The March 7, 1909, issue of The Improvement Bulletin said that W. H. McElfatrick had designed the new Gaiety Theatre that was to be erected in Minneapolis.
From sometime in 1925 through the first part of 1926, the Lumberg Theatre was called the Ritz Theatre. This web page features a December 19, 1925, ad for the Ritz.
The Wednesday, August 18, 1926, issue of the Niagara Falls Gazette said that the Lumberg Theatre would reopen under its old name the following Sunday as the exclusive home of first-run Paramount films in Niagara Falls. Atlas had closed the house for several weeks to renovate and to upgrade the theater’s mechanical systems.
The June 29, 1928, issue of the Gazette reported that the Lumberg Theatre and an adjoining store building had been razed and would be replaced by a new store for the S. S. Kresge company. The article noted that A. M. Atlas had taken over operation of the Lumberg Theatre in 1925, and had recently disposed of the building. It also noted that the adjacent store building had housed the city’s first storefront movie theater early in the century. It didn’t give that theater’s name, but it had been operated by Benjamin Goodman, who had previously run a restaurant in the space.
A “25 years ago” feature in the July 9, 1941, issue of the Niagara Falls Gazette reveals that the 1916 opening of the Lumberg Theatre cited in my first comment was indeed a reopening after an expansion. “The theater owners had purchased the adjoining store of George B.Clark which permitted the doubling of the auditorium capacity” the article said.
There was also a Lumberg Theatre in Utica. The Lumberg Theatre in Niagara Falls might have had at least one other location besides the one listed in Billboard in 1910, or perhaps the original theater was rebuilt or expanded. This item is from The Moving Picture World of July 15, 1916:
“Barney Lumberg of the Lumberg theater, Utica, and his brother, Harris Lumberg, were Buffalo callers. The Lumberg theater at Niagara Falls will be opened shortly.”
This could have been the 800-seat house listed in the 1927 FDY. Still later there might have been a third location, or a new theater with another name owned by the Lumbergs. This item is from the May 21, 1921 issue of The American Contractor:
“Theater & Stores: $500,000. 1 & 2 sty. 99x208. 3rd St., bet. Niagara & Ferry sts., Niagara Falls. Archt. I. M. Lewis, 503 Congress bldg., Detroit, Mich. Owner H. Lumberg. 36 Falls st., Niagara Falls. Brk. Sketches.”
Cinema Treasures does not currently have a theater listed on 3rd Street between Niagara Street and Ferry Avenue. Google satellite view doesn’t show any buildings fitting the project’s description on that block, either, so if the place was built it has probably been partly or completely demolished.
If the Columbia was the only theater the Bertotti family owned, then the newer house was probably this project built in 1921, noted in an item from the May 21 issue of The American Contractor that year:
“Theater & Storerooms (2): 1 sty. 48 x 100. Clinton, Ind. Archt. Thomas & Allen, 25 ½ S. 5th St., terrace, Terre Haute. Owner Joe Bertotti, Clinton. Brk., stone trim, wood n. constr., flat rf., wood rf. trusses. Owner taking bids.”
The May 27, 1954, edition of the Central City Messenger said that “Dave Cohen is busy remodeling the old Empress Theater building….” In the June 3 issue an electronics store advertised its new location in the former Empress Theatre building. The October 21 issue said that the third floor of the building was being converted into a studio for a radio station that would begin broadcasting as soon as the FCC granted it a license.
The earliest reference by name to the Empress Theatre I’ve found is from August, 1921. The June 18 issue of The American Contractor that year noted a theater to be built at Central City, but it was only two stories tall. I suppose the plans might have been changed or a third floor added later. It would help if we could find a photo of the Empress to see if it matched the proposed building, which was to be 70 x 110 feet with brick walls and stone trim. It was designed by Joseph & Joseph for the Selba Amusement Company.
