War of the Danzs:
Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb(s)

The extended Danowsky family were Russian Jews who emigrated to the United States in 1882, eventually changing the family name to Danz.^[1] They arrived, like so many families, in New York City, but didn’t stay on the East Coast for long and eventually settled in the Midwest, later moving to a farm in Oregon. There, as a young man, John Danz worked as a farmhand and occasional trader along the Columbia River, though for a brief period in the mid-1890s he claimed to be a stagecoach driver in Nevada. Eventually, however, he went into the retail business, working at haberdasheries in several Northwest cities.

In 1903 the family patriarch, Louis Danz, who had also gravitated into the clothing business, came to Seattle and opened the first of several small shops. John Danz and his two brothers, Joseph and Simon (Si), came along and helped their father before eventually opening their own menswear store on Second Avenue South. They were outsiders from the get-go; while Seattle had a small Jewish population, few of them were Russian Jews, so the Danz family stood apart. “Isolated from the main Jewish community, Danz, unlike most businessmen, rejected established religion and religious dogma,” Jonathan Dembo observed. “He adopted instead a humanistic outlook on life, which he based on a faith in man’s ability to determine his own fate, to better himself, and to make his individual way in the world.”^[2]

As a group the Danz brothers demonstrated this fully – their store, Sterling Men’s Wear, despite a few bumps along the way, grew into a flourishing business, and by 1911 John Danz was operating at least four additional shops throughout Seattle.

John Danz stumbled his way into movie exhibition. According to the family, in the early- to mid-teens Danz tried out the business by taking over management of the High Class Theatre on Second Avenue South, a location next to one of his menswear stores, where he ran cross-promotions between the store and the picture venue.^[3]

This was a bit of a lark, but the arrangement went well enough that John Danz began accumulating other small movie houses – he was, for example, soon operating the High Class and the Crown, another venue in the lower part of downtown Seattle. Sensing greater opportunity, the brothers eventually shifted their business focus away from the clothing business and toward their movie holdings, which grew to include several of the older storefront theatres in and around Pioneer Square. Their success with these small venues was such that they eventually gave up on clothing altogether, with each Danz brother settling into different spaces within the Northwest picture business. John would eventually move into Seattle’s uptown theatre district by taking over some smaller, second-run houses; Joseph stayed with the mid-level theatres in the lower part of Seattle, though he eventually managed the Embassy at Third and Union; Si eventually branched off into the Oregon market, particularly Astoria, before coming back to manage houses in Seattle’s growing suburbs. John Danz made his big move in 1917, taking over the Colonial Theatre on Fourth Avenue, a second-run venue that put him squarely in the downtown movie district; by the early 1920’s he was a key exhibitor in Seattle. But he was notoriously difficult to work for. Trade paper reports coming out of the Colonial had managers coming and going at an alarming rate, with Danz frequently stepping in to take the reigns himself. He was, apparently, the only one who could do the job right.

All three Danz brothers had their share of labor troubles over the years, but it was John who was the lightning rod for antagonism. He was the most prickly of the bunch, and quite stubborn; when John Danz held a grudge, he really held a grudge. His on-and-off battle with organized labor in the Northwest spanned some 14 years, from 1921 to 1935, in large part because he steadfastly refused to compromise on his principals.^[4]

By the time the Danz brothers entered local movie exhibition, the key unions already had footholds in the Seattle market. These included the two largest groups, the operators (IATSE Local No. 154) and the musical performers (Musicians’ Local No. 76). This was in addition to other, smaller unions representing groups like the janitors, bill posters, cashiers and ushers, among others. The move uptown brought John front and center with these unions but, at the same time, it also put labor front and center with an exhibitor who liked to zig where others zagged.  Despite a prime location downtown, Danz was decidedly unflashy – an exhibitor who put much more emphasis on delivering value than dazzling his customers with the latest this or the current that. He was, for example, not even tempted to compete with the ever-growing size of theatre orchestras amongst Seattle’s downtown theatres, which was ongoing when he moved into the Colonial. When Danz had a $20,000 Hope-Jones Wurlitzer organ installed there in late 1918, it was, in his mind, the only musical accompaniment his patrons would need.

Nonetheless, in 1920 John Danz was approached by Musician’s Local No. 76 with a proposition to upgrade his musical presentations. The offer was simple enough – for no charge, Danz could try out a small orchestra of six union men over a period of two months. If this increased his box office receipts, he would agree to sign a contract with the musicians’ union at the end of the two-month period. If it did not, he was free to go back to the single organist format.^[5]

The offer was less friendly than it appears. A common strongarm tactic used by musician unions was known as the minimum orchestra agreement, where they pressured exhibitors to hire union musicians, usually in a number proportional to the house’s seating capacity. Once placed, it wasn’t hard for the union to argue at the end of the trial period that the house’s performances had either been enhanced, or at least the audience had grown accustomed to the change in musical program, such that removing them would decrease patronage. If the manager bought into the minimum orchestra agreement, he could keep the musical performances that his patrons were enjoying and avoid labor difficulties in the future through the agreement to employ union labor.

