that covered the plaster walls. The draperies had "mild tan figures delicately woven into the broad white field with an occasional soft blue figure" that were selected by Mrs. Roberta Holland Beacham, wife of Braxton Beacham Sr. Beacham outfitted his theater with innovative state-of-the art equipment from the Southern Theater Equipment Company of Atlanta. The Beacham's box office in the lobby featured both an automatic admission ticket vending machine dispenser and ticket chopping machine. A decorative marquee that was unique in Florida extended toward the street and featured an electric changeable sign that flashed the daily program. Two Powers 6B type "E" projectors were supplied by the N Power company of New York. The Midas Gold film screen was made especially for the Beacham. A medium-sized pipe organ from the Austin Organ Company of Hartford, Connecticut, was purchased and installed at a cost of $15,000. The organ, Opus 1034 with 3 manuals in a center console, 24 ranks of pipes and 24 stops was played by both Mr. Herman Stuart and Mrs. Roberta Branch Beacham, wife of Braxton Beacham Jr. to accompany silent films and vaudeville acts. Typhoon cooling and ventilating equipment was installed in the theater. The Beacham Building's construction featured numerous fireproofing and fire safety measures. When the theater opened, the auditorium had an operating capacity of 1400. Tunnels from the theater stage trap ran into the basements of two nearby hotels. The tunnels had low ceilings and were sealed during new construction in the early 1980s. The tunnels extended south into the San Juan Hotel, where Mr. Beacham happened to have had an office, and then east under Orange Avenue into the Angebilt Hotel. Historians reason that the purpose of the tunnels may have been either for vaudeville performers to enter the theater from their hotels without being mobbed by crowds, or the tunnels could have been used for the storage and transportation of alcoholic beverages during prohibition as has been discovered at some of the other theaters in the Central Florida area. Vaudeville and Silent film era On December 9, 1921, Orlando's premier vaudeville and movie house opened by showing The Wonderful Thing, starring Norma Talmadge, a Pathé News newsreel, and Buster Keaton's The Boat. The Beacham Theatre was originally the only independent theater in Orlando. However, the next year, in 1922, Beacham leased his theater to Mack Sparks of the Sparks Theater Company chain. The