The Rivoli Book
The Rise of Pendleton’s public halls, opera houses, and film theaters, amid saloons, gambling halls, brothels, and opium dens, 1864-1981
Few towns in the Northwest can boast of a more colorful Wild West history than Pendleton, Oregon. Here is the backstory of those early years, when open-town policies ruled, killings sometimes happened on Main Street, and the city government was bankrolled by “commercialized vice.” Yet, alongside the rowdy tenderloin, an entertainment industry of over thirty venues scratched out a toehold. Risk-taking entrepreneurs, who presented opera, vaudeville, variety, silent films, and the first talkies, were both helped and hurt by Pendleton’s wide-open downtown. Reformers did their best to tame the town, but didn’t get the job completely done until women could vote—who then slammed the lid shut on the Wild West days. After Prohibition began, it was “the movies” that replaced saloons and open gambling. The Rivoli and other theaters soon became among the most popular and influential cultural institutions in town.
The book is currently available for purchase at A Piece of Pendleton, 369 S Main St.
He came back. Vic Kucera celebrated his 12th birthday at the Rivoli in 1957. Two years later, working a summer job, he delivered laundry to the back door of Pendleton’s last brothel, behind the Rivoli. It was when Vic made a school scrapbook for the 1959 Oregon Centennial that he got hooked on old Pendleton photos. After earning Journalism and Master of Business Administration degrees at the University of Oregon, Kucera completed a career in corporate public relations, lobbying, and consulting. He recently came back to Pendleton to pry loose the stories behind all those old photographs. He is an author of books and articles concerning Northwest archaeology, Japanese internment, the early fur trade, logging, and pioneers of western Washington.