If this was the only theater on the 1913 Sanborn of West Union it must have been the Royal, a house whose proprietor, G. W. Batemen, had just installed a new screen, projector, and seats, according to the December 13 issue of Moving Picture World.
Apparently Mr. Kramer did manage to get the Winfield Theatre reopened in 1954, with the announcement appearing in the March 15 issue of Boxoffice. The house would be open three nights a week. Local businesses subscribed to each buy two adult tickets a week for one year, and additionally had given away 60 tickets for the first show under the new management. The house was still in in operation in 1955 when the April 16 Boxoffice reported that Kramer planned to continue a program of free movies on Wednesday nights sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. I haven’t found any later items about the Winfield.
There could have been an afterlife for this theater. The February 27, 1954 issue of Boxoffice had a brief article saying that E. J. Kramer of Burlington, Iowa, ad bought the theater equipment from the Allens and leased the Winfield Theatre building from the Pratt Brothers for three years and planned to reopen the house in March.
I haven’t found anything to confirm that Mr. Kramer, who had the backing of the local Chamber of Commerce, was able to fulfill his plans, though it seems to me his timing could hardly have been worse. wide screen equipment was about to become essential for theaters, and that would have been an enormous expense, yet had it not been made I don’t see how the house could have survived three year with a dwindling, then nonexistent, supply of new movies.
The October 2, 1933 issue of Film Daily reveals another aka for this house: “Elroy, Wis. — The Majestic has been renamed the Juneau and is now being operated by Edmund Mohns and Donald Wilcox.”
Yet another name was presented in the issue of April 9, 1934: “Elroy, Wis. — The Juneau theater has been renamed the Star and is now being operated by J. Eskin.”
This name might have been used only briefly, though, as the May 28 issue had this item: “ELROY—Star (formerly Juneau), transferred to Elroy Theater, Inc. by A. A. Suczycki.”
An October, 1914 Sanborn map of Elroy shows a “Motion Picture Theatre” on the second floor of a building at the southeast corner of Main and Franklin streets (modern address 140 Main Street.) As it is upstairs, I suspect that it was an existing hall converted to show movies, and was probably the Opera House that was listed in a 1911 Polk directory of Wisconsin businesses. The Opera House was also the only theater listed at Elroy in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
While the Sanborn map proves a theater was at this location in 1914, the 1926 FDY lists the Majestic with 329 seats, and I doubt that this small structure could have held half that many. It might be that the Majestic began in the Opera house in 1914 but later found larger quarters. Or the FDY might have just gotten the capacity wrong.
The 1913 Cahn guide lists the Phillips Opera House as a ground floor theater (the earlier opera house was also owned by and named for Mr. Phillips– Cahn guides, 1897-98, 1898-99.) One thing that troubles me is that the Sanborn map of the building at 8 N. Frederick doesn’t show a balcony, as Sanborn maps invariably (as far as I know) did when such existed. The Cahn guide lists a balcony, gallery and boxes for the opera house. If this fairly large opera house existed in 1913, why isn’t it on the 1914 Sanborn? It could have burned down, of course, but I’ve found no evidence that such a thing happened.
I do think it far more likely that the Cahn guide would list a theater that wasn’t actually there, or wasn’t as described, than that the Sanborn map would miss a building that actually was there, or would fail to note features as significant as a balcony, gallery and boxes. In fact the latter seems near impossible while the former wouldn’t surprise me at all. All I can think of is that either the opera house was destroyed sometime in 1913, or that the original project planned in 1907 was scaled back to the more modest theater that appears on the 1914 Sanborn. At least so far, the latter seems more likely.
Also, a 1912 Iowa business directory lists three theaters at Oelwein: the Lyric, the Orpheum, and the Phillips Opera House. The Orpheum and Opera House might have been the same theater, and I’ve been thinking that the Lyric, which I found mentioned in both 1911 and in December, 1910, might have been an earlier name for the Colonial.
A photo showing part of the Gem Theatre’s front in 1926 can be seen on this page (my mouse has been acting up and I’m unable to do any photo editing with it.) The photo is from the May 8 issue of Universal Weekly.
