Remembering the Minneapolis Auditorium

Article by Michael Rainville, Jr.

Where the Minneapolis Convention Center stands today was a venue that dominated the event scene in this city for more than sixty years. The Minneapolis Auditorium hosted many gatherings, from circuses and concerts to political rallies and hockey games. This grand building, now lost to time, was a significant cultural hub for the Twin Cities.

Photo of the auditorium's Grant Street side taken in 1935

The city’s first “Minneapolis Auditorium” was built in 1905 on Nicollet Avenue and 11th Street. In 1924, that venue changed its name to the Lyceum Theater, and many decades later was torn down to make way for Orchestra Hall. The city would not be without an “Auditorium” for very long, however. In 1927, the new Minneapolis Auditorium opened up shop at 1301 2nd Avenue South with its main entrance on 3rd Street. The highlight of the June 1st, 1927 grand opening was the unveiling of a Kimball pipe organ known as the “Voice of Minneapolis.” It was the fourth largest pipe organ in the world at the time, consisting of 10,000 handcrafted pipes, and weighed over thirty tons. Now, it is sitting in storage at the current Convention Center waiting to be put back together.

Once construction was completed, the Auditorium cost over three million dollars, or almost forty-five million after inflation. The concrete stadium seating in the balcony could hold 4,160 people, the floor held 5,687, and the stage held 698 for a total of 10,545. The ceiling was eighty feet tall and was sloped, even though the outside roof was pitched, to give it more of an arena feel. The building itself was constructed with 3.25 million bricks, 15,000 yards of concrete, and 5,000 tons of steel. Etched into the side of the Grant Street entrance, the Minneapolis Auditorium read “builded for a community knit together by common needs with a common devotion directing its common life.” While not very common anymore, “builded” was past tense for “build” back in the day.

Photo of a car show from 1935

In 1947, Ben Berger and Morris Chalfen needed a home court for their newly acquired professional basketball franchise. With help from Sid Hartman, they recruited former DeLaSalle High School head coach and former head coach of St. Thomas College, John Kundla, and shortly after, they acquired the legendary George Mikan. The new Minneapolis Lakers would call the Auditorium home along with The Armory just a few blocks away.

Elvis signing autographs at the Auditorium, 1956

Elvis and his band on stage in 1956

Jefferon Airplane poster from 1970Perhaps the Auditorium events most people have fond memories of are the many concerts. The acts who performed there the most were Johnny Cash at six times, Jefferson Airplane coming in at four times, and Ray Charles, The Moody Blues, and four others at three times each.

The most notorious concert to have taken place here was Elvis on May 13th, 1956. People were excited and the expected crowd number for the combined shows in Minneapolis and St. Paul was set at 25,000. Earlier in the day, Elvis and his band played a show at the St. Paul Auditorium to a crowd of 2,000 fans and about 4,000 showed up in Minneapolis that evening. Local film and music critic Bill Diehl posed the question, “Do you wonder why flops No. 2 in St. Paul and No. 3 in Minneapolis happened? Oh, they’ll blame the weather and Mother’s Day and anything else. We’ve been asking around, though, and I’ll tell you one big reason: Moms and Dads had seen you on TV and didn’t like your unnecessary bump-and-grind routine. Why, Elvis, do you resort to your ‘Pelvis Presley’ routine? You’d better drop it before more and more people drop you.”

The critics didn’t have a fun time, but the fans went crazy. A crowd of mostly women had the times of their lives and Elvis even stayed into the night signing autographs for them.

In August of 1964, a grand re-opening ceremony took place. The now christened Minneapolis Auditorium and Convention Center now included an auditorium-arena, convention hall, and exhibition hall. The building would continue to host numerous events from high school basketball finals to car shows, and continued bringing in all-star music acts like Aretha Franklin, Simon and Garfunkel, Jimi Hendrix Experience, and The Doors all in 1968. Unlike Elvis, local critics were fond of The Doors performance. I’m sure it helped that Jim Morrison always had a Hamm’s cracked open on stage that night, too. Later in 1972, the building manager began refusing to allow hard rock groups to perform at the auditorium, because of a Black Sabbath concert at the St. Paul Civic Center earlier that year when many windows were smashed out during the chaotic concert.

The Auditoriums hockey layout, 1967

The Auditoriums basketball layout, 1968

Photo of the Auditorium taken in 1968 from 211 E Grant Street.

As the City of Minneapolis was growing, so did the need for a larger facility to host conventions and large events. Lead by Alice Rainville, the first woman to be president of the Minneapolis City Council, planning efforts began in the 1980s for an upgrade to the convention and tourism industry in the city. The final nail in the Minneapolis Auditorium coffin came in 1989 when the Grammar Research Association of Minnesota Media, Austin-Rochester chapter (GRAMMAR) wrote a letter to the Minneapolis City Council requesting that the message on the façade of the Grant Street entrance be changed from “builded” to “built,” or tear down the complex completely. Okay, maybe that didn’t happen, but 1989 was the last year it stood until it made way for the new and current Minneapolis Convention Center, the largest convention center in the Midwest and a big reason why we get national events like the MLB Allstar Game, X-Games, Super Bowl, and NCAA Men’s and Women’s Final Four basketball tournaments.

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About Michael Rainville, Jr.

A 6th generation Minneapolitan, Michael Rainville Jr. received his B.A. in History from the University of St. Thomas, and is currently enrolled in their M.A. in Art History and Certificate in Museum Studies programs. Michael is also a historic interpreter and guide at Historic Fort Snelling at Bdote and a lead guide at Mobile Entertainment LLC, giving Segway tours of the Minneapolis riverfront for 7+ years. Contact: mrainvillejr@comcast.net. Click here for an interactive map of Michael's past articles.