Think back.  Before computers and DVD, before VCRs and cable television, and even before television. Think back farther. Before movies or radio, and even before casual evening visiting. We're almost there.

About the time when saloons and/or churches provided the primary diversion from daily life for most residents of the steadily growing Wichita Falls, there was live theater. But there was no really good theater here. Something had to be done.

Although the rather drab Souter Opera House had been welcoming limited audiences since the 1890s, and a seasonal collection of outdoor amphitheaters called "airdomes" had been offering the men of the city a few racy amusements for a couple of decades, weather permitting, a few local bigshots came together at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in January of 1908 with the idea of building a really good opera house-type theater downtown.

The idea was a big hit with those farsighted but bored civic leaders attending the C of C meeting, and cash pledges were made on the spot. Before the year was out, architects were chosen, contractors were hired, and the sparkling new Wichita Opera House, with its imposing Neo-Classical Revival features and the largest and most high-tech stage in Texas, was seriously cutting into bar business and church attendance. The Souter, even with its primitive "air conditioning" (fans blowing over tubs of often-replaced ice), couldn't compete with such a monument of elegance and taste.

A popular play of the day, "His Honor, the Mayor," was the first to take the stage at the new opera house.  It's a good thing the play opened to standing room only crowds, because that's just what the audience did - stand. The auditorium was so new that the seats hadn't been delivered by opening night. But Wichitans were game in those days. Not only had they shelled out the $10, $20 or $30 it cost to buy the tickets, astounding prices for the day (today too!), the patrons also contributed to the chair fund.

Later, such spectacles as "Ben Hur," complete with live galloping horses in the climactic chariot race scene, graced the state-of-the-art boards, and "The Garden Of Allah," with its 100-plus performers and live camels, had no problem adapting to the expansive stage.

Even though a few airdomes continued to attract decent working-class crowds, and the Lydia-Margaret and Gem Theatres had opened their doors by 1911, the Wichita Opera House dominated live entertainment, and live was the only kind of entertainment available at the time, throughout the region.

Then, around 1915, the stage lights started going dark more and more often as the newfangled movies began to edge out vaudeville and serious theatre in the hearts of local entertainment-hungry audiences.

Live acts continued to perform between the movies, but savvy crowds demanded the world-class talent movies provided over the circuit-riding orators, dancers, acrobats, baggy-pants comics and hundreds of other performers hoping to give up such tanktowns as Wichita Falls for the bright lights of Hollywood themselves. (The increasingly discomfited Vaudeville performers continued to find enthusiastic audiences at the airdomes and secondary opera houses, though.)

Throughout the Roaring 20s, conventions, wrestling, boxing (including a match featuring the legendary Jack Dempsey), and band and orchestra concerts of all kinds filled out the daily between-movie bill as the entertainment ran continuously from opening to closing, with no intermissions. Then came "talkies" in 1927, and live entertainment ceased to be an important aspect of the Wichita Opera House schedule.

Oh, live bands such as the Lightcrust Doughboys and the Sons of the Pioneers might make the occasional bill. But for the most part the actors flickered across the screen like domineering ghosts determined to replace the living, breathing performance artists.    

But, even though the Souter, the Lydia-Margaret, the Gem, and all those airdomes all quietly went away, movies weren't necessarily a bad thing for Wichita Falls. 

For the next few decades, the Wichita Theater, as it became, was THE place to catch Hollywood's latest and best (the B movies went to the airdomes and secondary theaters). Hollywood even came to town in 1955 when the Wichita Theater hosted the world premier of "The Narcotic Squad."

Sure, as the '60s came in, the times they were a-changin'. People had been returning to the saloons and churches for decades, and television was coming into its glory days. With the live acts way in the past, the Wichita Theater continued to feature only the top feature films of the day.

Even so, many businesses were moving away from downtown, including movie theaters. Local audiences would rather catch a movie at one of the new Parker Square theaters, or on one of the six screens at Sikes Senter.

In 1980, the hit comedy "Airplane" was the last regularly scheduled film to hit the enormous Wichita Theater screen. Though the now legendary stage hosted a few rock concerts, including one by Sammy Hagar, in the early 1980s, its days as a living venue seemed over by the middle of the decade.