We don’t know for a fact that Musicians’ Local No. 76 was attempting to pressure John Danz into such an arrangement, but once the trial period concluded Danz agreed to place union musicians at the Colonial and in some of his other theatres; Joseph Danz also added union musicians to several of his houses. The problem, however, was timing. Danz signed a contract with Musicians’ Local No. 76 shortly before an industry-wide recession put a financial squeeze on exhibitors across the country. Within a year, by May 1921, the Danz organization was feeling the pinch and needed to make changes. Pay cuts and layoffs ensued amongst his houses, and the agreement with the musicians became a source of contention. Danz asked union representatives for some flexibility so he could manage his holdings, arguing that the contract was restricting his ability to do so. But they balked at this request, and no middle ground could be reached, so after talks broke down Danz simply decided to lock the union musicians out, hiring nonunion players to staff his downtown houses.

This was a provocative move, but John Danz remained open to negotiating on the matter. He attended a Local No. 76 meeting to discuss the issue, going so far as to open his own books to demonstrate his financial strain. Danz’s original agreement stipulated that he was to hire no fewer than six union musicians at the Colonial, but he countered with an offer to hire only two, asking for temporary leniency until he could get back on solid footing. That offer was rejected out of hand – if the musicians made an exception for Danz, they would have to make similar exceptions for other exhibitors. Besides, why would they show leniency to a manager who was laying off fellow workers, cutting wages and increasing hours for those who remained?

John Danz was incensed. If he couldn’t get some flexibility to operate his theatres, then there would be no work for anyone – union or otherwise. He wasn’t asking to kill the agreement, just to modify it for the time being. To him, the musicians’ union was putting their own interests ahead of the health of the local movie business – businesses that employed a good number of their membership.

And that’s all it took to create a rift between John Danz and Musicians’ Local No. 76, trouble that would run on and off for next 14 years.

John Danz wasn’t the only exhibitor feeling pain. The same downturn impacting Danz’s interests was also hurting movie men throughout the country; later that same year, the Allied Amusement Interests of Washington, an industry group to which Danz and others belonged, even took the position that wage reductions and cuts in union labor were required so that members could weather the storm. But the unions were also feeling the economic squeeze, and their natural response was to support their membership and stand firmly against changes to existing contracts.

By late 1921 business conditions had begun to improve enough that most Seattle exhibitors were resolving their differences with local theatre unions. John Danz, however, remained a sticking point. He had been getting by just fine with nonunion musicians, and saw no reason to change simply because the business pendulum was swinging in the other direction – lingering resentment, perhaps, from his contact dispute with Local No. 76. Talks were held but both sides clung tightly to their positions, making a showdown likely. In mid-1922 there was a tipping point: with negotiations at a stalemate, the Seattle Central Labor Council (SCLC) formally labeled John Danz and his theaters (including the Colonial, Class A, Florence and Star) as unfair to labor, and a boycott was organized. The move broke off all dialogue and turned the two against each other. John Danz responded to the SCLC “unfair” label by employing a standard exhibitor move – going to court and getting an injunction to limit picketing at his theatres. After that, however, things got creative.

According to Jonathan Dembo, who wrote about John Danz’s longtime labor troubles in 1980, the trouble started when the musicians were organizing some events to publicize their boycott. In this case someone, identity unknown, placed some calls to Seattle officials and got the Chief of Police to deny the musician’s union the necessary permits. And when the union began circulating leaflets against Danz’s houses, they discovered they had to compete with a rival leaflet claiming that several union-friendly theatres were actually unfair – a disinformation campaign specifically designed to confuse movie patrons. Of course, the union’s own leaflet only competed with the bogus version when it could be found. Copies of the union leaflets were disappearing as fast as they could be printed, allegedly because John Danz was paying young boys to scour the city and snap them up so they could be destroyed.

The unions also knew how to play hardball. Seattle was unique in that it had a labor-owned daily paper, the Union Record, which gave them a media outlet in which to run stories promoting their cause. This, in fact, was one way they got around picketing injunctions; strikers may not have been able to demonstrate, but there was no prohibition against hawking newspapers featuring anti-Danz propaganda right in front of his theatres.^[6]

John Danz successfully convinced a court that the newspaper stunt violated the intent of the picketing injunction, but the union nonetheless considered it a victory since it forced the exhibitor to waste time and money litigating the matter.

