K.C. Lee: A Retrospective by a Grandson
George Sharp

Copyright 2000
International Standard Book Number: 0-9619105-2-6
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00-190502

Granddad was a gentle man, but at the same time he was curious. It was natural for him to gravitate, as soon as he had completed his chores at home or in his father’s blacksmith shop, to the Reppelier House hotel to watch the arrival of the stage coach and study the people who climbed down from the stage after their long bumpy ride on the Centre Turnpike from Reading to Pottsville to Ashland. They were people involved in the new mining ventures along the anthracite coal veins. Or they could be engineers employed in laying the new railroad spur from Gordon, through Ashland to Mahanoy City.

And it was just as natural for him, as a young businessman, to be among the first to bring motion pictures to his town. He was but a boy when he saw that the villagers would be ready customers for entertainment. He made it his business to meet entertainers when they came to the hotel on their overnight stop between performances at Pottsville and Sunbury.

The third floor of the hotel was a large hall where local lodge meetings were held – a grand place where singers, dancers, magicians and jugglers could put on shows. Kimber Lee, talking to one such magician, proposed that he could sell tickets to townspeople for a small admission price. Thus, a performance could pay the magician’s hotel bill. Anything earned beyond that, K. C. Lee and the magician could split, and the residents of Ashland would enjoy an evening being entertained. The plan met with success, and K. C. Lee routinely interviewed each traveling troupe as it arrived.