The November, 1911 issue of Motography had this item about the Gem:
“The Gem theater of Oelwein, operated by Messrs. Preston and O'Brien, has been purchased by Harlan Short and Arthur Dailey, who have had wide experience in the theatrical line and will doubtless meet with success in their new undertaking, as they propose to give their patrons the best.”
That is the earliest mention of the Gem I’ve found so far, and as the house was still listed (with 250 seats) in the 1929 FDY, it had a long run. The Gem was on the FDY’s national list of important first run houses in 1920. In the 1921 FDY, both the Gem and the Orpheum made the list.
As the Gem was listed in FDYs from 1926 through 1929 with 250 seats, I’m not sure what to make of the report in the September 1, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World that manager Ted Bryant was remodeling the Gem and planned to add about 400 seats. So ambitious a project probably would have involved taking over all the ground floor space in the building, and extensive reconstruction. As the Grand Theatre with over 800 seats had opened the previous year, it’s likely Mr. Bryant was unable to get financing for his risky project. It’s clear that it was never carried out. I suspect Mr. Bryant of having been on the pipe.
Whether it was at this address or not in 1905, the Dreamland was listed at 10 E. Charles Street in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory (I overlooked the listing before because I was looking at the OCS page, which has some garbled type, not the proper scan where it is quite clear.) In 1911, the May issue of Motography said that the Dreamland had recently been sold to Messrs. W. A. and D. E. Schneider.
To add a bit more confusion, the 1911 edition of the Chicago Daily News Almanac and Year Book contained an ad for the Western Vaudeville Managers Association, and the ad lists a theater at Oelwein, but it’s called the Lyric.
In the 1926 FDY three houses are listed at Oelwein: the 250-seat Gem, the 867-seat Grand, and the 420-seat Orpheum. All three survived into 1929, but only the Grand was listed in 1930. Odds that the Orpheum became the Ritz seem pretty good to me. There is no overlap in their operation, and they were about the same size.
An Opera House at Oelwein is mentioned in Moving Picture World February 20, 1909, when a Mr. J. G. Capron of Waterloo purchased it with the intention of operating it as a vaudeville and movie house. It is mentioned again in the November 13, 1915 issue, when another new owner, A. L. Smith, converted it into a movie theater.
The origin of this opera house might have been in 1907. An item dateline Oelwein in the December 29, 1906 issue of The Improvement Bulletin said that “J. T. and J. W. Ridler will probably erect an opera house in the spring.” The March 21, 1907 issue of the same journal said “Messers. Ridler and Field have a site and are having plans prepared for the proposed opera house.”
A March 30, 1907 item reveals more, and the plans were fairly elaborate. Architect James Cox of Estherville had prepared plans for a three story brick building, 70 x 140 feet. If this particular project got built it should be quite obvious on the Sanborn map. I haven’t found any later notices to indicate if the project was completed, scaled back, or abandoned.
If completed as originally planned it would certainly have accommodated more seats than the 400 in the Ritz. It also failed to getting into the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but the 1912-1913 Cahn guide lists a Phillips Opera House, rather small at about 510 seats including a gallery with 100, and a stage only 18 feet from footlights to the back wall and a proscenium only 10 x 22.
A notice that one George Philips had bought the old Methodist Church at Oelwein and would remodel it for use as a hall appeared in the April 6, 1907 issue of The Improvement Bulletin.
I suppose that might have been it, though a short-lived storefront nickelodeon is probably as likely at that early date. But in researching the opera house I found a projected one in 1906-07 that I think might have become the Ritz.
One early Oelwein movie house was called the Dreamland Theatre, though no house of that name (or on Charles Street) is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The July 12, 1913 Moving Picture World features a photo of a Mr. A. W. McIntosh, who, the caption says, “…commenced his picture exhibiting career eight years ago in the Dreamland Theater, Oelwein, Iowa.” That would have been 1905, so that theater should have shown up on the 1906 map, if it still existed then, and assuming Mr. McIntosh and the caption writer both got their numbers right.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists 31 S. Frederick as the location of the Gem Theatre. There is a lot of overlap in mentions of the Orpheum and Gem in trade journals, so they clearly operated at the same time. Of course that doesn’t preclude them from both having operated in this building at different times, if one or both had operated in more than one location.