It was just one of many instances in which John Danz and the musicians would face off in court during their 14-year battle. Both sides now dug in for a long and costly fight. And not just in terms of legal expenses; strikers were employing various methods to decrease patronage at Danz’s houses and, even though he was getting some assistance from fellow exhibitors, the manager once again began feeling the pinch. But Danz wasn’t going to give in. A new tactic was employed in November 1922 when stink bombs were exploded inside of several Danz-owned theatres, but the issue was muddled when similar incidents began occurring in union-friendly theatres as well. “A decidedly small and unworthy attempt to embarrass the management of all the leading first-run theatres in the downtown district is shown by the liberating of odor bombs during performances,” sneered Moving Picture World. John Danz played the victim in the local media reports, but Musicians’ Local No. 76 alleged that Danz himself was behind a few of stink bomb incidents (even ones in his own theatres) as a way of swinging public sentiment to his favor. Labor representatives may have had a point; one man, Percy Adlam, later testified that he was hired by Danz representatives to stink bomb several union-friendly movie theatres, earning $2 per explosion. Later, two Danz employees and an associate were arrested for an attack on the Strand Theatre, though the charges were eventually dropped. It was part of an ongoing battle that Moving Picture World likened to a movie serial, given its various twists and turns.^[7]

The movie serial comment was an apt comparison when one considers the next chapter in the story, which would be even more perilous than the last.

By Eric L. Flom – November 2025

Notes:

[1] Much of the information on John Danz and his labor troubles comes from the various motion picture trade papers and the work of Jonathan Dembo. (See Jonathan Dembo, “John Danz and the Seattle Amusement Trades Strike, 1921-1935,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Volume 71, Number 4, October 1980, Pages 172-182.) In addition, a pair of self-published books help build out the Danz family story – Carolee Danz’s 100 Sterling Years: The Danz Family, Sterling Theatres and Sterling Recreation Organization (Bothell, WA: Book Publisher’s Network – 2011) and Mark Hester’s A Sterling Life: John Danz, Seattle Theatre Pioneer and a Grandson’s Journey of Discovery (Jacob’s Well, Australia: Ocean Reeve Publishing – 2023). For the most part the material here generally follows Dembo’s prior research.
[2] Dembo, Page 172.
[3] Carolee Danz, Pages 23-25.
[4] Dembo, 172.
[5] Ibid., Page 173.
[6] Ibid., Pages 174-175.
[7] See “‘Stink Bomb’ Controversy Opens in Police Court,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12 January 1923, Page 13; “Stench Bomb Throwers’ Trial is Continued,” Seattle Daily Times, 12 January 1923, Page 19; “Two Men Freed in Theatre Bomb Case,” Seattle Daily Times, 8 February 1923, Page 12; “Lukan to Manage Hamrick’s Theatres in the Northwest,” Moving Picture World, 16 December 1922, Page 636; and “Seattle,” Moving Picture World, 22 December 1923, Page 715.

The evening of December 27, 1922, was a typical one for the Danz family. John had spent most of the day tending to business at the Colonial Theatre, having just completed a hectic week of Christmas programming that would culminate in the venue’s annual New Year’s celebration. For most downtown theatres, New Year’s Eve was one of the biggest events of the year, and had been since Washington state officially went dry on January 1, 1916, nearly five years before Prohibition was enacted nationwide. With the traditional form of celebrating out of the question, at least for most, the chance to enjoy a night of special programming at the local movie palace was an acceptable alternative.

The Danz family shared a single automobile, which Jessie Danz, John’s wife, had for most of the day while running errands with their three children. Late that afternoon, around 5 p.m., she pulled up in front of the Colonial and went inside, extracting her husband and taking him back to the couple’s home at 952 22^nd Avenue North. It was common for John Danz to have dinner at home each evening, but it was also common for him to then leave and head back downtown to oversee the Colonial’s evening shows.

The family was close to sitting down for dinner when, at around 6:30 p.m., the car in the driveway suddenly exploded with violent force, sending shrapnel up and down their otherwise quiet street. Danz and his neighbors, none of whom were injured in the blast, rushed from their homes to see the damage – the car itself was destroyed, with bits of glass and metal causing property damage to nearby houses and cars, with some parts landing a full block or more away. A pair of motorcycle officers, among the first law enforcement to arrive on scene, found what they believed to be remnants of a bomb, which smelled of powder, although most of the evidence had been obliterated.

