Did You Know
Little known facts about the Historic Wayne Theatre
One of the first businesses to locate in the theatre building in front was Steins Flower Shop. They operated out of this location for many years before moving out of the city along Michigan Avenue.
Back in the 1930's John Dillinger stayed at the Wayne Hotel, which was upstairs over the theatre lobby and the store fronts along Michigan Avenue. When the Wayne Police heard that information they went looking for him at the Theatre and in the hotel. He got out of the hotel, went down to the theatre, and got out one of the back doors of the theatre and got away. It was two weeks later that he was shot at a theatre in Chicago.
The Wayne Theatre was first leased to Henry S. Koppin who operated twenty-seven very successful theatres in and around the Detroit area. It was called the Woodward vaudeville circuit. In 1932 he went bankrupt due to the depression and in the 1940's he died penniless in Ohio.
In the early 1930's, Mr. Walter D. Schafer was the manager of the Wayne Theatre and worked for Mr. Henry S. Koppin before he went out of business. Mr. Schafer borrowed five hundred dollars from his mother to pay for the first months rent on the theatre from Mr. Koppinn and started showing movies. He went on to later buy the theater. The Wayne Theatre was his first theater. He went on in later years to build the State Wayne, the Schafer Garden City La Parisian on Ford road at Merriman, the Quo Vadis on Wayne road across from the Westland shopping center, the Algiers Drive-In on the corner of Wayne road and Warren road in Westland, the Wayne Drive-In at the site of the current Ford Truck Plant, and the Dearborn One and Two on Ford road between Beech Daly and Inkster road. They operated, but didn’t build, a lot of the drive-ins that were around; they were bought from different owners. Walter's son, Charles Schafer still owns the Ford-Wyoming drive-in today. It is still in operation and they are open year-round. Mr. Schafer is 86 years old as of 2006 and on busy nights at the Ford-Wyoming drive-in, you will still see him out on Ford road directing traffic.
At the Wayne Theatre complex, in the basement of the store in front of the theater, was a four lane bowling alley called Wayne Bowling, the first bowling alley in the city of Wayne. In the 1940's Wayne Bowling was moved across the street to a larger facility. During the Urban Renewal project in Wayne in the 1960's and 70's that building was torn down. All of the lanes were removed from that building and put into the Majestic Theatre building in downtown Detroit. The business today is known as the Majestic Theater/bowling/cafe and those lanes are still in use today, pin setters and all.
Back in 1926 when the idea of the Theatre complex was first becoming a reality, the stockholders of the Wayne Theatre Corporation was comprised of local businessman and women. The stockholders wanted the theatre, the hotel and bowling alley to attract people to Wayne to live and to spend their money in Wayne. The corporation included the town bakery, Mr. Kurbstad, the town attorney Matthew Tinkham, Agnes and George Stallwagon and others. There is a school named after Matthew Tinkham today. There is a street in Wayne named after George and Agnes Stallwagon.
When the Schafer’s operated the theatre, they changed the light bulbs in the chandeliers once a year whether they needed it or not. The four that were hanging in the main lobby were brought down on a cable winch for easy changing, but the four up in the balcony were not on cables. They would have to climb up on a ladder to change bulbs in each of them. It was a family thing they had to. Walter's son Martin, with a smaller build, was the smaller one in the family and would have to go up the ladder. Charles and his father were big guys, so Charles and his dad would hold a straight ladder and kind of wedge it underneath the balcony seats and hold it up into mid-air. Martin would then have to climb out on the end of the ladder to change the light bulb. Martin Schafer said that every year they did this his mother would have a fit because she didn’t like seeing Martin out on the end of the straight ladder, hanging out in mid-air while his father and brother were holding the ladder.
Back in the 1940's, as Charles Schafer once related, they had a big show going on and in this 850 seat theatre they had just under 2000 people inside. The population of Wayne at that time was around 1,990 people. The police officer in town came to the theatre and Charles asked why he wasn't out policing? The police officer responded, "Why, everybody is here in the theatre. I don’t have to be out. I can police them right here."
The Wayne Theatre was one of the first theatres in Michigan to have talkies.
The Wayne Theatre was used for commencements for Wayne High students from 1930 until the 1940's when the larger Wayne High school was built. The High School didn’t have an auditorium at that time so they used the Theatre for the commencements. There are still a lot of people who remember having their commencements at the Theatre, including Charles Schafer himself.
In 1985 when the fire burned down the stores in the front of the theatre, it was the largest fire in Wayne’s history. It took four different cities fire departments and 47 firemen to put it out. Over 100,000 gallons of water was used to put out the fire.
When Charles and Martin were younger, they were the ushers of the theater. Because there used to be a dump near the back of the theatre, their father, Walter, would have them down in the main seating level during the shows picking up any dropped popcorn or other food. They would have to hurry and clean it before the rats from the dump would come in the back doors of the theatre because they usually had them open for cooling during the summer.