William Hamm

William Hamm was a millionaire brewing mogul (of Hamm’s Brewing) and the owner of the Majestic, Gem, and Alhambra theaters in Saint Paul when he teamed up with Finkelstein & Ruben in 1918 to raise capital for their purchase of Minneapolis’s Strand Theater. According to David Kenny in Twin Cities Picture Show: A Century of Moviegoing (Saint Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society, 2007):

That experience led to the creation of a new partnership, the Twin City Amusement Trust Estate, which was controlled jointly by Finkelstein, Ruben, and Hamm. The estate financed the construction of the Capitol Theater (which actually was just part of a larger structure called the Hamm Building) and a second picture palace, the 2,00-seat State Theater on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis.

Hamm died on June 10, 1931.