There was no question that the blast had come from inside of Danz’s vehicle. The Post-Intelligencer reported that it was unclear whether the bomb had been specifically placed under the front seat or was randomly tossed inside the car. The Daily Times and the Star, meanwhile, speculated that the bomb may have been put into place at some point during the day – either before or after the family arrived home – and timed to go off when the culprits assumed that John Danz would have been behind the wheel. To them, the failure to properly rig the timing fuse may have been the only thing that saved the exhibitor’s life.^[1]

On the surface there wasn’t anything connecting the bombing with Danz’s ongoing dispute with Musician’s Local No. 76. But that’s not how the exhibitor saw it – he didn’t need any convincing. “‘Ever since last June I have been having difficulty with the musician’s union, because they tried to compel me to employ a larger number of musicians than I could afford, owing to poor business,’” Danz exclaimed to a Post-Intelligencer reporter in his driveway. The situation was now out of control; while Danz claimed that he was still willing to negotiate, he was also adamant that he would only do that if union forces stopped stink bombing his theatres, something to which, apparently, they would not (or could not) guarantee. “‘These chemicals have been used as a club to make me meet their demands immediately, [and with this car bombing] now they resorted to a more effective and dangerous weapon,’” the exhibitor proclaimed.^[2]

John Danz had a full-fledged media event going on in his front yard, and he milked it for all its worth. As reporters from the daily papers swarmed the scene, talking to police and Danz’s neighbors, the exhibitor flitted about, making his case to anyone who would listen, pausing every now and then so photographers could snap photos of him in front of the smoldering wreckage.

Naturally, given John Danz’s wild accusations, all eyes turned to Seattle’s labor organizations. William Short, president of the State Federation of Labor, rose to meet the charges, and made his own assessment with equal conviction: John Danz staged the whole damn thing. The exhibitor’s labor troubles were widely known, Short maintained, and at the time he had three employees charged with orchestrating a stink bomb campaign against rival (union-friendly) theatres. Violence in any form, Short added, wasn’t tolerated in his organization, and he was certain that no one from Musicians’ Local No. 76 was involved. “‘I have no question in my mind but that the explosion was caused simply to advertise the Danz theaters and to attract public sympathy,” he told the Star.^[3]

So, from the get-go, both sides pointed fingers at the other. Danz, at least, was playing his part masterfully, announcing a $500 reward for information leading to the apprehension of those responsible. That seemed to bear fruit almost immediately when some women walking near his home gave police the description of two men seen in the area shortly before the blast. Whether or not these individuals had a connection to the bombing wasn’t the point – it’s the fact that they could have, so it played into Danz’s version of events. But William Short and other labor leaders weren’t going to let John Danz shape the public narrative. Organized labor was conducting their own investigation of the bombing incident, and what they were learning only strengthened their belief that the entire thing was fabricated.

Take, for example, the fact that the press arrived on scene at almost the same time as first responders – how did they get there so quickly? And why was John Danz so calm while talking to police and the press? He and his family had narrowly escaped a bombing incident that could have, in other circumstances, killed some or all of them. Why wasn’t he more rattled by this incident and, instead, eager to talk to reporters and take photographs near his vehicle? Then there was the allegation made by Hans Evers, a union man who ran into the manager of Danz’s Florence Theatre the day after the bombing incident. “‘You ought to see the crowd I’ve got tonight,’” Evers quoted the manager as saying. “‘I’ll say it pays to advertise.’” And all of this was on top of the fact that the Danz’s family automobile was fully insured – they were inconvenienced for a few days, but would eventually be made whole.^[4]

Yet for as loudly as this incident began, the Danz bombing fizzled out over the next few weeks. No suspects were named and no arrests were made, despite both sides being convinced of the other’s guilt. The issue disappeared so quickly from public view, in fact, that one wonders if there weren’t some off-the-record discussions going on, all of which managed to stay private. Clearly, no one was innocent in this dispute; both Danz and the unions engaged in underhanded tactics in the run-up to the incident, so there was no moral high ground to be had. But was it possible that Seattle city officials, after a brief police investigation, simply decided to sit both parties down and tell them to knock it off?

In the end, we’ll never know if that was the case. For the time being, at least, John Danz stopped making public accusations against organized labor and the unions, for their part, stopped agitating against Danz’s houses. The stink bomb incidents came to a quick and curious end, and in early 1923 the case against the Danz employees charged in some of those incidents was dismissed. In addition, a $25,000 libel suit that Musicians’ Local No. 76 brought against John Danz (stemming from comments he made to reporters in his driveway and in the days thereafter) was also quietly dropped.^[5]

Indeed, the John Danz car bombing, which escalated their dispute to a new and more dangerous level, faded from the headlines rather quickly. But the detente wouldn’t last forever.

By Eric L. Flom – November 2025

Notes:

