This photo is a lot more than just the auditorivm, but that’s the main feature in any view of west Main Street in Morenci. Ed Stair (who later became publisher of the Detroit Free Press) had the building constructed for its opening in 1908. The blue history book doesn’t say much more than that. I remember seeing some old notes scratched into a brick near the back of the building, but I don’t have much more to say, either.

The Observers from the 1960s provide an interesting account of the facility’s closure by the state fire marshal and about the proposed purchase by a country music radio station that almost came about. And, of course, the account of the final decision to have it torn down.