"Roger Greeley was an ignoramus:"
You are a complete IDIOT! Instead of responding to a post you are incensed that a transcription error put the wrong name in ONE sentence!! MORON! Of course the seventh line intended to read "Philo D. Beckwith" because (as you brilliantly pointed out!!) Dowagiac was the town!! I've linked a quick biography of Philo below which shows that he was every bit the great man he was accused of being! You are on your face again!!
The train goes from Detroit to Chicago, Chicago to Detroit, and when I ride it, when we stop in Dowagiac, it is always January 25th, 1893. That is the day that Robert Green Ingersoll dedicated the gorgeous Beckwith Theatre. It was made possible through the efforts of the rather unusual nineteenth-century entrepreneur by the name of Philo D. Beckwith, a public atheist, a freethinker, a creative entrepreneur and industrialist, who was elected mayor of Dowagiac a number of times. In the gilded age, Dowagiac was an exception to most of the robber barons, in that he treated his workers with kindness and benevolence. As a freethinker he had long had a dream. He wanted to bring culture to Dowagiac. To do this, he said, “I will build the finest theatre of its size in the world.” Unfortunately, he died even before the blueprints were made. His wife and children, however, with access to his substantial legacy, fulfilled his dream. And in January of 1893 it was dedicated.
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