[1] See “Bomb Exploded in Automobile of Theatre Man,” Seattle Daily Times, 28 December 1922, Pages 1 and 4; Bob Bermann, “Auto Bombing to be Probed, Seattle Star, 28 December 1922, Pages 1 and 7; and “Bomb Planted in Seattle Labor Troubles,” Motion Picture News, 20 January 1923, Page 298. The targeting of business leaders by pro-labor activists wasn’t unheard of in the Northwest. It also wasn’t the last time it would occur. On at least one other occasion, in December 1929, an exhibitor in Portland was surprised by a special Christmas package that arrived at his downtown theatre. Thinking nothing of it, he proceeded to open it with his daughter, who just happened to be visiting at the time. The package was booby trapped with a mixture of tear and mustard gas, though the small explosion wasn’t large enough to cause more than facial burns to both the manager and his daughter. The manager, G.W. Woodlaw, had been the subject of constant union picketing since September of that year after he began employing nonunion labor at his house. (See “Owner of Nonunion Theatre Injured by Exploding ‘Present,’” Seattle Daily Times, 25 December 1929, Page 31.)
[2] “Blast in Car Intended for Man is Belief,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 28 December 1922, Page 1.
[3] Bob Bermann, “Auto Bombing to be Probed, Seattle Star, 28 December 1922, Pages 1 and 7.
[4] See “Short Demands Bomb Inquiry,” Seattle Star, 29 December 1922, Page 1; and Jonathan Dembo, “John Danz and the Seattle Amusement Trades Strike, 1921-1935,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Volume 71, Number 4, October 1980, Page 176.
[5] See “Stench Bomb Throwers Trial is Continued” and “Seattle Musicians Sue Theatre Owner for Libel,” Seattle Daily Times, 12 January 1923, Page 19; “Danz Faces $25,000 Suit by Musicians,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12 January 1923, Page 13; “$25,000 Union Suit Opens in Court,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 13 January 1923, Page 4; “Seattle Musicians File Suit Against John Danz for Libel,” Moving Picture World, 3 February 1923, Page 452; “Seattle Musicians Sue Exhibitor for Libel,” Motion Picture News, 3 February 1923, Page 547; “Two Men Freed in Theatre Bomb Case,” Seattle Daily Times, 8 February 1923, Page 12; and “Danz Demurrer Overruled,” Seattle Daily Times, 11 March 1923, Page 4.

The 1922 car bomb incident was the most pitched and personal moment in John Danz’s ongoing labor troubles. But although he seems to have entered (willingly or unwillingly) into a cooling off period, by no means did the dispute end there.

John Danz resumed discussions with labor representatives shortly after the bombing incident, but neither side could find common ground. For the next several years, in fact, the situation ebbed and flowed – talks began and then ended, picketing started and then stopped, like trench warfare where success was measured in inches. If Danz and the musicians weren’t sitting across the table attempting to restart negotiations, they were in court the squaring off over one thing or another. At one point John Danz was accused of hiring thugs as counter-protesters to go up against union picketers. In another incident, George Dillman, managing the Colonial for Danz at the time, began carrying a pistol to work and made a regular practice of harassing protesters – at one point getting hauled into court for destroying some of their banners. Even after Joseph Danz reached his own agreement with the theatrical unions in 1924, there was no way his brother John was going to jump that bandwagon – he vowed to continue his fight, even if there were no other Seattle exhibitors willing to stand with him.

All this time, the Danz theatre interests continued to grow. The Colonial continued to be his flagship house in downtown Seattle until Danz bought out his co-owner in the Class A Theatre, located at Third and Pike, in 1924. He then gutted the space and erected the Capitol Theatre on the same spot, which opened in November of that year and stood back-to-back with the Colonial, with only an alleyway in between. He also maintained ownership of several smaller houses in the Pioneer Square area, and made a brief move into the Spokane film market before abandoning the effort. All the while, however, the lingering animosity between Danz and Musicians’ Local No. 76 remained, until things once flared up again in 1927.

In the early morning hours of April 3^rd, vandals broke into the Roycroft Theatre at 19^th Avenue N.E. and East Roy, on the edge of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, causing an estimated $5,000 in damages. This was no ordinary break-in; nothing of value was taken, but the perpetrators clearly sought to inflict maximum damage. Stink bombs were tossed throughout the house, and both the Roycroft’s electrical boards and house organ were not only smashed, but had acid thrown on them. A hammer had been taken to both projectors, rendering them unusable and suggesting that the vandals knew a thing or two about how to best damage these machines. A knife was used to cut the screen into ribbons, but the piece de resistance was to take the first two reels of the house’s feature film and dump them into a sink in the operator’s room, plug the drain and turn the water on, which ruined the film and flooded the house throughout the night. That, in fact, was how the crime was discovered. When a nearby shopkeeper arrived to open his business on Sunday morning, he noticed water gushing out of the Roycroft, then telephoned manager Joe Bradt to let him know.^[1]

Bradt didn’t have to put too much thought into who may have done this to his theatre – this was clearly the work of union men. The question was, why? Bradt had recently taken over the Roycroft and ran it as a union house, so he shouldn’t have been a target. But his predecessor, who operated the Roycroft as a nonunion house, was none other than John Danz. Were the vandals unaware that the Roycroft had changed hands? Bradt claimed to own the venue outright, but was Danz still involved with the theatre in some way, despite the fact that it had flipped to become a union house? It just wasn’t clear whether the destruction was a mistake or whether Bradt wasn’t forthcoming about his ownership stake in the Roycroft. Either way, to both the manager and the police, the destruction appeared to be the work of union sympathizers. Lending credence to that notion was the fact that there was no obvious signs of a break-in. The interior was completely torn up, which would have taken time to accomplish, but the perpetrators didn’t force their way in. There was no way to confirm, but it was almost as if the culprits had a key to the building.

