Peter Reuter: The Dramatic Hall years

 

A sketch of the Dramatic Hall as it looked circa 1880. [detail from newspaper sketch, originally published in The North American, Philadelphia, May 1, 1904]

One of the more fascinating chapters in the life of my third great-grandfather, Peter Reuter, involves his time running the Dramatic Hall at Fifth and Gaskill Sts. (511 S. Fifth St.) in Philadelphia.

Wheatley Dramatic Hall (so named for actor William Wheatley whose troupe, the Wheatley Dramatic Association, took up residence at the theater in the 1860s) was a building with its own impressive and colorful history. Its name was shortened during the seven years Peter was in charge.

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This week’s discovery

I have been in the process of writing my first ancestor profile all week. I’m a first-time mama to a very busy toddler and a freelance journalist, so time to compose comes in bite-sized chunks of a few sleepy minutes here and there.

But it was a discovery of a newspaper article containing some bit of scandal that has really caused the delay.   Because such a find, of course, always leads to more research.