The Mikadow Theatre was opened in 1916. The March 16 edition of the Manitowoc Herald reported that “Stanley Kadow, who designed the new Mikadow theatre here, and attended the opening, has returned to Milwaukee.” He also did some remodeling on the house a few years later, as noted in this item from the May 21, 1921, issue of The American Contractor:
Theater (rem.; M. P.): 1 sty. Washington St., Manitowoc, Wis. Archt. Stanley F. Kadow. 1006 Railway Exch. bldg., Milwaukee. Owner Mikado Theater. J. M. Kadow, 1110 Washington St.. Manitowoc. Brk. Owner taking bids.“
The fact that the owner’s name was Kadow probably explains why the house ended up with the name Mikadow instead of just Mikado. Architect Stanley F. Kadow must have been related to theater owner John M. Kadow. Stanley Kadow was quite well known, and at least three theaters were among the many projects he designed in Milwaukee.
Here is an item from the April 23, 1921, issue of The American Contractor which must be about the State Theatre:
“Theatre (M. P.) $60,000. 2 sty. 83 X 120. Brown & River sts., Rhinelander, Wis. Archt. Oppenhamer & Obel, Wausau. Owner Peter Rouman, Rhinelander. Brk. Archt. & owner taking bids to close April 30th.”
The cross street is Rives, not River, of course. William Oppenhamer and Irving A. Obel also designed the Grand Theatre in Wausau.
An item datelined Columbus, Wisconsin, in the September 23, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World says: “Architect F. M. Andree, Cowker building, is preparing plans for a one-sty moving picture theater, 40 by 90 feet, to cost $8,000.”
I think the “M” was probably a typo (“Cowker” certainly was), and the architect was Frank W. Andree, who had offices in the Cawker Building in Milwaukee at least as early as 1910.
This page at Roots Web has what appears to be extracts from an old diary. For the date January 27, 1916, it says: “Mary Pickford at the Star Theatre Monday night in Mistress Nell.”
By 1942, the ads for the State Theatre were carrying the slogan “The Friendly Theatre” and saying that it had lately been remodeled to be the most modern theater in the region.
Mr. W. E. Anderson of Mt. Jewett, Pennsylvania, was operating the State in the early 1950s. The October 23, 1952, issue of The Bolivar Breeze had said that on October 19 Mr. Anderson had reopened his State Theatre at Friendship. It had been closed since the previous July 1. It would be open six nights a week, with a matinée on Sunday.
The April 15, 1954, issue of the Cuba, New York Patriot and Free Press carried an ad in which Mr. Anderson offered the State Theatre for sale (PDF here.) The house was apparently not in operation at the time, as the ad said only that it was “ready to start at once.”
An ad for the State in the March 4, 1954, issue of the same newspaper had touted a “gala parade of hits” for that month, so the house couldn’t have been closed for very long when it was offered for sale. I’ve been unable to discover if anyone ever bought and reopened the house.
The twin towers of the Tulare Theatre still had their Moorish grillwork when this photo from the Huntington Digital Library’s Southern California Edison Company collection was taken by photographer G. Haven Bishop on October 6, 1936.
An article in the New Philadelphia Times Reporter, dated August 18, 2013, and headed “New landscape at Mount Union” contains this line: “The most noticeable to students and community members alike is the construction of the as-yet-unnamed health and medical science building, which runs parallel to a busy section of South Union Avenue, where the Mount Union Theater once stood.”
Apparently, Mount Union University has demolished the Mt. Union Theatre- another shameless act of destruction by an institution of higher learning and lower behavior.
The April 24, 1937, issue of The Film Daily said that Harry Schiller’s new Grand Theatre would open on May 5. The 800-seat house was the first new theater built in Nebraska in two years.
The Dreamland Theatre had been renamed the Rialto by 1928, when operator L.J. Bennett was mentioned in the April 7 issue of The Film Daily. A booklet published for Pekin’s sesquicentennial says that the Rialto Theatre was destroyed by a fire in the 1950s.
