The Baldwin Theatre

926 Market St. | map |

No, this isn't the big legit house that opened in 1876 and burned in 1898. That one was located where the Flood Building is now at the corner of Market and Powell. See the page on that Baldwin Theatre for many photos.

Opened: Unknown.

This was a smaller house probably running 10 cent vaudeville and movies. Does that more substantial building on the left of the photo look familiar? It's the Flood Building, opened in 1904 on the site of the Baldwin Hotel and Theatre that had burned in 1898. So the Baldwin Cafe and [little] Baldwin Theatre were adjacent to where the Baldwin Hotel once stood.

Thanks to Glenn Koch for the c.1905 photo that appeared in a 1906 souvenir program in his collection for the Colonial Theatre, a house later known as the President. It was part of a portfolio honoring theatres lost in the fire and earthquake plus a few of the hasty replacements. See Glenn's post on the BAHT Facebook page for 26 more images from the program.

Looking at Baldwin Theatre photos it appears that this building later housing the [little] Baldwin dates from before 1898. 

That 926 address was on the pre-1906 numbering system. The two sides of Market used to have their own numbering systems that had little relation to each other. The south side kept its numbers after the quake but the north side was all renumbered to correlate with the other side of the street. Thus the 926 number is perhaps about 846 today.  

 

The Baldwin is seen as "Variety Theatre" in the center of this detail from Volume 1, pages 35-36 of the 1905 Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas. It appears on the website of the David Rumsay Historical Map Collection. Also see a discussion page on the site's blog with links to various pages of the six volume publication. 

That's Market St. on the left and Ellis St. running up the right side of the image. The light brown area above the Baldwin is the Flood Building.

Closing: Lost in the fire and quake of April 1906.

A c.1904 look at the the Flood Building, on the site of the Baldwin Theatre (1876-1898). That squat building just to the right of the Flood was the home of the later Baldwin Theatre. Thanks to Mark Ellinger for the card, appearing with his Up From the Deep article on the Tenderloin. 

More Information:
 
The 1906 and Earlier album on the BAHT Facebook page has photos of many other San Francisco theatres before the earthquake.

Jack Tillmany's Arcadia Publishing book "Theatres of San Francisco" can be previewed on Google Books. It's available from Amazon or your local bookseller.  

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