Description: Temple of Amusement and Mountain State side by side at portside landing near the base of a stone pier for the railroad bridge over Kanawha River, just above Enterprise Drydock, Pt. Pleasant, West Virginia. Viewed about 100 feet upstream. The Mountain State was a towboat that often traveled with the E.E. Eisenbarth Floating Theatre and Temple of Amusement. Ellsworth Eugene Eisenbarth was born October 22, 1864, in Ironton, Ohio. The family later moved to Wetzel County, West Virginia. By 1889, Eisenbarth was traveling the mid-Atlantic states in "The Oregon Indian Medicine Show" which featured such entertainment as real cowboys and “Indians.” He next bought a floating store, which he refitted as a showboat and christened "The Eisenbarth Wild West & Floating Opera." The endeavor lasted from 1891 to 1895. By the late 1890s, Eisenbarth and his wife Julia had founded "The Eisenbarth & Henderson Mammoth and Combined Uncle Tom’s Cabin Company" complete with calliope, band and orchestra, which also traveled throughout the middle states by rail. In February of 1900, E.E. and Julia converted a glass barge named the E.V. Poke No. 2 into "The Eisenbarth-Henderson Floating Theatre, Temple of Amusement." This showboat and its successor ("The Eisenbarth-Henderson Floating Theatre-The New Great Modern Temple of Amusement")were devoted to bringing Shakespearean plays and other dramas, such as “Human Hearts” to the waterways. Eisenbarth also worked with a traveling company of players, perhaps to remain off the rivers during the winter months. The Temple cleared more money than almost any other boat on the Ohio River, even though it only played four nights a week and never on Sunday. Julia Eisenbarth died on November 30, 1906, and E.E. remarried in 1908 to Jennie Salina Brown. In 1909, he presented his last show on a riverboat, “The Castle.” He sold The Temple showboat to the Needham-Steiner Amusement Company that year, and although he made bids on other boats, these proved unsuccessful and The Temple ended up being his last showboat. E. E. Eisenbarth died on July 17, 1925 and was buried next to his first wife in Williams Cemetery in New Martinsville, West Virginia. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL07588
Subjects: Cultural Ohio--Popular Culture; Showboats; Ohio River; Traveling shows; Theater--Ohio; Boats
Places: Kanawha River (West Virginia)