The October 16, 1915 Moving Picture World mentions a house in Oelwein called the Colonial, recently purchased by a Paul R. Whitney, formerly of Albert Lea, Minnesota. It might be that the purchase didn’t go through at that time, as the June 10, 1916 issue of Motography also said that the Colonial had recently been purchased by Mr. Whitney, who planned extensive improvements.
A church of that era would be fairly likely to have been designed in a Colonial Revival style, which I think increases the chances that it would have been named the Colonial when it was converted into a theater.
This house should be marked as closed but renovating. This article from the Waverly Newspapers Group, published on September 7, 2022, is the most recent I’ve found, and notes that the project had been awarded some three quarters of a million dollars in tax credits.
A locally formed group called Movie Guys LLC which has owned the building since 2018 is in charge of the project, with plans to develop apartments on the upper floor of the building and a restaurant and a movie theater on the ground floor. The project was delayed by the pandemic, but work got underway again in 2021. I haven’t seen details about the size and configuration of the theater, and there is no information about a completion date for it, but the target for completion of the residential portion of the project is by June, 2024.
The Iowa Historical Society’s documentation for this building says its construction began in 1925 and was completed in 1926. The July 3, 1926 issue of Motion Picture News said that “[p]icture fans of Waverly, Iowa, attended the opening of the new Palace Theatre last week.” The May 8 issue of the same journal had said that the theater’s owner, M. H. Haggerman, a local attorney, would not be actively involved in the theater’s management, but had arranged the outfitting of the house through the Exhibitor’s Supply Company of Omaha.
As noted in an earlier comment, the Palace was renamed the Waverly Theatre in 1937, the year it was remodeled with plans by Mortimer Cleveland. Another remodeling took place in 1972, according to the Historical Society’s site inventory form.
The only evidence I’ve found of the Opera House showing movies is its appearance in a couple of issues of the theater industry trade journal Moving Picture World. The first was in the issue of of November 11, 1916. The item, datelined Waverly, Iowa, said “Messers. Plough and Bennett, formerly of Minneapolis, now control the opera house here.”
This house was listed under the name Nichols Theatre in at least six editions of the Cahn guides between 1903 and 1911, but not one of them gives the seating capacity of the house. Each does, however, say that “dates should read Nichols Opera House.” H. G. Nichols is listed as manager, but he appears to have been the owner of the building as well. He was mentioned in some historic publications in connection with the automobile business, and as a director of a local bank. His family was among the earliest settlers of the town. The January 5, 1918 issue of Moving Picture World says that he had disposed of his opera house at Waverly to George Moulds of Dayton, Iowa.
The various editions of Polk’s Iowa directory list the theater as the Waverly Opera House, though H. G. Nichols is listed as manager in some of them.
I didn’t phrase my earlier comment very well, so I think it’s been misunderstood. The Palace Theatre listed in the FDY’s starting in 1926 was the one across the street from this house, at 90 Bremer Avenue, built in 1925-26, now called the Waverly Palace Theatre. The Iowa State Historic Society’s Site Inventory Form for that block says that the new theater in that building was called the Palace by the newspapers while it was under construction, so there was plenty of time for the name to be sent to the FDY in time for the 1926 edition. That house was renamed the Waverly Theatre in 1937, noted in the October 4 issue of Film Daily that year.
What the absence of any other theater name than Palace from FDYs during the period 1926-1937 suggests is that when the Bremer opened in (probably) 1937, its building, despite having appeared on the 1915 Sanborn map with the notation “Moving Pictures,” had probably not been used as a theater at least since the Palace had opened across the street in 1926. I suspect that the theater space had simply been returned to retail use until someone converted it back into a theater in 1937.
