The Beginning

The 1930’s was an era of great uncertainty as our country dealt with the Great Depression and the fallout of World War I.  It was also the decade that gave us the The Golden Age of Hollywood and the widespread popularity of motion pictures as our citizens sought fantastical, escapist fare as a way to cope with personal and economical hardships.

It was also in this era that Delft Theaters, Inc., a Wisconsin-based company, had a stronghold on movie houses across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  

As the demand for motion pictures increased, Delft Theaters Inc. responded by constructing movie houses in Iron River, Marquette, Crystal Falls, Munising, and Escanaba. With continuing growth of Marquette’s downtown district and further developments in the film industry in regards to sound and color, a new theater was to be built in downtown Marquette as a companion piece to the historic Delft Theater as yet another location to show motion pictures. 

In June of 1935, ground was broken in the interior of the Peter White Building located on Washington St. for this movie theater.   On Saturday, April 11, 1936 the Nordic Theater opened it’s doors. A more formal opening occurred to the public on Easter Sunday with a screening of United Artists' Red Salute.

The Architect

Designed by New York City Architect Michael Meredith Hare, Marquette’s new theater was pronounced by theater equipment experts and motion picture technicians as the last word in interior design for perfect projection and sound production.

Hare, a junior partner at the architectural firm Corbett & MacMurray, helped build New York’s Rockefeller Center as well as Radio City Music Hall.

Based in New York City, Hare was seen as an imaginative, progressive young architect who produced controversial designs and theaters using unconventional methods for acoustics.

A Yale and Columbia graduate, he was married to Jane Jopling, the great granddaughter of Peter White.

Hare was a member of the Board of Design for the 1939 New York World's Fair where he pushed for the Fair to be contemporary rather than colonial. His theme, "The Fair of the Future", was modified to "The World of Tomorrow."

Built with Streamline Moderne influences, the Nordic Theater’s ultra modern architecture called for a complicated type of construction which required much more skilled workmanship and many more hours of labor than would be necessary on a theater of ordinary design. Theater construction and equipment specialists who constructed the Nordic expressed extraordinary interest in it because there was not a theater like it anywhere in the country.

In almost every particular way, it was unique and its design was an entirely original concept.

Hare, who dabbled in philosophical and theological creative processes, developed an experimental concept in sound projection for the Nordic’s unique interior.  Surrounding the projection booth along the back wall and extending to the top of the theater, acoustical tile was placed to create better sound dynamics. Additionally, an angled rectangular glass wall was placed directly behind the seating to ricochet the sound from front to the theater to the back and to the front again.

Most notably, the Nordic’s visual appeal was best represented in it’s unique, stainless steel marquee.  The marquee began in a conventional manner on the left side of the building before curving and protruding drastically to the right side, providing a deep canopy for film patrons to socialize and converse outdoors before features began. 

The Notoriety

The Nordic achieved fame on June 29, 1959 when it was designated as the world premiere location of Anatomy of a Murder. The film was shot in several locations in the Upper Peninsula (Big Bay, Marquette, Ishpeming, and Michigamme). Some scenes were filmed in the Thunder Bay Inn in Big Bay, one block from the Lumberjack Tavern, the site of the 1952 murder that inspired much of the novel.

Before the premiere, many of the actors imprinted their hands and feet in wet cement blocks and autographed them. These slabs were installed as part of the sidewalk and resided in front of the Nordic Theater for decades.

An additional world premiere screening occurred in Detroit on July 1. 

The End

Throughout the late 1960’s and up until 1990’s, the Nordic was managed by Paul Florence who maintained the Nordic’s architectural integrity despite industry trends to divide older movie houses into multiple screens to accommodate increasing ticket sales.

The development and opening of the GKC Royal Cinema multiplex in 1993, just two miles away from Marquette’s downtown, became problematic to the Delft and Nordic Theater’s existence.   The Nordic Theater was then sold to Rogers Cinema Inc. in May of 1994.

On August 11, 1994, at 7pm, the Nordic screened Black Beauty as its final movie.

Not long after, the Nordic's marquee and interior was removed and the building was converted to a bookstore. 

The Revival

After the closing of the bookstore in 2018, a Detroit-based non-profit was established to restore the theater and play films again.   This non-profit was able to obtain the original blueprints of the theater as well as interior photos that allowed its restoration to be as accurate as possible. 

The new Nordic Theater would feature all new rocker-recliner seating, 4K digital projection, an exact replica of the original marquee and an enhanced concession stand.   Ultimately, the offer placed by the non-profit to purchase the building was declined.

In 2019,  Anne White and Scott Anderson of Knoxville, TN purchased the building and established The Honorable Distillery.  The distillery opened in the summer of 2022 with a tasting room in the former lobby area. The Honorable Distillery utilizes locally sourced grain to create original vodka, gin, bourbon, rye and single-malt whiskey in the theater’s restored auditorium. 

White and Anderson led the initiative to replicate the Nordic Theater’s marquee, in what was an exciting renovation and revitalization project for the city of Marquette.

The technical design of the marquee was completed by Dean Downing of DisplayMix in Metro Detroit. Fabrication and installation was led by Steve VanderSloot and Russ Burbank of SignArt which is based in Kalamazoo, MI.