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1903: The Warner Brother Open Their First Arcade
The Warner Brothers’ entry into the film business arose when fifteen-year-old Sam Warner, employed as a fireman by the railroad, came across an Edison Kinetoscope that was lying unused in a friend’s machine shop. Having learned how to repair and operate the projector, Sam left the railroad and moved to Chicago, where he worked as a projectionist at the city’s White City Park. Convinced that there was a future in cinema, Sam returned to the family home in Youngstown when they began showing films at the local amusement park.
Sam beseeched his family to find the money to pay for a projector, and succeeded in persuading his father to pawn his watch and sell the family butcher shop’s delivery horse for a new projector and a copy of Edwin S. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery. He pitched a tent in the family’s yard to present the film, and then rented an empty storefront in nearby Niles, Ohio. Despite only having one film – the show was padded out with songs from eleven-year-old Jack accompanied by his mother on the piano – the shows were a huge success, netting the family an incredible $300 in the first week.
Eldest brother Harry convinced his younger siblings to take the show on the road when the lease expired on their makeshift theatre, and they toured Ohio and Pennsylvania. Encouraged by how well their travelling show had done, the brothers tried opening a storefront theatre of their own back in their hometown of Youngstown, but were met with opposition as movies were still looked upon as lower-class entertainment in most quarters.
Their show was a success wherever they travelled, but the brothers noticed exceptionally high takings in the city of New Castle, a steel town across the Pennsylvania border with an increasing immigrant population. They leased space in the Knox Building on South Mill Street and opened a small 99-seat theatre they called the Cascade, using borrowed chairs from a neighbouring funeral parlour for seating. While this arrangement saved the brothers the expense of paying out for their own seating, it also meant that they were unable to hold shows when a funeral was taking place. The theatre was also a true family business; while Sam operated the projector, Harry rented films from a film exchange in Pittsburgh and Albert managed the books. Sister Sadie sold tickets and the two youngest children, Rose, a pianist, and Jack were shipped in from Youngstown to provide entertainment between shows.
From these modest beginnings Harry, Albert and Sam Warner created a movie empire that exists to this day. [ADD]
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