HAVE A SEAT—IN HISTORY
Theater seats thought to be from Saenger Theatre, now known as the Perot, are turning up for sale.
There’s nothing quite like holding a piece of history in your hand, the weight of the past quiet but insistent between your fingers.
Antique tools your grandparents swore by, old coins passed between thousands of people, an arrowhead found in the dirt.
Or, if you prefer, you may even park your posterior in it, that history.
Such is the case with what look like original Perot Theatre seats that recently reappeared at a downtown vintage store, Knock on Wood Vintage Supply Co., which has sold a smattering of old seats that appear to hail from the Perot’s salad days as the Saenger Theatre.
When it opened in 1924 in a young Texarkana roughly 50 years old, the Saenger was billed as the Saenger Amusement Company’s “Gateway to the Southwest” theatrical venue. Over the years, many sorts of entertainment, from movies to vaudeville to Broadway shows, were showcased in the Italian Renaissance theater, and it operated for most of its early history as the Paramount.
But the downtown jewel eventually shuttered, its stage silenced.
Then in the late 1970s and early ’80s, armed with funding from Ross Perot’s family, state and local grants, and money from locals, the theater was restored and renamed The Perot Theatre.
As part of the restoration, all of the orchestra level seats were replaced, although the original balcony seats remain. As the Perot’s operations director, Randal Conry knows well the history of the theater’s seating and other renovation aspects.
Both the newer Perot and original Saenger seats here were built by American Seating Company, one of two major seating companies at the time, Conry explains, giving seats a 50/50 chance of being the right brand or not.
Conry has seen a photo of the seats that recently reappeared in town. “They certainly look right,” he said. The seats’s center standards and hardware look correct to him. “It is very likely that those are actual Perot Theatre seats.”
During the ‘79 and ‘80 renovation, you see, orchestra seats were replaced by more modern seats because of fire codes, and to widen both the aisles and seats themselves. “To make them a little more comfortable,” Conry explained. After all, he observes, we’ve grown larger.
Old seats were narrower, but not uncomfortable, Conry said. “They did retain the original seats up in the balcony, just reupholstered them.” So, if you sit in the balcony, you still sit in a piece of the Perot’s origins.
Nearly a thousand seats downstairs, though, were replaced, with only the end standards of the seats, all decorated with the letter “S” for Saenger, remaining along the aisles.
Says Conry, “The original ones, they had a plywood bottom with probably originally it would have been a horsehair pad. Now they’re a foam pad.” The mechanism was fairly simple, all cast iron parts used.
“There’s two ball bearings that allow the seat to raise and lower. And really that’s the only moving part,” Conry said. Now, those original seats are nearly a century old. “Very solid parts which last a real long time.”
For Michael Stephenson, being a recent transplant to Texarkana didn’t stop this Louisiana native from being curious about Perot Theatre history and appreciating a small but essential part of it.
A coordinator of student life at Texas A&M University-Texarkana, he recently purchased four seats, all attached in a row, at Knock on Wood. They’re now situated in the home he shares with his husband.
In the living room, the still-solid and surprisingly comfortable seats rest beside a wall adorned with Broadway show posters and near an old chest that, taken together, signify the couple’s collective love for antiques, furniture with a past that inspires conversation.
Stephenson admires downtown Texarkana’s potential.
“I had a chance to take a tour of The Perot and was awestruck by the beauty of the theatre’s architectural touches. During my tour, the tour guide mentioned the orchestra seats were replaced during a renovation. I thought to myself, ‘I wonder where those chairs went and how neat it would be to own some,’” Stephenson said.
“Thinking nothing of it, I finished my tour and continued with my day. The next day, I had a conversation with a new local friend that actually purchased a set of the original chairs and she shared where I could find my very own set. I couldn’t pass up a chance to own my very own piece of Texarkana’s history.”
He enjoys how they inspire conversation. When he visits antique, vintage and flea market shops, he looks for complementary decor that’s functional.
