DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, picture Dallas in 1921 — a city with an appetite, and a man with a vision big enough to feed it. His name was Karl St.
John Hoblitzelle, and if that name sounds like it belongs on a marquee, well, that's fitting, because marquees were very much his business. Born in 1879, Hoblitzelle had made up his mind about something that a lot of showmen in his era hadn't quite settled on yet — he wanted to build entertainment for the entire family. Not just the swells, not just the crowd with money to burn on a Tuesday evening, but everybody.
That was the determination that drove him, and in 1921, he put that determination into brick and mortar and Baroque plasterwork right there in Dallas. What he built was a five-story, five-bay Beaux Arts structure to house Dallas' Majestic Theatre. To design the thing, he brought in John Eberson, a Chicago architect who clearly did not believe in doing anything halfway.
Eberson gave the Majestic a fine classical exterior — the kind of facade that makes you stand on the sidewalk and tilt your head back just to take it all in. And then you walk through the doors. Oh, and then you walk through the doors.
Because inside, Eberson had gone full Baroque — opulent, unapologetic, the kind of interior that whispers to you that something extraordinary is about to happen. And it could seat 1,570 people when it did. Theatre pioneer, theatre innovator — those are the words on the marker for Hoblitzelle, a man who lived all the way to 1967, long enough to see the world he helped build change around him.
But that building he put up in 1921 stood its ground.
What the marker says
In his determination to provide entertainment for the entire family, theatre pioneer and innovator Karl St. John Hoblitzelle (1879 - 1967) built this structure in 1921 to house Dallas' Majestic Theatre. The five-story, five-bay, Beaux Arts structure was designed by Chicago architect John Eberson. Featuring a 1570-seat auditorium, the Majestic's fine classical exterior detailing is complemented by its opulent Baroque interior. RTHL - 1983