For as extensive as the damage was to the Roycroft, the vandals only succeeded in demonstrating how the Seattle film community could rally around one of its own. Once discovered, word went out immediately and members of Film Row sprung into action to get the Roycroft back online. B.F. Shearer and workmen from the National Theatre Supply Company came up to assess the damage, offering to repair the damaged projectors and loan the house a new motor generator, which had also been damaged. The Roycroft’s screen was taken down and the back wall painted white – a temporary solution until a new screen could be installed. Others mobilized to clean the water and odor damage, and the exchange secured a new print to replace the film that had been ruined. All told, the Roycroft was only closed for about five hours, though repairs to the venue would continue for several weeks.

Labor officials, of course, disclaimed any responsibility for the attack, asserting that their membership would never stoop to property destruction. That was standard procedure; the Roycroft wasn’t the first Seattle theatre to be vandalized at night, but police were often stymied unless there was a significant break in the case. The motive may have been clear, but identifying the guilty parties was not. Still, something was up. The Roycroft’s union projectionist turned up for work on Sunday as expected, but the house organist did not, allegedly because the musicians’ union informed him that morning that the theatre had been removed from the list of approved houses. That decision had apparently been made by the operators’ union, though the Roycroft’s projectionist hadn’t yet been notified; the musicians were simply following the operators’ lead. But what prompted the operators’ union to make that call?

The local trade paper Motion Picture Record was incensed by the break-in and didn’t mince words in their next issue, leading with an editorial titled “Hanging Would Be Too Good for the Vandals Who Wrecked Roycroft Theatre.” And they kept that line of thinking for their local column “Newsy Shorts for the Week,” expressing the anger felt throughout film circles over the incident.

Fellows on Film Row who have heretofore denounced the South for its lynchings are not so sure now that such tactics are not necessary to cope with certain conditions. If the Row could have laid hands on one end of a rope, the other end of which was strong around the neck of the party guilty of the destruction of the Roycroft Theatre, there’d have been a real old Southern ‘neck-tie’ party in Seattle. We’d favor some of the purported Chinese methods of eye-gouging, finger-nail pulling and a few other choice tortures before finishing off the job with the rope and tall tree!^[2]

Eventually the Washington Motion Picture Theatre Owner’s association offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in the Roycroft incident, which was the latest in a series of similar break-ins at Puget Sound movie houses. These included damage inflicted on the Gem, State, Palace and Madison Theatres in Seattle, the Renton Theatre and the Victory in Tacoma.^[3]

In each case, difficulties between management and union labor preceded the incidents, so there appeared to be a pattern. And that’s how it continued through 1927 – a steady string of (mostly) minor incidents that demonstrated increasing tensions between labor and management within local exhibition circles.

All that changed in 1928. At 1 a.m. on the morning of January 14^th, in an alleyway near Second and Spring in downtown Seattle, a bomb detonated underneath the fire escape of the Palace Hip Theatre. The blast was a large one, causing an estimated $7,000 worth of damage, and blew out windows as far as 300 feet away, mangling a set of metal stairs and cracking an interior wall of the venue.

At first wasn’t clear that the theatre had been a target. Police arrived on scene assuming they were responding to a gas explosion, since a heating company was located on the opposite side of the alleyway. Bomb fragments recovered from the scene, however, told a different story. After a portion of fuse was discovered in the debris, police sent the evidence to a local powder manufacturer to determine its origin – anything that would bring them closer to the bomber’s identity.^[4]

The problem with the Palace Hip incident was that police could neither identify a suspect nor a motive, so after some initial leads failed pan out they were left to wonder why it occurred. Initially management at the Palace Hip didn’t think they had been targeted, even though the house was recently designated as “unfair” by local labor. But, it was also true that John Danz’s holding company, Sterling Theatres, had recently moved out of their offices in the Capitol Theatre to more spacious quarters above the Palace Hip, so the blast may have been targeted at him. Still, however, there was nothing to suggest that this was anything more than an isolated incident.

Two weeks later the Palace Hip bombing came into sharper focus. That’s because the venue was hit a second time, on January 31^st, when a makeshift bomb was tossed inside the theatre at 12:40 p.m., well after the last show of the evening. This bomb was small, homemade and not nearly as powerful as the first. The damage was minimal, but the culprit(s) took advantage of an unlocked side door to come inside and toss the bomb into a space underneath the stage. Two janitors were in the building at the time, though neither were hurt in the incident.^[5]

If there was any question about whether the Palace Hip had been a target on January 14^th, the second blast seemed to confirm that it was. But again, no one saw anything, and there wasn’t a clear motive – just speculation.

