On December 14, 1924, former Hollywood film producer Harvey C. Weaver welcomes local officials and prominent citizens to his new Tacoma studio to introduce his new movie production firm. Beginning at 2 p.m., the guests hear speeches by Washington Gov. Louis Folwell Hart, Major Everett Griggs (the head of the St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Co.), Dr. Hinton D. Jouez, and D. I. Cornell (president of the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce). Next, one of the investors in the studio, General James M. Ashton – who was once an unsuccessful local candidate for the U.S. Senate – introduces Weaver, the studio’s president and general manager. Adding to the pomp and gaiety is a musical performance by an orchestra, plus the gift to each attendee of souvenir photographs of the facility.
State of the Art
The H. C. Weaver Productions firm was incorporated in June 1924 and had easily attracted several local businessmen as investors. The studio itself had been rapidly built on a 5.5-acre parcel (at 1600 Titlow Road) near Tacoma’s Titlow Beach, which had been donated by supportive locals, and the materials for its construction was also donated, most likely by Griggs's lumber company.
The state-of-the-art film (or, "photoplay") production facility – built by the Albertson, Cornell Bros. & Walsh construction firm at a cost of $50,000 – consisted of two main buildings: an administration office and the larger studio, including a concrete film-reel storage vault. That administration building contained executive offices, presumably for at least some of the officials that early publicity associated with the company, including Harvey C. Weaver, Harry K. Dunham (VP & production manager), Gaston Lance (art director), J. Maxwell (secretary-treasurer), Lloyd Ingraham (director, 1925), W. D. E. Anderson (director, 1925), W. R. Lee (director), and A. D. Bjornstadt (auditor, 1926). It also included a projection room, as well as 15 dressing rooms for actors and extras.
Next door, the production studio itself reportedly measured 105 by 180 feet in size, and featured a soaring 52-foot-high ceiling, which Weaver and company boasted was Northwest’s largest building without obstructive support pillars to get in the way, making it "the third-largest freestanding film production space in America" (silentera.com). The stage itself was large enough to mount interior scenes as well as outdoor scenery sets.
To keep the place warm, two furnace rooms were built at the far ends, and because the studio was windowless in order to control lighting levels, an advanced electrical lighting system was installed. The facility had a darkroom-laboratory for developing nitrate film, and the technical ability to add titling and dialogue text to their audio-free silent films.
A short-lived operation, Weaver’s studio produced only three feature films before the silent-movie era came to a sudden end with the emergence in late-1927 of "talkies" – films that would forthwith include recorded audio of dialogue and/or sound effects or a backing musical score. The H. C. Weaver Productions Company’s three Northwestern-themed films, each featuring Hollywood stars, were Hearts and Fists (1926), Eyes of the Totem (1927) and Heart of the Yukon (1927).