A booklet published in 1974 for Pekin’s sesquicentennial has this bit of information about the Empire Theatre: “The Empire Theater at 327 Court Street was built by the Fluegel family in the 1920’s. It was later operated by the Great States Theater chain of Chicago.”
As Anna Fluegel had the Pekin Theatre built in 1928, it’s likely that the smaller Empire Theatre was rebuilt earlier in the decade. Operation of both houses was taken over by Publix-Great States Theatres in 1937.
The January 23, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World provided this item about the Valentine Theatre:
“CANTON, O. — E. G. Backins and C. H. Frailey have opened their new theater, the Valentine. It has seating capacity for about 800 persons. The house is devoted to the exhibit of moving pictures, but so constructed as to be easily converted into a vaudeville or stock house.”
The Theater Designs of C. Howard Crane, a thesis by Lisa Maria DiChiera (Internet Archive scan) has a list of Crane’s theater projects, and the Capitol Theatre at Steubenville is listed as project #527. The list does not give the dates of projects, but the Capitol is shortly after the Bonstelle Playhouse in Detroit (#518) and before project #549, a theater for Max Allen (the Park Theatre) at Lincoln Park, Michigan, and both of those theaters were built in 1925, so Crane was the original architect of the Steubenville Capitol built that same year.
The April 9, 1938, issue of The Film Daily said that the Court Theatre in Wheeling was to be modernized throughout. The work was to be completed by June 10.
The remodeling is briefly mentioned in a reminiscence about Wheeling’s theaters by Earl Summers, Sr., who had been concertmaster at some of the early houses, including the Court (published in the Autumn/Winter, 1982, issue of Upper Ohio Valley Historical Review, which is available as a PDF here.) Summers says that the Court’s original large stage was greatly reduced to accommodate more seating, so the house was no longer able to present the live road show productions it had once hosted.
Sadly, the 1938 remodeling probably also did away with the original design of the elegant foyer seen in this 1904 photo. I’ve never seen photos of the auditorium, but if it was a good as the foyer it must have been splendid.
Linkrot repair: The 1937 photo of the Rex Theatre can now be seen here.
Also, this 1981 photo from American Classic Images shows the Rex in its last days, when it had been given an aluminum false front and renamed the Coronet Theatre.
Items in various issues of The American Contractor in 1917 indicate that the architect for the rebuilding of the Hippodrome Theatre was Anthony Kunz, Jr. Kunz is best known for a number of Roman Catholic churches and school buildings he designed in the greater Cincinnati area during the first half of the 20th century.
The March 7, 1909, issue of The Improvement Bulletin said that W. H. McElfatrick had designed the new Gaiety Theatre that was to be erected in Minneapolis.
From sometime in 1925 through the first part of 1926, the Lumberg Theatre was called the Ritz Theatre. This web page features a December 19, 1925, ad for the Ritz.
The Wednesday, August 18, 1926, issue of the Niagara Falls Gazette said that the Lumberg Theatre would reopen under its old name the following Sunday as the exclusive home of first-run Paramount films in Niagara Falls. Atlas had closed the house for several weeks to renovate and to upgrade the theater’s mechanical systems.
The June 29, 1928, issue of the Gazette reported that the Lumberg Theatre and an adjoining store building had been razed and would be replaced by a new store for the S. S. Kresge company. The article noted that A. M. Atlas had taken over operation of the Lumberg Theatre in 1925, and had recently disposed of the building. It also noted that the adjacent store building had housed the city’s first storefront movie theater early in the century. It didn’t give that theater’s name, but it had been operated by Benjamin Goodman, who had previously run a restaurant in the space.
A “25 years ago” feature in the July 9, 1941, issue of the Niagara Falls Gazette reveals that the 1916 opening of the Lumberg Theatre cited in my first comment was indeed a reopening after an expansion. “The theater owners had purchased the adjoining store of George B.Clark which permitted the doubling of the auditorium capacity” the article said.