As for the original name of the house during the period around 1915, the trade journals offer no clue aside from a mention in 1916 of an Opera House at Waverly, which hardly seems a likely name for a narrow storefront conversion such as this house appeared to be. None of the historic issues of the local newspapers are online, so we probably won’t be coming across any ads for it. I think we’ve reached an impasse, unless someone local manages to dig something up, or one of the newspapers gets digitized and put online.
Here is an item about the first Rosendale Community Theatre, from the January 5, 1918 Moving Picture World:
“Pathe Men Saved the Show at Roesendale. [sic]
“Kansas City, Mo.—The Kansas City Pathe office endeared itself recently to the exhibitors at Roesendale, Mo., as well as to the community. A new house costing about $12,000, owned by the business men of the community, and built as a community center, was about to be opened when it was discovered that there was an operator lacking to run the new power-driven machine. The Pathe office, hearing of this misfortune, sent Morton Van Praag, cashier, and Phillip Smith, bookkeeper, to the rescue. The opening of the big house was accomplished according to the prearranged plans, due to the willingness of the Pathe force.”
In early 1918, several theater industry trade journals, including the January 5 issue of Moving Picture World noted that the new Opera House at Rosendale, Missouri, had recently opened.
The April 12, 1924 issue of The Reel Journal said that “[a] stock company is being organized at Rosendale, Mo., to rebuild the opera house recently destroyed by fire.”
In 1938 and 1939, issues of Boxoffice mentioned an E. L. Lewellyn as a visitor to film row in Kansas City, but never gave the name of Mr. Lewellyn’s theater. The 1938 FDY lists a 400-seat house called the Rosendale Theatre, but it is closed. In 1940, FDY lists the 150-seat Airdome, in 1943 and 1945 a 150-seat house called the Community, and in 1947 and 1950 the Airdome is back again, though with 200 seats in 1947 and 220 in 1950. Small as it was (FDY lists the population as 150) Rosendale had movies at least as late as 1950,even if they were outdoors and probably seasonal.
The NRHP registration form for the Erwin Commercial Historic District says that the building partly occupied by the Peerless Theatre was built in 1903-1906 for the Erwin Mills and housed their company store, among other things. It says that the Peerless occupied the eastern portion of the building from very early in its history, but I’ve found no references to it in early trade publications.
If this was the only theater on the 1913 Sanborn of West Union it must have been the Royal, a house whose proprietor, G. W. Batemen, had just installed a new screen, projector, and seats, according to the December 13 issue of Moving Picture World.
Apparently Mr. Kramer did manage to get the Winfield Theatre reopened in 1954, with the announcement appearing in the March 15 issue of Boxoffice. The house would be open three nights a week. Local businesses subscribed to each buy two adult tickets a week for one year, and additionally had given away 60 tickets for the first show under the new management. The house was still in in operation in 1955 when the April 16 Boxoffice reported that Kramer planned to continue a program of free movies on Wednesday nights sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. I haven’t found any later items about the Winfield.
There could have been an afterlife for this theater. The February 27, 1954 issue of Boxoffice had a brief article saying that E. J. Kramer of Burlington, Iowa, ad bought the theater equipment from the Allens and leased the Winfield Theatre building from the Pratt Brothers for three years and planned to reopen the house in March.
I haven’t found anything to confirm that Mr. Kramer, who had the backing of the local Chamber of Commerce, was able to fulfill his plans, though it seems to me his timing could hardly have been worse. wide screen equipment was about to become essential for theaters, and that would have been an enormous expense, yet had it not been made I don’t see how the house could have survived three year with a dwindling, then nonexistent, supply of new movies.
The October 2, 1933 issue of Film Daily reveals another aka for this house: “Elroy, Wis. — The Majestic has been renamed the Juneau and is now being operated by Edmund Mohns and Donald Wilcox.”
Yet another name was presented in the issue of April 9, 1934: “Elroy, Wis. — The Juneau theater has been renamed the Star and is now being operated by J. Eskin.”
