What was hidden within the Norfolk Grand Theatre

NORFOLK, Neb. -- It’s a nationally registered historical place, an engineering marvel for its time, and Norfolk’s very first permanent theater.

“There used to be a thousand seats that sat right here that looked at the main move theater back in 1920,” said Ben Conover, the current owner of the Norfolk Grand Theatre.

The Theatre is going through some work, its latest in a history filled with expansions, renovations, and reversals of those renovations.

But its latest chapter will see the building’s role shifted from providing entertainment to providing homes.

“Everything will come down to one level,” Conover said.

Ben Conover specializes in repurposing old buildings for new uses. At times, he also finds a bit of history in those historical places.

And the Norfolk Grand Theater is no exception.

“It’s always interesting to see what you can find,” Conover said “In this building, it had been renovated pretty extensively in the past so we haven’t found a lot.”

“One thing we did was under the stage there’s a series of tunnels. Back in the corner, there was a stack of these movie posters. One way or another, this sat under the stage somewhere between 50 and 100 years.”

The posters were for The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1921. Directed by Rex Ingram, it was Rudolph Valentino’s breakout role. With a budget of $800,000, it grossed $9.2 million, $133 million when adjusted for inflation.

Conover is still trying to get them appraised for age and value, but he already has plans for the one that is the most intact.

“We’ll have it probably hanging as part of the decor as you come in to look at the apartments,” Conover said. “We’ll have cameras and different stuff in there to make sure it's safe.”

It’s the grand theatre’s most dramatic internal revision. But Conover fully intends to keep the aesthetics outside true to the original.

And with the poster hanging in its new halls, a little bit of that spirit will remain inside.