By Steve Crum

NOTE: All illustrations are copied from The Kansas City Times & The Kansas City Star, and accompanied the preview stories and reviews.

Al Jolson’s tenure with Lew Dockstader’s Minstrels began Aug. 10, 1908. A couple of months after the troupe began their national circuit tour, they stopped at Kansas City’s Grand Opera House, from Oct. 18-24.  Notice the display ad touting its “$25,000 production.” The minstrels are listed as “Corkers.” I found it interesting that the long forgotten Neil O’Brien gets top billing over Jolson. (Notice Neil O’Brien’s image in the advance story at left.) Still, Jolson’s name is in larger typeface than the rest of the company. Interesting also is that the Oct. 17 advance advertisement is placed next to an ad for the “mighty” play, “Ben-Hur.” 

Here is how KC’s newspaper promoted it:

Lew Dockstader has something really new this season. The usual first part has been abandoned in favor of the Possum Hunt club. When the curtain rises the members of the club are in social session, which means jokes, singing and dancing. During the session the president of the club calls attention to the fact that the white man has failed to reach the North pole, and suggests that the colored race make the attempt. The motion is carried and Lew Dockstader is appointed chief explorer. This theme is carried through the entire entertainment and the finale of the show pictures the Arctic regions with the aurora borealis as a frame for Dockstader a la Roosevelt, triumphantly holding the North pole in one hand. A mammoth polar bear is in meek submission at his feet, while the great iceberg on which the explorers ride rocks to and fro. 

In the list of comedians and end men with Dockstader this year are Neil O’Brien, who has a new absurdity entitled “The House of Rest,” Al Jolson, Eddie Mazier, Pete Detzel, John Daly and Tommy Hyde. The singing strength of the organization contains Will Oakland, W.H. Thompson, Herbert Willison, James Bradley, George M. Vail, Master Pierce Keegan and a choir of twenty. Dockstader’s individual offering is a portrayal of W.H. Taft, who goes campaigning in a submarine boat. Dockstader shares in “Boo Hoo Land,” also a spectacular number in which Dockstader and a companion fall from an airship and land among cannibals on an island in some far away sea.

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A year later, May 22 & 23, 1909, Dockstader’s Minstrels returned to KC with their 70 minstrels. Love that ad wherein a Boston Herald critic states: “WHEN YOU GO TO HEAR LEW DOCKSTADER’S MINSTRELS, DON’T WEAR TIGHT CLOTHES.” The show must have had some seam-busting laughs. According to an advance blurb, Al Jolson leads the performers in “a new absurdity entitled, ‘The House of Rest.’”

The Kansas City Times preview story:

Lew Dockstader and his minstrels will be the last attraction at the Grand Opera house this season. Dockstader was at the Grand last October, and the warmth of the public’s welcome then is the inducement for return so soon. Those who saw the Dockstader show last fall know how much fun it contained; those who did not see it then may be interested in knowing that the company number seventy people, including Neil O’Brien, Al Jolson, Eddie Mazier, Pete Detzel, John Daly, Tommy Hyde and a corps of twenty singers, among whom are W. H. Thompson, George M. Vail, Herbert Willison, Wilson Miller, James Bradley and Master Pierce Keegan, with Will H. Hallett as interlocutor. 

The introductory part presents the Possum Hunt club, a colored organization. in social session, during which the club decides to send Dockstader at the head of an exploring expedition to accomplish what the white man has failed in, namely, the discovery of the North Pole. and this theme is carried throughout the performance.

Neil O’Brien presents a new sketch called “The House of Rest,” said to be even funnier than his street car act of the past. Dockstader has added William H. Taft to his list of famous caricatures of great men. The finale of the evening show Dockstader, made up a la Roosevelt, captor of the North Pole, which he has under his arm, and leading a great Polar bear.

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A few months later, the Dockstader Minstrels returned to KC. It was during the week of Oct. 11, 1909 when this brief preview blurb ran in the local newspaper:

Lew Dockstader has turned aviator and is using an aeroplane for his chief specialty this season. Al Jolson and Neil O’Brien also have new stunts, all of which will be shown at the Shubert this week, beginning tonight. The change from the Grand Opera House to the Shubert is due to the fact that Dockstader now is under the booking agency of the Shubert independents. The Dockstader show is said to be the largest and most expensive the minstrel man has ever had. 

A separate blurb:

At the theaters this week is a diversified line of attractions ranging from minstrelsy to extravaganza. Lew Dockstader is at the Shubert Theater with his black face company, which includes Al Jolson, Eddie Mazier, Neil O’Brien and Peter Detzel in a new feature–a frolic of the Aero Possum Club. There are many good songs.

SEE Part III of THE KANSAS CITY JOLSON STORY, covering Al Jolson’s transition to a Single Vaudeville Act. You ain’t read nothin’ yet!