The Dreamland Theatre is listed at 3021 S. Main Street in the 1915 city directory, so the County Assessor’s office was wrong about this building having been built in 1917, unless something happened to the original building and it was rebuilt that year. I suspect it’s most likely that a document reader (human or digital) misread 1912 as 1917.
The Dreamland was most likely this project noted in the August 24, 1912, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer:
“BRICK STORES AND THEATER—Archt. J. T. Zeller, 203 Currier Bldg., has completed plans and is taking bids for the erection of a l-story brick building to be erected at Main and Thirty-first Sts. for N. J. Sanders, 3025 S. Main St. It will contain four stores and a moving picture theater seating about 800. Concrete foundation 100x88 ft., glazed brick facing, steel beams and columns, composition roof, plate glass store windows, metal frames and sash and wired glass, galvanized iron skylights, stucco theater front, pine trim, plumbing, electric wiring. The site is now being cleared.”
The stores with their plate glass windows have been walled up, but otherwise the building remains pretty much as described in 1912.
Did he conflate the Grand with the second Orpheum in 1910, or was this house actually called the Grand for a while? If it was, it had to have gone back to Orpheum by 1918 as I’ve found references to the Orpheum dating from that year.
I found a later item in Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer that gave the address of the 1912 theater project in Pasadena as 87 N. Fair Oaks. As the Oaks was at the corner of Holly Street, there wouldn’t have been room for another theater next to it, so 87 N. Fair Oaks must have been its address in 1912. Fisher’s Theatre was reported in insurance industry publications of the period as having suffered a fire on January 5, 1911, so it must have opened in 1910 at the latest.
Notices in issues of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer in June, 1912, said that architect John E. Kunst designed a new theater that was part of a project underway at 369-373 N. Main Street. The theater was an addition to a building at 369 Main that was being remodeled.
As the quote matnhornmann cited indicates that this theater already existed and the Pasadena Playhouse took it over, we know that it probably dates from the 1910s or earlier. I’ve come across a reference to a house called Fisher’s Theatre on North Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena, operating in 1912. There is no address for it, but I wonder if it was the same house as the Oaks? The June 15, 1912 issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer said this:
“ALTERATIONS—Archts. Buchanan & Brockway, 65 N. Raymond Ave., are preparing plans for remodeling Fisher’s theater on N. Fair Oaks Ave. to conform with the building ordinance. The work will consist of installing an automatic sprinkler system. fire doors, brick wall between the stage and auditorium, and changes in the wiring system. Cost about $2500.”
If Fisher’s Theatre was not the same house that later became the Oaks, then there had to have been another theater on North Fair Oaks Avenue, but I’ve never heard of any others being there.
This house was listed as the Royal Theatre in the 1915 and 1917 city directories. It was probably the theater that was built in 1912 by F.L. Spaulding, as noted in the June 15 issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer:
“THEATER—F. L. Spaulding, 1460 Dana St., has taken out a permit for the foundation for a moving picture theater which he will build at 1716 S. Main St. for himself. The theater which has been leased to the Globe Amusement Co., will seat about 900. There will be two store rooms. Concrete foundation, 60x140 ft., brick walls, stucco front, composition roof, dome covered with galvanized iron, steel beams and columns, marble and tile lobby, ornamental plaster ceiling in theater, plate glass store fronts, pine trim, electric wiring, plumbing. Cost about $25,000.”
I don’t have access to city directories for 1913 and 1914, so I can’t be positive that this project was built, but if it wasn’t then somebody soon built a theater on this site.
This house didn’t become the Savoy until sometime in the 1940s. The Savoy Theatre that got the Wurlitzer organ in 1923 was a different house, at 3rd Avenue and C Street. It was a legitimate house for most of its history, but it was on the Pantages vaudeville circuit for a while, which is probably when the organ was installed.
Google’s street view on this page is six blocks too far west. The Lyceum was actually at the northeast corner of E. 3rd Avenue and F Street, and Google street view won’t be able to show it as the intersection was obliterated by the construction of the Horton Plaza shopping center.
Work on the mixed-use building that included the Lyceum Theatre began in the spring of 1912, as noted in this announcement from the May 25 issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer:
“San Diego—The Charley Concrete Construction Co. has started excavation work at the northeast corner of Third and F Sts. for a 5 story and basement Class A hotel, theater and store building for Chaffey & Cobb. The building will cover a ground area 100x100 ft. and will be of reinforced concrete construction, the Chaffey patent system to be used. The first floor will contain six stores, a theater and the hotel lobby, and the upper floors will be divided into 168 hotel rooms with private baths. The theater will be 60x100 ft. and will accommodate 1000 persons. The building will be modernly equipped throughout and will cost about $125,000. Plans by Archts. Hamilton & Smith Bros. American National Bank Bldg.”
As built, the building only had four floors, not the five originally planned. Hamilton & Smith Bros. designed at least three other theaters in San Diego, but I haven’t been able to identify them yet. Early San Diego Theaters indicates that there was a theater called the Gaiety on this site in 1909. It was apparently demolished to make way for the Chaffey & Cobb project.