There was also a Lumberg Theatre in Utica. The Lumberg Theatre in Niagara Falls might have had at least one other location besides the one listed in Billboard in 1910, or perhaps the original theater was rebuilt or expanded. This item is from The Moving Picture World of July 15, 1916:
This could have been the 800-seat house listed in the 1927 FDY. Still later there might have been a third location, or a new theater with another name owned by the Lumbergs. This item is from the May 21, 1921 issue of The American Contractor:Cinema Treasures does not currently have a theater listed on 3rd Street between Niagara Street and Ferry Avenue. Google satellite view doesn’t show any buildings fitting the project’s description on that block, either, so if the place was built it has probably been partly or completely demolished.If the Columbia was the only theater the Bertotti family owned, then the newer house was probably this project built in 1921, noted in an item from the May 21 issue of The American Contractor that year:
The May 27, 1954, edition of the Central City Messenger said that “Dave Cohen is busy remodeling the old Empress Theater building….” In the June 3 issue an electronics store advertised its new location in the former Empress Theatre building. The October 21 issue said that the third floor of the building was being converted into a studio for a radio station that would begin broadcasting as soon as the FCC granted it a license.
The earliest reference by name to the Empress Theatre I’ve found is from August, 1921. The June 18 issue of The American Contractor that year noted a theater to be built at Central City, but it was only two stories tall. I suppose the plans might have been changed or a third floor added later. It would help if we could find a photo of the Empress to see if it matched the proposed building, which was to be 70 x 110 feet with brick walls and stone trim. It was designed by Joseph & Joseph for the Selba Amusement Company.
The Mikadow Theatre was opened in 1916. The March 16 edition of the Manitowoc Herald reported that “Stanley Kadow, who designed the new Mikadow theatre here, and attended the opening, has returned to Milwaukee.” He also did some remodeling on the house a few years later, as noted in this item from the May 21, 1921, issue of The American Contractor:
The fact that the owner’s name was Kadow probably explains why the house ended up with the name Mikadow instead of just Mikado. Architect Stanley F. Kadow must have been related to theater owner John M. Kadow. Stanley Kadow was quite well known, and at least three theaters were among the many projects he designed in Milwaukee.Here is an item from the April 23, 1921, issue of The American Contractor which must be about the State Theatre:
The cross street is Rives, not River, of course. William Oppenhamer and Irving A. Obel also designed the Grand Theatre in Wausau.Ken, this must be the same Frank Andree you identified as architect of the State Theatre in Milwaukee.
An item datelined Columbus, Wisconsin, in the September 23, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World says: “Architect F. M. Andree, Cowker building, is preparing plans for a one-sty moving picture theater, 40 by 90 feet, to cost $8,000.”
I think the “M” was probably a typo (“Cowker” certainly was), and the architect was Frank W. Andree, who had offices in the Cawker Building in Milwaukee at least as early as 1910.
This page at Roots Web has what appears to be extracts from an old diary. For the date January 27, 1916, it says: “Mary Pickford at the Star Theatre Monday night in Mistress Nell.”
By 1942, the ads for the State Theatre were carrying the slogan “The Friendly Theatre” and saying that it had lately been remodeled to be the most modern theater in the region.
Mr. W. E. Anderson of Mt. Jewett, Pennsylvania, was operating the State in the early 1950s. The October 23, 1952, issue of The Bolivar Breeze had said that on October 19 Mr. Anderson had reopened his State Theatre at Friendship. It had been closed since the previous July 1. It would be open six nights a week, with a matinée on Sunday.
The April 15, 1954, issue of the Cuba, New York Patriot and Free Press carried an ad in which Mr. Anderson offered the State Theatre for sale (PDF here.) The house was apparently not in operation at the time, as the ad said only that it was “ready to start at once.”
