BELLE FOURCHE—A reception to kick off the latest temporary exhibit, Vaudeville!, was held at the Tri-State Museum on Saturday, May 23. Red Onion Marketplace provided baked goods to accompany the museum’s refreshments.
Vaudeville was popular entertainment in the United States in the late 1800s through the early 1930s. “Vaudeville was absolutely huge, it came long before film, and they tied in the animals and the jugglers and just everything—it was like the original variety show,” explained Jada Udager, collections archivist.
Of course, vaudeville made its way to downtown Belle Fourche! “We did have vaudeville in Belle Fourche, and they had vaudeville at the Iris Theater,” said Udager. According to the museum exhibit, “Vaudeville came from the Great Eastern Novelty Show, which performed 4–5 times a day. Made up of seven acts, the show was described as a community favorite, and it featured trapeze artists and a dog that sang.”
The temporary exhibit is made up of a variety of artifacts from several different people, including the museum’s own collection along with Three Hats Theatre Costume Shop. “Pam Somervold donated a vaudeville trunk that belonged to Jay Elwood… I finally get to accession it and get it cataloged. There’s all these papers in there, and I mean just posters and pictures and newspaper articles and all this stuff, and contracts, and telegrams, and I’m like, ‘oh my gosh, this is so cool,’” shared Udager. “There are things from Johanna Meier—she was an opera singer. Her parents and her grandparents were all in vaudeville, and she made her debut when she was five weeks old!”
The display contains a lot of historical information, including photos, posters, contracts, and more, with storyboards detailing the events and history surrounding the artifacts. There is a touchscreen quiz and an activity table for the youngest museumgoers.
The exhibit was pulled together by museum staff: Jada Udager collected all of the artifacts; Kristi Thielen did the research and writing of the storyboards and touchscreen quiz; Jean Maher handled the exhibit’s photo collation and mounting; Kim Reausaw created the PowerPoint and children’s table craft. All four of them, plus Sheila Culhane, installed the exhibit.
They had fun putting this exhibit together. Udager said, “I had a lot of fun with this. It’s a lot of fun; your creativity can just take off and run!”
Come check out the newest temporary exhibit for yourselves and learn the history of vaudeville and how it impacted Belle Fourche. It runs through September. Look for the next mini-exhibit opening on Saturday, June 27. It will explore the history of postage stamps.
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