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Last updated on Friday, July 18, 2003
At one time a vaudeville house, the Lyceum in Clovis was built in 1919 and 1920, and like the Luna and El Raton has space for commercial businesses on either side of its theater entrance. Its stage now extends forward from the proscenium, covering the former orchestra pit. A fly-tower holds the theater’s original stage curtain.
During its peak years of 1920-1940, the Lyceum provided the best show in town. Tom Mix, Will Rogers, Gene Autry, and John Philip Sousa and his band performed on its stage. Its owners, Eugene Hardwick and his sons Russell and Charles chose the Kansas City architectural firm of Boller Brothers, well-known theater designers in the Midwest. They appear to have taken their inspiration for the Lyceum from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroads depots and Fred Harvey’s “Harvey House” hotels in their design. It featured an air-cooling system, 600 seats and its interior design largely is intact.
The Hardwicks contracted with Paramount Pictures to show films and maintained a tradition from an earlier Lyceum of using the theater for community events. The local MainStreet program and the city took ownership in 1982, remounting the restored marquee, and began holding community events.
Listing the theaters in the State and National registers will draw renewed attention to them, according to HPD. The attention, when coupled with active MainStreet programs and other downtown revitalization plans, could help spur new economic activity downtown and renew interest in these small-town movie palaces.
“Movie theaters were the heart and pride of small-town New Mexico,” said John Murphey, HPD Register coordinator. “Their slow demises as downtowns emptied only accentuated the ghost-town feel many communities took on, leaving few reasons for area residents to stroll their once-busy main streets at night.”
Down the street from the Lyceum, the Hardwicks opened the State in 1940. It is considered the most striking example of modernism found in any New Mexico theatre. A circular glass-block tower rises from above the marquee and reaches higher than the curved parapet that masks a barrel roof. Its modern air-conditioning system and fresh style inspired the Hardwicks to restyle the Lyceum’s exterior, giving it a molded stucco façade in the Moderne style. The Hardwicks kept up to date and retained a competitive edge over theater chains that started to move into Clovis at the time.
The Cultural Arts Series at Clovis Community College in Clovis, New Mexico begins its sixth year of “Bringing the World to You.” This year’s theme, “Connections” focuses on our desire to connect audiences with the arts through world class performances and important educational outreach.
Appearing: Sophie Milman, The Lovell Sisters, Davide Cabassi, Dervish, Pueblo Christmas with Robert Mirabal, Christmas from Dublin, George Winston, Viver Brasil Dance Company, Glenn Miller Orchestra, The Spencers - Theatre of Illusion, Santa Fe Opera Performers, and a Cinco de Mayo celebration.
You say you're bored, the kids are restless, nothing to do! Well, how about spending a day discovering some of New Mexico's great history? This scenic drive will take you to three ancient Indian pueblos and the ruins of three awe-inspiring Spanish mission churches that are some of the most beautiful to be found anywhere in the United States. Along this route you can also hike and play in the Cibola National Forest, bike, camp or fish among the pine, aspen, and maple forests of the Manzano Mountains at Manzano Mountains State Park. Put on your cowboy hat and working pair of boots to celebrate the Old West's restaurant on the range — the chuckwagon. Betcha there will be no microwave ovens in the infield of the Ruidoso Downs Race Track on New Mexico Highway 70 where 40 cowboy cookin' teams will compete over open fires for a large purse for their beef, beans, potatoes, biscuit and dessert creations. Judges points are swayed by authenticity. This competition is the hottest in the West. Day One of the Atomic Age, I imagine during the eighty mile drive from Alamogordo to Trinity Site, New Mexico, was much like today except for the early morning rain postponing the experiment from 4:00 to 5:30 a.m. Darkness filled the elongated valley bordered by mountains of hard granite, solidified lava flows and eroded mesas.The rain was undoubtedly welcomed by the sparse yet hardy vegetation decorating the valley floor. The rare summer moisture provided relief from the searing, relentless desert heat - a brief chance to rejoice and replenish moments before disappearring in an unnatural and previously unknown manner. Except for the sound of our 200 vehicle convoy headed to Ground Zero, Day One was sunny, windless and serene, just like today.
Faster and far more realistic would be a visit to Sunspot, located fifteen forested miles south of Cloudcroft, New Mexico, nestled between lovely tall pines and perched at the edge of Sacramento Peak. Here the National Solar Observatory's numerous telescopes bring the sun's activity to the human eye for study and observation. On a time line, the two and one-half year operation (1857-1861) of the Butterfield Overland Mail was but a flash in the history of transportation in the United States. But this short-lived operation captured and held the imagination of Americans because it stitched together the growing country from sea to sea. The road to Mogollon is justly notorious. It is not a bad road...not especially rough. And it has been worked on recently. It is not even all that steep. (At least some of it isn't.) However, with the exception of one flat stretch over the top of Whitewater Mesa a third of the way up, all of it is a grade. And all of it is narrow and twisty, with solid rock straight up on one side for hundreds of feet and straight down an equal or greater distance on the other side. The Mogollon Road rises about twenty-five hundred feet and then drops back about twelve hundred - all in the space of nine miles. It makes for wonderful views. At first site, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park in southern New Mexico might seem merely a quiet, off-the-beaten-path, sun-backed stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert. The stillness of the landscape, the massive towering cliffs that form a Hollywood-like set backdrop to the Park, even the occasional, swirling dust clouds that meander through the mesquite and yucca desert might give one the impression of quiet permanence. However, a closer look reveals much more.
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