Chautauqua

The Reverend Alexander Tarr also built a Colosseum on the premises of the hotel, especially for the Chautauqua Assemblies. These Assemblies brought entertainment and culture to the community to stimulate and exercise the intellect. The meetings were held the last week of July and first week of August and drew huge crowds. In the summer of 1911, future president Warren Harding, who was editor of the Marion Star at the time, and William Jennings Bryan, who had lost his bid for the presidency three times, both came to Orchard Island and spoke at the Chautauqua. The colosseum was later converted into a skating rink. In the early 1990s, Jim Dicke, from the nearby town of New Bremen, purchased the hotel and colosseum. The colosseum was carefully dismantled, each piece marked, and transported by flatbed trucks to nearby New Bremen, where it was reassembled in the Community Park. The new colosseum does not include the enclosing walls shown in later postcards, and resembles the early open structure built on Orchard Island shown in the above postcard dated 1912.