Motion Picture Pavillion, Tallywood Inn, Lake Maranacook, ME 75.

Motion Picture Pavillion, Tallywood Inn, Lake Maranacook, ME 75.

A view of the motion picture theater at the Tallywood Inn in Readfield, Maine on Maranacook Lake. The open-air pavilion at the Sir Charles Hotel, as it was known at the time the image was made, was originally a theater for live productions; the stage is visible behind the screen. Stepped wooden platforms provided seating facing into the space, while chairs could be set up across the floor. Japanese lanterns and parisols hang decoratively from the timbered roof.It seems possible that the space was used for dances as well. The Hotel, with beds for 75 guests, was a three-story structure developed by Boston theater impresario David Craig on Maranacook Lake in 1893. The last few decades of the 19th century saw a new middle class able to take week or more long vacations from work and the cities' summer heat. The railroad from Boston to Banger and Winthrop stations with a final ferrying up the scenic lake to the hotel made the trip easy and pleasurable. Theatrical productions provided lively evening entertainment until being superceded by the popularity of the motion picture. However, the amenity of the theater pavilion attracted a following at the resort, which became known as the Mohican Inn briefly, and lthen the Tallwood Inn. Around 1899 it grew under the ownership of Margaret Butler, also a Bostonian with ties to the theater world. She expanded the facility to include 17 cottages and camps while maintaining the inn and its large dining room. During the Depression the resort was forced to fold. The inn and several of the cottages were eventually torn down. [www.tallwoodcottages.com]