This name might have been used only briefly, though, as the May 28 issue had this item: “ELROY—Star (formerly Juneau), transferred to Elroy Theater, Inc. by A. A. Suczycki.”
An October, 1914 Sanborn map of Elroy shows a “Motion Picture Theatre” on the second floor of a building at the southeast corner of Main and Franklin streets (modern address 140 Main Street.) As it is upstairs, I suspect that it was an existing hall converted to show movies, and was probably the Opera House that was listed in a 1911 Polk directory of Wisconsin businesses. The Opera House was also the only theater listed at Elroy in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
While the Sanborn map proves a theater was at this location in 1914, the 1926 FDY lists the Majestic with 329 seats, and I doubt that this small structure could have held half that many. It might be that the Majestic began in the Opera house in 1914 but later found larger quarters. Or the FDY might have just gotten the capacity wrong.
I came across a news report from 1968 saying there had been a major tornado in Oelwein. That might account for its sorry condition today.
The 1913 Cahn guide lists the Phillips Opera House as a ground floor theater (the earlier opera house was also owned by and named for Mr. Phillips– Cahn guides, 1897-98, 1898-99.) One thing that troubles me is that the Sanborn map of the building at 8 N. Frederick doesn’t show a balcony, as Sanborn maps invariably (as far as I know) did when such existed. The Cahn guide lists a balcony, gallery and boxes for the opera house. If this fairly large opera house existed in 1913, why isn’t it on the 1914 Sanborn? It could have burned down, of course, but I’ve found no evidence that such a thing happened.
I do think it far more likely that the Cahn guide would list a theater that wasn’t actually there, or wasn’t as described, than that the Sanborn map would miss a building that actually was there, or would fail to note features as significant as a balcony, gallery and boxes. In fact the latter seems near impossible while the former wouldn’t surprise me at all. All I can think of is that either the opera house was destroyed sometime in 1913, or that the original project planned in 1907 was scaled back to the more modest theater that appears on the 1914 Sanborn. At least so far, the latter seems more likely.
Also, a 1912 Iowa business directory lists three theaters at Oelwein: the Lyric, the Orpheum, and the Phillips Opera House. The Orpheum and Opera House might have been the same theater, and I’ve been thinking that the Lyric, which I found mentioned in both 1911 and in December, 1910, might have been an earlier name for the Colonial.
Okay, I have no idea why my link is not working. Try this one, though you’ll have to embiggen it yourself.
A photo showing part of the Gem Theatre’s front in 1926 can be seen on this page (my mouse has been acting up and I’m unable to do any photo editing with it.) The photo is from the May 8 issue of Universal Weekly.
The November, 1911 issue of Motography had this item about the Gem:
That is the earliest mention of the Gem I’ve found so far, and as the house was still listed (with 250 seats) in the 1929 FDY, it had a long run. The Gem was on the FDY’s national list of important first run houses in 1920. In the 1921 FDY, both the Gem and the Orpheum made the list.As the Gem was listed in FDYs from 1926 through 1929 with 250 seats, I’m not sure what to make of the report in the September 1, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World that manager Ted Bryant was remodeling the Gem and planned to add about 400 seats. So ambitious a project probably would have involved taking over all the ground floor space in the building, and extensive reconstruction. As the Grand Theatre with over 800 seats had opened the previous year, it’s likely Mr. Bryant was unable to get financing for his risky project. It’s clear that it was never carried out. I suspect Mr. Bryant of having been on the pipe.
Whether it was at this address or not in 1905, the Dreamland was listed at 10 E. Charles Street in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory (I overlooked the listing before because I was looking at the OCS page, which has some garbled type, not the proper scan where it is quite clear.) In 1911, the May issue of Motography said that the Dreamland had recently been sold to Messrs. W. A. and D. E. Schneider.
To add a bit more confusion, the 1911 edition of the Chicago Daily News Almanac and Year Book contained an ad for the Western Vaudeville Managers Association, and the ad lists a theater at Oelwein, but it’s called the Lyric.
