The historic theater in Owosso burned Tuesday night Feb. 13, 2007. The theater has undergone several transformations over the years and in January of 2007, The Home Depot was doing some some renovations to the building.

SUSPICIOUS according to Owosso City officials was the term they used after fire gutted the Lebowsky Center. The fire began about 10:30 pm, shortly after cast members, who were rehearsing for an upcoming play, had left the building.

A view of the stage from under the balcony

From the balcony looking at the three box seats on the east side

Looking across balcony at steel chair frames

HISTORY.......

In 1923, Joe Lebowski hired Joe Olsen to construct a new theatre on the old Owosso City Hall property on the southwest corner of Main and Park streets in Owosso.

Many famous actors and actresses found their way to Owosso through the B.F. Keith Vaudeville Circuit which was used by W.S. Butterfield.

Butterfield Theatres operated threaters in 15 Michigan cities and this Owosso facility for 59 years...... only a few years for stage preformances and the rest as a movie house.

Prior to 1900, many theatre fires occurred because much of the stage and interior lighting was by candlelight and open flame type lighting. Architectural designs after 1900 included basically two separate structures with connecting side walls. The stage area was called a 'stagehouse' which has four thick brick fire walls. The front office - ticket area also had four fire walls. These two structures were connected by side walls, in which the audience sat.

The Owosso theatre construction included specially built 'smoke louvers' in a shed-like building on the roof over the 'stagehouse'. In case of a fire, when a certain temperature was reached, the louvers would open which would cause the smoke and flames to be sucked away from the audience. Another safety measure was a steel curtain at the front of the 'stagehouse' would drop down automatically to separate the audience from the flames and smoke on the stage area.

This view of the shed-like building over the 'stagehouse' and roof area of the Capitol Theatre in 1955.

Another recalls, "about half way through the movie, the ceiling collapsed and one person nearly died and was in the hospital over six months. Another person was in the hospital a week. And two were treated and kept overnight for observation, then released. Thankfully, there were only a few people in the theatre at the time."

The theatre closed during the mid 1980's. The building was listed on the State Register of Historic Places in 1986.

It was used by Jim Douglas as a church briefly until the spring of 1990. Later that year, the Owosso Community Players moved into the theatre and purchased it by 1992 for $120,000, with $60,000 donated by the Lebowski family.

A small building connected to the rear of the structure was purchased from Lois Hoddy in 1995.

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Below is an advertisement that appeared for Owosso clothier Joe Lebowski
in the Dedication booklet of the St. Paul Catholic School
dated 1928.

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Joseph H. Lebowski

Joe was also a realtor and owned two farms in Shiawassee County. He died on Oct. 20, 1969 and is buried in Beth El Cemetery in Livonia, Michigan.

Ghosts and Spelling Controversy...........Could Joe have had something to do with the demise of his building ???

Years ago, a few thought their was a ghost living in the theatre.......maybe the "old man himself", according to one projectionist in the early 1970's.

According to old Owosso city directories from the early 1920's to the 1950's, Joe Lebowski spelled his name with an 'i' and not a 'y', which is the way it is spelled by the current owners. Joe's advertisement in the Catholic School booklet, above, uses the "i" spelling also.