An ad for the State in the March 4, 1954, issue of the same newspaper had touted a “gala parade of hits” for that month, so the house couldn’t have been closed for very long when it was offered for sale. I’ve been unable to discover if anyone ever bought and reopened the house.
The twin towers of the Tulare Theatre still had their Moorish grillwork when this photo from the Huntington Digital Library’s Southern California Edison Company collection was taken by photographer G. Haven Bishop on October 6, 1936.
Here is a photo of the Fox Theatre in Hanford taken October 5, 1936, by photographer G. Haven Bishop for the Southern California Edison Company.
From the Huntington Digital Library, here is G. Haven Bishop’s 1938 photo of Rennie’s Theatre.
Here is a zoomable version of the photo Nathan linked to.
An article in the New Philadelphia Times Reporter, dated August 18, 2013, and headed “New landscape at Mount Union” contains this line: “The most noticeable to students and community members alike is the construction of the as-yet-unnamed health and medical science building, which runs parallel to a busy section of South Union Avenue, where the Mount Union Theater once stood.”
Apparently, Mount Union University has demolished the Mt. Union Theatre- another shameless act of destruction by an institution of higher learning and lower behavior.
The April 24, 1937, issue of The Film Daily said that Harry Schiller’s new Grand Theatre would open on May 5. The 800-seat house was the first new theater built in Nebraska in two years.
The Dreamland Theatre had been renamed the Rialto by 1928, when operator L.J. Bennett was mentioned in the April 7 issue of The Film Daily. A booklet published for Pekin’s sesquicentennial says that the Rialto Theatre was destroyed by a fire in the 1950s.
A booklet published in 1974 for Pekin’s sesquicentennial has this bit of information about the Empire Theatre: “The Empire Theater at 327 Court Street was built by the Fluegel family in the 1920’s. It was later operated by the Great States Theater chain of Chicago.”
As Anna Fluegel had the Pekin Theatre built in 1928, it’s likely that the smaller Empire Theatre was rebuilt earlier in the decade. Operation of both houses was taken over by Publix-Great States Theatres in 1937.
The January 23, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World provided this item about the Valentine Theatre:
The Theater Designs of C. Howard Crane, a thesis by Lisa Maria DiChiera (Internet Archive scan) has a list of Crane’s theater projects, and the Capitol Theatre at Steubenville is listed as project #527. The list does not give the dates of projects, but the Capitol is shortly after the Bonstelle Playhouse in Detroit (#518) and before project #549, a theater for Max Allen (the Park Theatre) at Lincoln Park, Michigan, and both of those theaters were built in 1925, so Crane was the original architect of the Steubenville Capitol built that same year.
The April 9, 1938, issue of The Film Daily said that the Court Theatre in Wheeling was to be modernized throughout. The work was to be completed by June 10.
The remodeling is briefly mentioned in a reminiscence about Wheeling’s theaters by Earl Summers, Sr., who had been concertmaster at some of the early houses, including the Court (published in the Autumn/Winter, 1982, issue of Upper Ohio Valley Historical Review, which is available as a PDF here.) Summers says that the Court’s original large stage was greatly reduced to accommodate more seating, so the house was no longer able to present the live road show productions it had once hosted.
Sadly, the 1938 remodeling probably also did away with the original design of the elegant foyer seen in this 1904 photo. I’ve never seen photos of the auditorium, but if it was a good as the foyer it must have been splendid.
Linkrot repair: The 1937 photo of the Virginia Theatre is now here.
Linkrot repair: The 1937 photo of the Rex Theatre can now be seen here.
Also, this 1981 photo from American Classic Images shows the Rex in its last days, when it had been given an aluminum false front and renamed the Coronet Theatre.
Items in various issues of The American Contractor in 1917 indicate that the architect for the rebuilding of the Hippodrome Theatre was Anthony Kunz, Jr. Kunz is best known for a number of Roman Catholic churches and school buildings he designed in the greater Cincinnati area during the first half of the 20th century.