sioux City Symphony Orchestra and The Sioux City Municipal Band were each formed in the early 1930s under the guidance and direction of Leo Kucinski...
and (since 1972) the Sioux City Musketeers
Sioux City Musketeers
The Sioux City Musketeers is a Tier 1 junior ice hockey team playing in the West Division of the United States Hockey League .The Musketeers' home ice is Tyson Events Center.The Musketeers have had 15 players reach the NHL...
ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
team. Until 1982 it served as the home arena for the Briar Cliff College
Briar Cliff University
Briar Cliff University is a private, Franciscan Roman Catholic liberal arts university located in Sioux City, Iowa, United States. -History:In March 1929, Mother Mary Dominica Wieneke, Major Superior of...
Chargers. Among those appearing on its stage were Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, Robert Plant
Robert Plant
Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...
, Richard M. Nixon, John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and Van Cliburn
Van Cliburn
Harvey Lavan "Van" Cliburn Jr. is an American pianist who achieved worldwide recognition in 1958 at age 23, when he won the first quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, at the height of the Cold War....
.
In 2001, the Sioux City Symphony moved to the newly restored Orpheum Theater, and in 2003 the venue was replaced for large concerts and sporting events by Gateway Arena
Gateway Arena
The Gateway Arena is a multi-purpose arena inside the Tyson Event Center, located in Sioux City, Iowa is sponsored by Tyson Foods and Gateway, Inc.....
. However, the auditorium remains annexed to Gateway Arena, and together the pair are known as the Tyson Events Center. A historical preservation group wanted to maintain the history of the arena and decided to use it for recreation, naming it the Long Lines Family Recreation Center. Among other attractions, the center offers volleyball and basketball courts, a batting cage, and a climbing wall; and hosts weddings, receptions, and other events.
Architecture
Knute E. Westerlind's design is fundamentally PWAPublic Works Administration
The Public Works Administration , part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act in June 1933 in response to the Great Depression...
Moderne
Streamline Moderne
Streamline Moderne, sometimes referred to by either name alone or as Art Moderne, was a late type of the Art Deco design style which emerged during the 1930s...
, a style in vogue in the 1930s when it was originally designed. In keeping with Moderne style, Westerlind employed smooth brick walls, rounded corners, glass block windows, patterns of horizontal lines, and openings that appear "cut into the building". However, Westerlind, a protege of prominent Prairie School
Prairie School
Prairie School was a late 19th and early 20th century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States.The works of the Prairie School architects are usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands,...
architect William L. Steele
William L. Steele
William LaBarthe Steele was an important architect of the Prairie School during the early twentieth century. A graduate of the University of Illinois, Steele worked in the office of renowned architect Louis Sullivan in Chicago, Illinois 1897–1900...
, brought a Beaux-Arts approach to determining its massing, symmetry, proportions, and details. In this divergence of style with approach, he was in keeping with his mentor, since Steele often brought a Beaux-Arts sensibility to his fundamentally Prairie School compositions.
The building is rich in details, including relief sculptures of stylized Native Americans on the northern exterior, and a number of terra cotta
Architectural terracotta
Terracotta, in its unglazed form, became fashionable as an architectural ceramic construction material in England in the 1860s, and in the United States in the 1870s. It was generally used to supplement brick and tiles of similar colour in late Victorian buildings.It had been used before this in...
panels on the southern exterior, each depicting a person involved in a sporting event. There are inscriptions above the entrances: the one on the east reads "There is No Greater Conquest Than That of Self", while the one on the west reads "Art at Its Highest and Nature at Its Truest are One".
See also
- Tyson Event Center/ Gateway Arena
- Sioux City MusketeersSioux City MusketeersThe Sioux City Musketeers is a Tier 1 junior ice hockey team playing in the West Division of the United States Hockey League .The Musketeers' home ice is Tyson Events Center.The Musketeers have had 15 players reach the NHL...
- Sioux City Symphony OrchestraSioux City Symphony OrchestraThe Sioux City Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Sioux City, Iowa. Its home is the Orpheum Theater.-History:The Sioux City Symphony Orchestra and The Sioux City Municipal Band were each formed in the early 1930s under the guidance and direction of Leo Kucinski...
- Orpheum Theatre (Sioux City, Iowa)
External links
- Long Lines Recreation Center on City of Sioux City website
- Municipal Auditorium Sioux City, Iowa by James V. Roy on Scotty Moore