The Chautauqua Era: Sousa, Bryan, and a Roofless Dome

Before Ashland became known for Shakespeare, it was known for Chautauqua. In eighteen ninety three, residents built a dedicated facility in what would later become Lithia Park to host Chautauqua events, a form of popular education and public entertainment that swept the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Chautauqua movement combined lectures, music, drama, and religious programming into multi-day gatherings that served as the primary cultural enrichment for many communities before radio and film arrived.

Ashland's Chautauqua building was a large hall that hosted the lecturers and musicians of the national Chautauqua circuit. The building made Ashland the undisputed cultural capital of southwestern Oregon for a generation. The Chautauqua structure was rebuilt and enlarged several times over the years.

But the Chautauqua movement died through the nineteen twenties, displaced by radio, film, and the automobile, which gave people easier access to city entertainments. The domed building fell into disuse and eventually lost its roof. What remained was a curved roofless wall in Lithia Park, an echo of a vanished institution.

In nineteen thirty five, a drama professor at Southern Oregon Normal School named Angus Bowmer looked at that ruined wall, recognized its resemblance to an Elizabethan theater, and proposed using it to present Shakespeare. The festival that followed has run every summer since.