A member of the “You know you’re from Menominee when…” Facebook group recently posted an image of a historic Menominee Opera House performance poster that her sister had discovered at an auction. She posted a picture of the piece to the group with the hope of simply determining the year from which it had originated. It wasn’t long before people began doing a little bit of detective work to try and help find the answer. A few people were able to correctly pinpoint the year of the performance as being 1914.

The image quickly came across the computer screen of our group’s curator, Mike Kaufman, who is also the executive director of the Menominee Historical Society. Through some of his own research, he found a local newspaper article dated March 13, 1914, the day following the performance referenced in the poster. It provides further insight into the event that took place in the Menominee Opera House on that date and the type of  entertainment talent that the facility was able to bring in back in its heyday.