Then, in the morning hours of March 15^th, the steel back door of the State Theatre, located at First and Madison, was blown off its hinges by a nitroglycerin bomb. Like the original Palace Hip blast, the explosion shattered windows along the alleyway behind the State, including many at the Palace Hotel, located immediately next to the theatre.

Three explosions, late at night, involving two different theatres, over the span of two months. And all of them at venues operated by John Danz.

Police may have had their suspicions about these bombings, but looked quietly for additional proof. Trouble was, they didn’t have any solid evidence in this or the other bombing cases, even though several hotel guests told a variety of stories on what was allegedly occurring in the alleyway behind the State that evening. Again, no suspects were identified and no arrests were made.

The police were being cautious in their approach, but not John Danz, who didn’t bother waiting for an investigation to tell him what he already knew. “‘This explosion is only one of a series directed against my properties in the last six years,’” he told the Daily Times shortly after the incident at the State. “‘…[A]lthough I am sure I know the persons responsible I cannot name them publicly because I have no tangible proof.’”^[6]

But Danz left little doubt about his suspicions, telling the Post-Intelligencer “‘[w]hen whoever is doing it quits bombing my theatres, I may decide to sit down to the table with the Seattle Musicians’ Union and talk over our differences – but I’ll never do it before.’”^[7]

Police and fire officials estimated that the damage in and around the State was less it had been at the Palace Hip – just a loss of $500 between the theatre and the Palace Hotel. But none of that mattered to Danz; he had had enough, and announced that he would be stationing armed guards at all his theatre holdings, effective immediately.

As a defiant John Danz threw down the gauntlet, union activists weren’t fazed in the least. Less than a week after the State Theatre was bombed, 22-year-old Arthur Campbell was arrested at the Embassy Theatre at Third and Union, a house run by Danz’s brother Joseph, for placing a “tear bomb” in the auditorium. Witnesses that evening observed Campbell take the device out of his jacket, place it on the floor of the Embassy and walk away, after which a noxious gas filled the theatre and drove patrons into the street.^[8]

Campbell was arrested and pleaded not guilty to the charges, but he had two elements going against him. One was the fact that he set off a “bomb” (there wasn’t an actual explosion) at a Seattle movie theatre at a time when there were other bombing incidents occurring in the city. The second was a real bomb that was heaved at the Embassy just a week after Campbell was arrested.

Running as an all-night theatre, at 3:50 a.m. on the morning of March 28^th, a blast rocked the Union Street entrance of the Embassy which, at the time, wasn’t being used.  (The Embassy was unique in that the venue, located at the corner of Third and Union, had a separate box office and entrance on each street.) Despite the late hour, there were witnesses who could describe what occurred. A light-colored vehicle pulled up at the Union Street entrance, pausing briefly so someone could throw what was described as a “pineapple bomb” toward the entrance. The bomb-thrower rather hastily tossed the explosive, after which the vehicle zipped down Union, turned and sped away on Second Avenue. No one was hurt when the bomb detonated, although a pair of employees inside the theatre were close enough to the blast that they were thrown to the ground. The Embassy was largely unscathed – most of the damage impacted a market next to the theatre and not the venue itself.^[9]

It was barely three months into 1928, and the bombing situation in Seattle was now quite serious. “‘Persons who throw bombs in front of theatres or other buildings are potential murderers,’” exclaimed Seattle Fire Chief George M. Mantor. Seattle police were no less concerned. In the wake of the Embassy bombing, Captain Charles Tennant was put in charge of a new “bomb squad” at the department, bringing two full-time and two part-time men with him to work the Palace Hip, State and Embassy cases. The squad would continue their work as long as necessary, Tennant asserted, while making the less-than-menacing announcement that “[y]ou don’t catch crooks with brass bands…”^[10]

Indeed, Captain Tennant, you don’t.

Of course, despite concern over these bombing incidents the police still didn’t have anything solid about who was committing them or why. Which is probably why the bombings didn’t stop.

In the early morning hours of April 23^rd, barely a month after the previous incident, the Embassy was hit again. This one had the makings of a do-over – same target, better execution. Again, the bomb was thrown at the Union Street entrance, but this time it was tossed onto the steel canopy above the box office. That canopy was mangled in the blast and several windows on the Embassy building were shattered. But the big loser, again, was the small market next to the Embassy’s Union Street entrance. Its wooden front door was thoroughly splintered, and the windows that had been replaced only three weeks earlier were again blown to pieces.

The Motion Picture Theatre Owner’s Association put up a $2,500 reward for the capture and conviction of the bomber, but this time authorities had a strong lead in the case. On the evening in question, April 23^rd, shortly before the bombing took place, a vehicle was parked in an alleyway near the Embassy. The car wasn’t supposed to be there, and it aroused the interest of patrolman Wally Peterson due to the heightened attention around local theatres. No one was in the car, but Officer Peterson took the license plate down just in case. When the second Embassy blast occurred later that evening, Peterson remembered the vehicle and went to instigate, discovering that the car was no longer there.

