Island historian Frances Karttunen has compiled a comprehensive history of the Dreamland Theater building and its original four partners. (Photos courtesy of the Nantucket Historical Association.)
History of the Building
The Atlantic Hall, c. 1900, is the large building on Main Street on the left. Courtesy of Nantucket Historical Association.
The building is a former Hicksite meetinghouse built on Main Street in 1831-32 at the cost of a bit over $3,250. The Hicksite faction of the Religious Society of Friends was in competition with the Orthodox Quakers on Nantucket and elsewhere. The meetinghouse they built on Nantucket had the capacity to seat the sum of all the Quakers on the island, but it failed to attract the expected large membership.
Used for open meetings in support of the abolition of slavery and hosting Lucretia Coffin Mott as a speaker from time to time, the meetinghouse was much too large for the members of the Meeting to maintain. After less than fifteen years of existence, the Hicksites “lay down” their meeting in 1845. For another five years the Gurneyites, another Quaker faction, met in the building. Then they moved to smaller quarters on Centre Street, and the Hicksite meetinghouse was sold.
Subsequently it housed a factory producing straw hats and then a roller-skating rink (1880). Known as “Atlantic Hall,” it was dismantled and moved to Brant Point in 1883, reassembled there, and incorporated into the Nantucket Hotel.
In December 1905 the old building was purchased by the Improved Order of Red Men, and early in 1906 it was floated back across the harbor to its present location. (See NHA images #F4402, F4407.)
According to Argument Settlers for the year 1905: “The Nantucket Hotel property was sold at public auction for $3,000 to Edwin F. Atkins, of Boston. The central portion of the hotel was purchased by the Red Men in December and later moved to South Water Street to be used as a lodge room, dance hall, and moving picture theater.”
Subsequent uses of the building:
- 1907. Smith and Blanchard’s Moving Picture Show with “polite vaudeville”
- 1911. Dreamland Theatre run by Folger and Hull. Vaudeville on Wednesday evenings for 20¢ admission.
- 1922. Renovation of Dreamland Theatre. Opened on May 13 with 600 seats.
- 1926. Business certificate for Dreamland Theatre (Anastos, Genesky, Hull, & Perry)
- Dreamland Ad in the Inquirer and Mirror, July 11, 1931. Courtesy of the Nantucket Atheneum Historic Newspaper Digitization Project
- 1930. Installation of sound system in the spring.
- 1938. Town Meeting was held in the Dreamland.
- 1941. A special citizens’ meeting was held in the Dreamland.
- 1947. Death of Orison V. Hull, on January 10. “For many years [he] has been manager of the Dreamland Hall, operating the moving pictures there.” “He was also part owner and manager of the Dreamland Theater.”
- Death of Eugene Perry on April 21. “He was also part of the Dreamland Moving Picture Theatre, in the operation of which he took keen interest.”
- Argument Settlers for the year 1947: “The Dreamland Theater Company took over the Red Men’s, having previously occupied the lower floor on a rental basis.”
- The first issue of The Town Crier reports on its front page: “Dreamland Corporation Purchases Building Owned by Redmen. May Build New Theater Or Renovate Present One. The building housing the Dreamland Theatre has been purchased by the theater corporation, John Anastos, one of the owners, announced yesterday.”
- 1987. Charles Flanagan, grandson of Eugene Perry, was treasurer of the Dreamland Theatre Corp. The corporation was open to finding a buyer. Plans were under development for turning the building into a performing arts center. (I&M, July 16)
- 2002. Death of Charles Flanagan. Dreamland Theatre building advertised for sale.
- According to Joan Genesky Rubin, the Dreamland Theatre partnership was the oldest independent movie theater operation in the USA.