In the 1926 FDY three houses are listed at Oelwein: the 250-seat Gem, the 867-seat Grand, and the 420-seat Orpheum. All three survived into 1929, but only the Grand was listed in 1930. Odds that the Orpheum became the Ritz seem pretty good to me. There is no overlap in their operation, and they were about the same size.
An Opera House at Oelwein is mentioned in Moving Picture World February 20, 1909, when a Mr. J. G. Capron of Waterloo purchased it with the intention of operating it as a vaudeville and movie house. It is mentioned again in the November 13, 1915 issue, when another new owner, A. L. Smith, converted it into a movie theater.
The origin of this opera house might have been in 1907. An item dateline Oelwein in the December 29, 1906 issue of The Improvement Bulletin said that “J. T. and J. W. Ridler will probably erect an opera house in the spring.” The March 21, 1907 issue of the same journal said “Messers. Ridler and Field have a site and are having plans prepared for the proposed opera house.”
A March 30, 1907 item reveals more, and the plans were fairly elaborate. Architect James Cox of Estherville had prepared plans for a three story brick building, 70 x 140 feet. If this particular project got built it should be quite obvious on the Sanborn map. I haven’t found any later notices to indicate if the project was completed, scaled back, or abandoned.
If completed as originally planned it would certainly have accommodated more seats than the 400 in the Ritz. It also failed to getting into the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but the 1912-1913 Cahn guide lists a Phillips Opera House, rather small at about 510 seats including a gallery with 100, and a stage only 18 feet from footlights to the back wall and a proscenium only 10 x 22.
A notice that one George Philips had bought the old Methodist Church at Oelwein and would remodel it for use as a hall appeared in the April 6, 1907 issue of The Improvement Bulletin.
I suppose that might have been it, though a short-lived storefront nickelodeon is probably as likely at that early date. But in researching the opera house I found a projected one in 1906-07 that I think might have become the Ritz.
One early Oelwein movie house was called the Dreamland Theatre, though no house of that name (or on Charles Street) is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The July 12, 1913 Moving Picture World features a photo of a Mr. A. W. McIntosh, who, the caption says, “…commenced his picture exhibiting career eight years ago in the Dreamland Theater, Oelwein, Iowa.” That would have been 1905, so that theater should have shown up on the 1906 map, if it still existed then, and assuming Mr. McIntosh and the caption writer both got their numbers right.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists 31 S. Frederick as the location of the Gem Theatre. There is a lot of overlap in mentions of the Orpheum and Gem in trade journals, so they clearly operated at the same time. Of course that doesn’t preclude them from both having operated in this building at different times, if one or both had operated in more than one location.
The October 16, 1915 Moving Picture World mentions a house in Oelwein called the Colonial, recently purchased by a Paul R. Whitney, formerly of Albert Lea, Minnesota. It might be that the purchase didn’t go through at that time, as the June 10, 1916 issue of Motography also said that the Colonial had recently been purchased by Mr. Whitney, who planned extensive improvements.
A church of that era would be fairly likely to have been designed in a Colonial Revival style, which I think increases the chances that it would have been named the Colonial when it was converted into a theater.
Damn. I’ve lived in Butte County since 1986 and this is the first I’ve heard of this theater.
This house should be marked as closed but renovating. This article from the Waverly Newspapers Group, published on September 7, 2022, is the most recent I’ve found, and notes that the project had been awarded some three quarters of a million dollars in tax credits.
A locally formed group called Movie Guys LLC which has owned the building since 2018 is in charge of the project, with plans to develop apartments on the upper floor of the building and a restaurant and a movie theater on the ground floor. The project was delayed by the pandemic, but work got underway again in 2021. I haven’t seen details about the size and configuration of the theater, and there is no information about a completion date for it, but the target for completion of the residential portion of the project is by June, 2024.
The Iowa Historical Society’s documentation for this building says its construction began in 1925 and was completed in 1926. The July 3, 1926 issue of Motion Picture News said that “[p]icture fans of Waverly, Iowa, attended the opening of the new Palace Theatre last week.” The May 8 issue of the same journal had said that the theater’s owner, M. H. Haggerman, a local attorney, would not be actively involved in the theater’s management, but had arranged the outfitting of the house through the Exhibitor’s Supply Company of Omaha.