In less than an hour police traced the vehicle to 29-year-old Thomas J. Woodhouse, who lived at 1122 Market Street in Ballard. When confronted, Woodhouse admitted that the car was his, but denied any connection to the incident at the Embassy. His vehicle was in the alleyway only because that’s where he found available parking; Woodhouse had come downtown to take in a picture at the Capitol Theatre (ironically, a John Danz house), another all-night venue a block up from the Embassy.

Or, that was his story. Woodhouse was hard-pressed to recall what film was playing at the Capitol, despite having just seen it. His car was also very warm to the touch, which indicated to police that it had been run for a good period or at a high rate of speed. At the very least, in their opinion, the car was warmer than it would have been if Woodhouse was casually driving from downtown back to his home in Ballard.

It didn’t take long for Thomas Woodhouse’s story to fall apart. He told police that he left a friend’s house at 10:30 p.m. to attend the Capitol show, and was back in bed within four hours. But that same friend told officers that Woodhouse didn’t leave his home until 1:30 a.m. before going downtown. On top of this, a witness claimed that a car matching Woodhouse’s was seen passing in front of the Embassy just minutes before the explosion occurred.

This was the first real lead Seattle police had with respect to any of the recent theatre bombings, and they weren’t about to let it get away. Thomas Woodhouse was taken into custody and his vehicle impounded. A few days later he was freed on $4,000 bail.^[11]

The arrest of Thomas Woodhouse and, earlier, Arthur Campbell, seemed to indicate that local authorities were close to ending the bombing spree that hit Danz-owned theatres in early 1928. Unfortunately, they were wrong.

By Eric L. Flom – November 2025

Notes:

[1] “Vandal Causes $5,000 Damage to Theatre,” Seattle Daily Times, 4 April 1927, Page 2; “Vandals Wreck Roycroft Theatre, Suburban House, Seattle,” Motion Picture Record, 9 April 1927, Page 5; and “Northwest,” Moving Picture World, 2 May 1927, Page 841.
[2] “Seattle,” Motion Picture Record, 9 April 1927, Page 15.
[3] “Washington MPTO Offers $1000 Reward for Stink-Bomb Throwers and Other Vandals,” Motion Picture Record, 16 April 1927, Page 5.
[4] See “7,000 Loss in Blast at Palace-Hip Playhouse,” Seattle Daily Times, 14 January 1928, Page 1; “Seattle Bomber is Sought by Police,” Seattle Daily Times, 15 January 1928, Page 15; “Police Think Bomb Aimed at Theatre,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 15 January 1928, Page 6; “Alley Bomb Quiz Fizzles,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 16 January 1928, Page 5; and “Seattle,” Motion Picture Record, 21 January 1928, Page 8.
[5] “Bomb Exploded in Palace Hip,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 31 January 1928, Page 1.
[6] See “Guests Run From Rooms as Windows are Blasted,” Seattle Daily Times, 15 March 1928, Pages 1 and 5; and “Police are Continuing Bombing Investigations,” Seattle Daily Times, 16 March 1928, Page 23.
[7] John Danz, as quoted in “Bombs Defied by John Danz,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 16 March 1928, Page 17.
[8] “Man Accused of Using Tear Bomb in Theatre,” Seattle Daily Times, 20 March 1928, Page 8. The incident wasn’t an uncommon one, and wasn’t confined to metropolitan theatres, either. About a year after the incident at Seattle’s Embassy Theatre, Thomas Ramsey of Centralia was arrested for setting off three similar devices on a single evening at two different theatres, one in Longview and the other in Kelso. (See “Centralia Man is Held as Suspect in Team Bomb Case,” Seattle Daily Times, 30 April 1929, Page 20.)
[9] “Explosive Hurled at Film House from Auto,” Seattle Daily Times, 28 March 1928, Page 1.
[10] “Police, Firemen Join in Hunt for Bomber,” Seattle Daily Times, 29 March 1928, Page 5; see also “Police Hunt Bombers for Theatre Raid,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 29 March 1928, Page 6; and “Secret Squad Hunts Bombers of 3 Theatres,” Seattle Daily Times, 5 April 1928, Page 20.
[11] See “Police Hot on Trail After New Explosion,” Seattle Daily Times, 23 April 1928, Pages 1 and 2; “Alibi of Man in Theatre-Bomb Net Disproved,” Seattle Daily Times, 24 April 1928, Page 1; “Theatre Bomb Suspect is Free on [$]4,000 Bail,” Seattle Daily Times, 27, April 1928, Page 4; and “Seattle,” Motion Picture Record, 28 April 1928, Page 7.