The Barns-Sunflower Theatre was erected for Arnold Berns (born 1878, died 1965). Of German ancestry, Berns moved to Peabody from Hanover, Kansas, in 1899. He was accompanied by his father, Jacob, and his mother, Mary. The following year, his sisters Rose and Elizabeth also arrived in Peabody. Jacob and Arnold Berns formed the Berns company, dealers in grain and coal. In addition, they were involved in the cattle business (Peabody Museum, Archive File, Berns, Arnold 1183). By 1910, Arnold's land holdings including grazing lands in Marion, Butler, Chase, Clark, and Meade counties. Arnold was president of the Kansas Livestock Association in 1927 and 1928. During the Hoover Administration, Arnold was agricultural representative for the Reconstruction Finance corporation for the Tenth Federal Reserve District.

On 28 June 1905, he married Marion Hanson. Hanson, born in Beverly, Massachusetts (13 July 1879) moved from Burlington, Vermont, in 1899, to a farm near Peabody with her family after the financial depression of 1893 adversely affected her father's shoe factory. Arnold and his wife resided at 404 North Walnut for 60 years. They had four children: Dorothy Berns Olin (1906), Arnold Berns, Jr. (1909), Lucille Beverly Herschman (1912), and John W. Barns (1918).

Construction of the brick, terra cotta tile, and reinforced steel Berns-Sunflower Theatre began in the summer of 1919, during the oil boom, on lots 42 and 44 Walnut Street East. The structure replaced three other buildings that were demolished to make room for the new Art-Deco edifice. Designed by Kansas City architects, the Boler Brothers, the Scott Brothers of Concordia, constructed the theatre (Gazette, 29 June 1919, 29 February 1920). The building was erected quickly because of the common walls of the adjacent buildings to the north and south, and because three or four gangs of workmen were employed for the construction of the edifice (Gazette, 19 June, 21 August, 30 October 1919). As the exterior neared completion, roofers, plumbers, and carpenters went about their tasks. The name of the building, "SUNFLOWER THEATRE," was displayed in terra cotta squares near the top of the theatre.

The structure was designed with a lobby and business rooms on the first and second floors. Access to the stores were through separate entrances located along the north and south of the main facade. Access to the theatre lobby was gained by a center entrance along the main facade. Arnold Berns, the owner, leased the theatre portion of the building to J. P. Barkwill of El Dorado.

A variety of tenants established their business practices in the building. Jeweler E. E. Gorsune, previously of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Ellinwood, Kansas, spent several thousand dollars furnishing the stores on the ground level on each side of the theatre After equipping the north side for a music store and the south as a jewelry store with "mahogany cases (that) would grace Petticoat Lane in Kansas City," Gorsline opened his jewelry store for business. Among other early business people operating from the building were doctors Appleby, Brakebill, and Conner who had a large reception room and examining rooms on the second floor (Gazette, 19 June 1919). During the late 1920s Chet McMillan opened a haberdashery in the south room of the building, L. H. Stroud, a jeweler previously located in the building on lot 49, moved to the Berns-Sunflower Theatre Building. Optometrist J.C. Haupt, also previously of lot 49, relocated to the north store in the theatre building.

According to Barkwell, the theatre was undoubtedly the best of its kind in the United States for communities the size of Peabody (Gazette, 10 July 1919). He expected the motion picture magazines of the day to give a positive accounting of the facility. Locally, the newspaper credited the building as the most advanced in Marion and Sedgwick counties (Gazette, 26 February 1920). The theatre opened in March 1920, with Berns donating the proceeds from the first run to the Peabody Chapter of the American Legion (Gazette, 26 February 1920). A fireproof projection room was constructed of metal laths. Two large simplex machines were installed for continuous viewing of a movie so that patrons were not inconvenienced by the need to change reels on a single projector, as was the practice in some small theaters.

The interior walls of the theatre were plastered and than painted several months later to allow sufficient time for the plaster to cure properly. Ivory was used to decorate the walls and ceiling and a Tiffany blend for the panels on the side walls. Both direct and indirect lighting was used. The indirect lights, that remained lit during the movies, were located in brackets on the side walls. The (nonextant) cushioned theater seats cost approximately $7,000 (Gazette, 31 July 1919) with the end chairs of each row depicting a sunflower emblem. (The only known existing theater seat is currently in storage for a Main Street Memorabilia Auction fund raising event.) The first floor seated 734 while The balcony held more than 100. The curtains and scenery were drops of the most modern type of the time. The width of the stage was twenty-eight feet by twenty feet deep, large enough for legitimate dramatic or road show performances. Four scenery drops were available. The main curtain was a copy of Sir Edward J. Poytner's "The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon's Temple"  (Gazette, 26 February 1920). It was inspired by the original work of art owned by The Art Gallery in New Zealand.

The heating system included forced air for the theatre portion and hot water heat for the upstairs rooms and store rooms in the front. The ventilating system included sixty-inch centrifugal fans with five-horse-power electrical motors that helped distribute the heated air in winter and cool the facility in summer. During the hottest months, a forty-eight inch exhaust fan was activated to help draw "an entire change of air every twenty minutes" (Gazette, 26 February 1920).

The Sunflower Theatre remained in operation until. the 1950s when television began to have a major impact on second-run movie houses. For several years the building remained vacant. In the 1960s, the function of the structure changed to that of the Peabody Lanes, a bowling alley. The interior was stripped of its original furnishings, the floor was leveled, and the exterior facade altered. The building still functions as a bowling alley.   Information provided by Koni Jones - City Of Peabody, Kansas 

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