Len Metcalfe
Len Metcalfe rented a house at 303 Main Street in Whitehorse in 1940. He was anticipating his upcoming marriage with Eleanor Phinny. The house was rented from the wife of a riverboat captain who had moved away, and Len bought the house in 1940 or 1941, a few months after his marriage. There was a shored basement with a wood-burning furnace under the front part of the house and Len built a kitchen and bathroom on the back of the house. The kitchen had an oil-burning stove with four burners and a warming oven under the regular oven.1)
Len Metcalfe was a photographer with a large collection of slides and movies, including one of the airport burning in the early 1940s. In the early 1940s, a group of United States servicemen came to Len’s kitchen and he would develop their film in the kitchen.2)
Len had a large workshop at the back of the property where he built everything from furniture to boats. He worked for Taylor and Drury Motors during the war and the servicemen would call on him to get their vehicles started in the winter. The Metcalfe’s sold the house on Main Street to Howard Brunlee in November 1965 when the Metcalfes moved to Riverdale.
A man from Dawson bought the lot next door and built the Capitol Theatre around 1942 when Marion Smith, nee Metcalfe’s older brother was a toddler. Smoke used to vent from the basement of the theatre when the card games were on.3) Andy Hooper remembers playing ace-away in many places in Whitehorse, including the basement of the Capitol Theatre. There was big money in the games that attracted George Simmons, T.C. Richards, Old Man [Alex] Seeley, and some Kansas City Bridge Americans.4) In 1946, when Sam McClimon bought a half interest in the Capitol Theatre on Second Avenue, the building had uneven steps and the projector shot its beam of light down the aisle so anyone standing up to go to the lobby had his/her silhouette projected on the screen.5) Len Metcalf was the projectionist on Thursday nights for many years in the 1950s and 1960s.6)