As noted in an earlier comment, the Palace was renamed the Waverly Theatre in 1937, the year it was remodeled with plans by Mortimer Cleveland. Another remodeling took place in 1972, according to the Historical Society’s site inventory form.
The only evidence I’ve found of the Opera House showing movies is its appearance in a couple of issues of the theater industry trade journal Moving Picture World. The first was in the issue of of November 11, 1916. The item, datelined Waverly, Iowa, said “Messers. Plough and Bennett, formerly of Minneapolis, now control the opera house here.”
This house was listed under the name Nichols Theatre in at least six editions of the Cahn guides between 1903 and 1911, but not one of them gives the seating capacity of the house. Each does, however, say that “dates should read Nichols Opera House.” H. G. Nichols is listed as manager, but he appears to have been the owner of the building as well. He was mentioned in some historic publications in connection with the automobile business, and as a director of a local bank. His family was among the earliest settlers of the town. The January 5, 1918 issue of Moving Picture World says that he had disposed of his opera house at Waverly to George Moulds of Dayton, Iowa.
The various editions of Polk’s Iowa directory list the theater as the Waverly Opera House, though H. G. Nichols is listed as manager in some of them.
I didn’t phrase my earlier comment very well, so I think it’s been misunderstood. The Palace Theatre listed in the FDY’s starting in 1926 was the one across the street from this house, at 90 Bremer Avenue, built in 1925-26, now called the Waverly Palace Theatre. The Iowa State Historic Society’s Site Inventory Form for that block says that the new theater in that building was called the Palace by the newspapers while it was under construction, so there was plenty of time for the name to be sent to the FDY in time for the 1926 edition. That house was renamed the Waverly Theatre in 1937, noted in the October 4 issue of Film Daily that year.
What the absence of any other theater name than Palace from FDYs during the period 1926-1937 suggests is that when the Bremer opened in (probably) 1937, its building, despite having appeared on the 1915 Sanborn map with the notation “Moving Pictures,” had probably not been used as a theater at least since the Palace had opened across the street in 1926. I suspect that the theater space had simply been returned to retail use until someone converted it back into a theater in 1937.
As for the original name of the house during the period around 1915, the trade journals offer no clue aside from a mention in 1916 of an Opera House at Waverly, which hardly seems a likely name for a narrow storefront conversion such as this house appeared to be. None of the historic issues of the local newspapers are online, so we probably won’t be coming across any ads for it. I think we’ve reached an impasse, unless someone local manages to dig something up, or one of the newspapers gets digitized and put online.
Here is an item about the first Rosendale Community Theatre, from the January 5, 1918 Moving Picture World:
In early 1918, several theater industry trade journals, including the January 5 issue of Moving Picture World noted that the new Opera House at Rosendale, Missouri, had recently opened.
The April 12, 1924 issue of The Reel Journal said that “[a] stock company is being organized at Rosendale, Mo., to rebuild the opera house recently destroyed by fire.”
In 1938 and 1939, issues of Boxoffice mentioned an E. L. Lewellyn as a visitor to film row in Kansas City, but never gave the name of Mr. Lewellyn’s theater. The 1938 FDY lists a 400-seat house called the Rosendale Theatre, but it is closed. In 1940, FDY lists the 150-seat Airdome, in 1943 and 1945 a 150-seat house called the Community, and in 1947 and 1950 the Airdome is back again, though with 200 seats in 1947 and 220 in 1950. Small as it was (FDY lists the population as 150) Rosendale had movies at least as late as 1950,even if they were outdoors and probably seasonal.
The NRHP registration form for the Erwin Commercial Historic District says that the building partly occupied by the Peerless Theatre was built in 1903-1906 for the Erwin Mills and housed their company store, among other things. It says that the Peerless occupied the eastern portion of the building from very early in its history, but I’ve found no references to it in early trade publications.