The Blockbuster video store in the Highlands is closing this month, and incidentally, the word “blockbuster” comes from people lining up around the block to see the movie “Jaws” back in the 1970s. But as a matter of bragging rights, the blockbuster motion picture was born in the 1840s, here in Louisville, when John Banvard’s enormous hand-painted and hand-cranked moving panorama of the Mississippi River debuted on Third street, between Main and Market, at a place called the Apollo Saloon.
That part of Third was called Pearl Street back then, and the saloon was sometimes called the Apollo Rooms, when it wanted to sound classier. It was shown upstairs—in the empty air now between the E.ON building and the back of the Old Spaghetti Factory—turning on upright rollers, as if the audience was passing by on the river, seeing the sights. A primitive predecessor of movies, with a piano soundtrack and Banvard himself as the star, telling stories, it was a very big hit. Louisville Slugger, Muhammad Ali, and Banvard’s panorama—Louisville is all about hitting.
Opening night was a Monday evening in 1846. It rained, and no one came. The next morning Banvard went to the docks and gave away tickets to riverboat captains and crew, gaining word-of-mouth buzz from people who knew the river and could validate his picture. It worked, and he built up a packed house. Extra trains were run to Louisville from nearby towns. Banvard then went east, to fame and fortune, then to Europe, and a performance for the Queen at Windsor Castle. Imitators sprung up with their own panoramas, all bragging theirs was vastly bigger, but they all still ran about two hours.
Billed as the “3 mile painting” it was about a quarter of a mile long and 12 feet high– 3 miles in square feet. If you enter Tyler Park at the path on the upper side, then walk past the tennis courts, down the steps under Baxter Avenue, walk the loop all the way around the lower park, and back to the overpass, in front of the fountain again, that’s about the size of the panorama, not including sections he added later. In the 1850s John Banvard was the most famous artist in the world, and probably the first millionaire painter. Longfellow based his description of the Mississippi in “Evangeline” on the panorama—he’d never seen the river. Banvard married his piano accompanist, Elizabeth Goodnow, for better or worse. And things got better, then worse.
It’s a rags to riches, and riches to rags story. He had grown up in New York, until his father’s health failed and a business partner disappeared with the company assets, leaving his family destitute. Banvard came to Louisville when he was 15, and he sometimes told the story that he was alone in the world, but an older brother was a grocer here, and other relatives turn up in the spotty city records of those years. He worked for an apothecary, and was an itinerant theatre player in a troupe traveling the rivers. He worked on the first show boat, painted scenes, performed, and scraped by, often hungry, notably sick for a while, in the kinds of terrible conditions that can sound romantic when one isn’t in them. It seems he exhibited some smaller panoramas in St. Louis, and made some money. Then he set out to paint the Mississippi, going down the river alone in a canoe, with a rifle, drawing materials, and provisions for trade. It’s hard to fathom now what that adventure was like, and what the Mississippi River was in the minds and imagination of his contemporaries. I think he must have stood on the riverbank sometimes, as night came, and practiced telling his stories to the river, imagining his future audiences. Anyway, he came back to Louisville with his sketches and painted his picture on about a quarter mile of canvas–right around here, somewhere. But exactly where is a bit of a mystery.
After the success of the panorama he seemed to succeed at everything he tried. He wrote plays, made the first color lithograph, published his own shorthand method, painted some more panoramas, learned to read hieroglyphics, collected Egyptian artifacts. It was all good. He built a museum in New York, and a vast house modeled after Windsor Castle. And you know how that is–the contractors are always behind schedule, it seems like it’s never going to be finished. He got into competition with P.T. Barnum, and struggled with giving American audiences what they want; his museum had the real “Cardiff Man” fake, but Barnum had a fake of the fake. And he messed up–he hadn’t registered his museum’s stock, and when it failed he lost everything and ruined his name.
They wound up living in abject poverty in Watertown, South Dakota, where he was buried. The wiki says his panorama was cut into pieces, but that isn’t really known. There are lots of errors, mix-ups, and speculations about Banvard and his work, and it’s pretty hard to sort through it all, and explain the little mistakes, and, well, nobody cares anyway. Part of Banvard’s show was his own success story, and he obsessively tweaked it, in overlapping versions that make it impossible to know much about his real story now. In later life he quit spinning, and some of those stories are things I’m really glad I read, but there are many things he never cleared up.
I’ve never found the Louisville studio where he painted his panorama. A description of it appears in a letter by Lt. Selim Woodworth, a friend, who had visited Banvard painting the panorama in a vast building “on the extreme outskirts of town.” Below Kentucky Street was outside the city then. I searched city records, the Banvard family papers, but it eventually dawned on me that the letter sounds a lot like Banvard’s other promotional writings, and was probably largely written by Banvard himself. He may not have built a studio on the outskirts of town at all, like in the letter, but just thought it sounded good. Once you begin to doubt it, you notice the letter has some odd things about it, and how all the references to his studio have that extra effort of explanation, like when people make something up. Yes, it was painted here, somewhere, but nobody knows where. It could’ve been in the city, a building downtown, in some arrangement with someone–maybe his family? A barn? Nobody knows. A parking lot nearby. Somebody’s yard.
– Frederic S. Miller
How to buy remedies online at best prices? In fact, it is formidably to find of repute apothecary. Kamagra is a far-famed curing used to treat impotence. If you’re concerned about sexual dysfunction, you probably know about dosage of levitra. What is the most essential info you have to know about levitra doses? More information about the problem available at levitra dose. Perhaps you already know some about the problem. Usually, having difficulty getting an erection can be embarrassing. This disease is best solved with vocational help, generally through counseling with a certified doctor. Your dispenser can help find the variant that is better for your condition. We hope that the info here answers some of your questions, but please contact physician if you want to know more. Professional staff are experienced, and they will not be shocked by anything you tell.
I love this story.