The Old Palo (MI) High School Stage Backdrop

Several years ago we received a call from the Palo Schools that the old Palo High School stage backdrop (photo above and below) was available and in jeopardy of being thrown out, since Palo had no museum or other adequate location to display it.  The information provided was that it had been made and the center scene hand painted by an artist in the mid-1930s, with the cost covered by advertisements from various businesses and other contributors in the surrounding area.  While very old, the stage backdrop is in surprisingly stable condition and has beautiful colorations on the bright blue background.  It is very large (20’ across x 10’ tall), and spans nearly an entire wall at the Historical Museum.

Of particular interest on the backdrop are the various ads, the pastoral country cottage center scene, and especially the ad above the scene noting that the backdrop was “Compliments Facualty of 1936-1937”!  Curiously there was no mention of Palo Schools and the spelling of “Facualty” cannot be found in any dictionary – perhaps a case of a good artist, but a poor speller!  We found the attached newspaper article (below) in some other Palo historical materials, which solves the mystery of who the painter was (Otto Kinsel) and provides some very interesting information about his career as a painter of vaudeville stage settings as well as stage settings for Hollywood Warner Brothers’ early silent movies!  He was also a chiropractor, a realtor, restaurant owner and had many other interests (e.g., playing bit parts in Hollywood, playing the violin in the pit orchestras at theatres, building early house cars/motorhomes, and traveling across the country).

Of the thirty-one ads on the backdrop, how many of the advertisers do you remember?  We remember about one-third of them, including three (Ionia State Savings Bank/now Independent Bank, Ionia County National Bank/now Mercantile Bank, and Fuller Furniture/same name and still at the same Main Street location in Ionia) that remain in existence today. The ads are interesting too, including some very old telephone numbers!