The Wichita Theater saw occasional use over the next few years, but its nostalgic appointments and stunning art-deco murals had fallen into such disrepair that many saw imminent demolition in its future.

Then, something wonderful happened.

Since 1995, Dwayne Jackson has owned and operated the Wichita Theater,  returning it to its former glory as a live entertainment venue. His Texas Gold Country Music Shows have been consistent favorites with regional country fans. And it all started with an equipment failure hundreds of miles away.

 "While we were in Branson on vacation at Thanksgiving of '94," Jackson  remembers, "we were sitting in the Tony Orlando Theater, and he had a real peculiar thing happen." Orlando's onstage light system failed, but the show continued with only offstage spotlights and house lights. "He put on a massive production anyway," Jackson continued. "It was during that  performance that this vision came to me very clearly that Wichita Falls needed Branson-style entertainment. Good, clean family entertainment. I told my wife about it on the way home, and she didn't think I was totally berserk. That's where it began."

Even though the Wichita Theater was only a block from the Jackson's Scott Street art gallery, and for sale at the time, Jackson says it never occurred to him to inquire about the venerable old building.

"It wasn't until about a week of looking elsewhere that I had the theater brought to my attention. We looked at warehouses and old buildings all over town. We should have known, but we didn't."

The Jackson family bought the building from attorneys Paul Brunette and the late Bob Stewart. On his first tour of the theater, Jackson had to see the place for what it could become more so than what it was at the time. "It was not good," he said. "Lots of the ceiling was on the floor, and the curtains were in ruins. The roof had to be replaced, and the air conditioning system was shot. The carpet had to come up, and it needed lots of paint. Lots of paint. But generally speaking, the building was in decent structural condition. A lot of the ornate murals were still in pretty good condition, too. Some of them we had to touch up and redo, had to recreate a few of them. But all in all, the building itself was in pretty good condition."

With elderly buildings, repairs and renovation tend to become never-ending pastimes. Building codes change with disheartening regularity, and plumbing and electrical modernizations alone have ended many similar projects before the first paying customer walked through the door. But Jackson understands this. The process never truly ends, he says.  "It depends on when you want to officially stop it," Jackson said, chuckling. "It's an ongoing renovation. We more or less consider the renovation complete as of March of last year, when we finally got all the curtains replaced, and so forth. But there'll always be things we need to do."

The last "major disaster" to hit the theater was when a water feed pipe to the rooftop air cooling system came loose in September of 1998, turning the entire front of the sloping auditorium floor into an indoor lake. "Water was standing up about four rows back," Jackson said, "and we had about $80,000 in damage done. It destroyed the curtains, all the staging, many light fixtures, and all the carpet in the building had to be repaired or replaced. Had our keyboard player at the time not decided she needed her keyboard at 10:30 that night, that was on a Tuesday, who knows? Water might still be running."

The Jacksons replaced the water-supplied cooling towers with conventional rooftop AC units, and has never had another problem with either water or cooling. Overall, Jackson is thoroughly proud of the Wichita Theater, and his family's contribution to its ongoing existence.

"It's never been better," he says. "New curtains, new drapes, aisle lights. We've got a new dressing room in place now. It's one of those deals where we don't have to worry about the building anymore. We can just concentrate on marketing."

While many similar theater projects around the country fail for lack of  entrepreneurial vision, civic enthusiasm, or money, the Jackson family has  pulled off something of a major miracle in even bringing the aging old  theater back to life, and up to modern building codes. Keeping a close watch on the multitudes of potential maintenance problems natural to such a large old building, Jackson says he sometimes overlooks the significance of the heritage-heavy theater in favor of keeping the problems under control.

Until, that is, the audiences begin arriving.  "It's really quite a treat for the people that come," he said. "'Course, we've been in the building and suffered and cried and all of that through the years. And all the sweat. But sometimes we forget about the value of the historic nature of it. But we have really tried to refocus ourselves on that side of it for our patrons. They just love coming."

 By featuring a lively and diverse assortment of stage attractions, Jackson is determined to maintain the old venue as a family-oriented live entertainment center. Just like the pre-computer, -VCR, -television, -radio, and -movie founders originally planned.

This article originally appeared in the Time Record News publication "The View" published on August 16th 2001 and is reprinted here with permission.