“But ultimately, I want to preserve pieces of our history while telling a story,” Stephenson said, “and what better place to do that in our home?”
People who’ve seen the chairs, he says, fall in love, and he’s referred them to Knock on Wood. “I like to imagine that sitting in my chairs takes my guests back to the 1920s,” he said.
For Knock on Wood owner Scarlett Lewis, the availability of these slice-of-history seats came about by chance. Her vendor, who’s become something of a mentor, made the first set available just a couple months after the shop first opened.
“He’s well known throughout Arkansas as being one of the top pickers, I guess you could say,” Lewis said. “He does petroliana and soda fountain signage.”
At a trade day in Amity, Ark., Lewis said, he found a woman and her husband who had a trailer full of theater seats. He was told they were from the Perot, pulled out back in the 1980s. She’s not sure how they fell into this woman’s hands.
“When I say trailer load, I’m talking about 50 seats,” Lewis said. The first row section her vendor supplied her had three seats with the “S” on each end. She describes them as beautiful and ornate with the original cast iron and other materials. They didn’t appear to be reupholstered. The condition? Perfect.
“Since the ’80s they’ve all just been kept in storage, I guess when they shifted hands,” Lewis said of her understanding.
Knock on Wood is not a large shop, so she can’t accommodate many seats. When she sells one row, they’re replenished. She’s placed them in one corner to set up a little auditorium display. Some have the Saenger “S” and some don’t.
“Mint,” she said of their condition. It’s interesting having them around.
“They capture people’s attention, more than, I think, anything than I’ve had in here,” Lewis said. “They’re oddly comfortable.” She’s had people get cozy and just about fall asleep in them.
For Lewis, whose experience includes museum work in Houston, history is rewarding. She tries to bring items into her store that possess a local connection. Roller skates from 1910 were found in a Texarkana attic, for example. Now they sit in a Knock on Wood display case. Near the front windowsill, a big clay piece from the Dickey Clay company now rests.
“We got some research done on them, and it turns out those are 1920 French architecture drains,” Lewis said.
It’s a mystery how some of the original Perot seats left the building, so to speak. It’s conceivable someone walked off with them, as appears to be the case with some other older fixtures, such as chandeliers. There’s no indication that’s the case with these seats now reappearing, though.
“Or they could’ve been hauled to the trash, but since some are now showing up, I’m suspecting they didn’t all go to the trash,” Conry said of the original orchestra seats.
Conry wasn’t around then, so he doesn’t know exactly what happened. It’s entirely possible some of the old orchestra seats were sold, he says. No records indicate that the originals were hauled to a warehouse.
“They were at that time doing a fundraising campaign, ‘selling’ the new seats. You didn’t really buy the seat. You bought a little plaque which went on a seat of your choosing,” he said. (The option is still available if you’d enjoy having your name immortalized at the Perot.)
At the time of the Perot renovation, fixtures were often made of brass and copper, such as hinges or push rods on the windows. “Nowhere in the building is there any extra hardware, which there should have been,” Conry said.
“Brass kick plates on doors. I think anything extra as far as hardware, especially brass hardware, got disappeared. All the doorknobs are new throughout the building. Don’t know what happened to all the original doorknobs.”
It’s not the first time that what appear to be old Perot seats have reappeared, and the whereabouts of other original Perot parts is another curious facet of the story.
A few chandeliers went missing. Teardrop chandeliers now hanging in the foyer came from the Baker Hotel in Dallas, Texas, also built in the ’20s, Conry said. “They are antique, but they’re not original to this building.”
The old pipe organ was sold decades ago, but it also made its way back to the theater, where it now sits, awaiting renovation, in the basement, said the venerable venue’s operations director.
And the chandeliers and wall sconces inside the auditorium area itself? Those are all original. “They were just rewired and reused,” Conry said.
Mezzanine furnishings were redone in the correct style, increasing the chances that when you step inside the Perot, you too may feel as if you’re dialing back the years, about to take your seat in the 1920s.