An announcement about plans to build this theater were published int he November 9, 1912, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer:
“BRICK THEATER AND STORES—F. L. Spaulding, 1460 Dana St., has been awarded the contract at $23,930 for the erection complete of a 1-story brick store and theater building at North Broadway and Workman Sts. for the Huntington Land & Improvement Co., Pacific Electric Bldg. Plans by G. B. Campbell, 744 Pacific Electric Bldg. The building will contain a theater seating about 800, leased to the Globe Amusement Co., and five store rooms. Dimensions 110x165 ft. Concrete foundation, cream pressed brick facing, composition roof, steel beams and columns, cement floors. plate and prism glass windows, galvanized iron skylights, wired glass, metal lath ceiling, stucco front on theater, galvanized iron dome, marble and tile lobby, plumbing, electric wiring.”
I have checked the back of the building at Broadway and Workman in Google Street View, and I now suspect that the auditorium has indeed been demolished and replaced by a parking lot. The existing structure is not 110x165 feet. Also, the rear of the part of the building that the theater entrance was in has a large recess that has been walled up, and that was probably once the entrance to the theater’s auditorium.
The November 9, 1912, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer has an item that is about the project that became the Savoy Theatre:
“THEATER AND STORES—E. J. Borgmeyer, 317 Stimson Bldg, has prepared plans for a l-story brick moving picture theater and store building to be built on the northeast corner of Fifty-fourth St. and Central Ave. for S. K. Lindley. Concrete foundation, 50x125 ft., cement floor, brick walls, stucco front, staff work, composition roof. plate and prism glass store fronts, marble and tile lobby, mahogany and pine trim, electric wiring. Bids have been taken.”
In the 1915 city directory, this house was listed as the Palace Theatre, and in the 1917 directory as the New Palace Theatre. I think it is pretty likely that this theater was the project noted in the November 16, 1912, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer:
“THEATER AND STORES—Morris Hurwitz, 212 N. Main St., has been awarded the general contract at $10,500 for the erection of a 1~story brick moving picture theater and store building at Forty-seventh St. and Moneta Ave, for John Borelli. The contract does not include decorating, lighting fixtures or gas heaters. Train & Williams, Archts., 226 Exchange Bldg.”
The theater most likely opened in early 1913. The location was Moneta and 47th Place rather than Moneta and 47th Street. The magazine made a careless mistake.
Aside from a discrepancy in seating capacity (which might have been exaggerated in the article and might have been reduced in later years) this item from the November 16, 1912, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer sounds like it could have been about this theater:
“BRICK THEATER—F. D Spaulding, 1460 Dana St., has been awarded the contract at $15,960 for the erection complete of a l-story brick theater and store building on Ninth St., near Georgia, for Adele Otto Schmidt, 820 Story Bldg. A. L. Valk, archt., 933 Union Oil Bldg. The theater will seat about 800. Dimensions, 50x128 ft.; stucco front, composition roof, steel lintels, galvanized iron dome, tile floor and marble wainscot in lobby, hardwood and pine trim. cement floors, plate and prism glass windows, plumbing, electric wiring.”
As noted earlier, this house was listed as Gore’s Theatre in the Los Angeles Times of November 9, 1914, and in the 1915 city directory. In the 1917 directory it is listed as the New Georgia Theatre.
The December 20, 1919, issue of The Economist, Chicago’s weekly business and real estate journal, reported that Charles Bugg, operator of the Bugg Theatre, had bought the property containing the nearby Republican [sic] Theatre, an adjacent store and apartment building, and a garage fronting on Robey Street (Damon Avenue.) It looks as though Bugg bought the property in order to shut down the competition. The Bugg Theatre might have outlived the Republic, but the Republic’s building is still standing and the Bugg’s is long gone.
This undated photo of the Orpheum Theatre shows part of the neighboring Gem Theatre, which was featuring a Clara Kimbell Young movie. Young was getting lead roles by 1915, so the photo might date from the period when the Gem was still the America or the Isis. The name of the theater isn’t displayed anywhere that I can see.
The first Orpheum Theatre in Twin Falls was operating by 1906 in a small, wood framed building on Main Street. This photo depicts the second Orpheum at 131 Shoshone Street. It also gives a glimpse of the Gem Theatre next door, advertising a Clara Kimball Young movie.
In this photo the second Orpheum has become the Rialto. A sliver of the Gem’s building, no longer a theater by this time, appears here as well.
In 1929, Publix was operating a house at Fort Fairfield called the Park Theatre. It had 557 seats. The Paramount was its replacement. The October 27, 1929, issue of The Film Daily had this item:
“Fort Fairfield, Me.— A new $80,000 theater here is being planned from design of Bunker and Savage, Augusta architects.”
This was soon followed by this notice in a list of projects Publix had underway, published in the November 8 issue:
“Augusta, Me. — Fort Fairfield, rapidly nearing completion, is expected to be ready for opening in the spring Bunker & Savage drew the plans for the new Publix house.”
I’ve been unable to discover the opening date of the Paramount, but if it was on schedule it should have been 1930.
Interestingly, the firm of Bunker & Savage is still in operation, though I don’t see any theaters among their recent projects.
If they’ve gone to the expense of installing digital equipment for the Scarlett Johannson movie they must be intending to show movies frequently. You don’t spend that much for something you’ll rarely use.
In my previous comment I was mistaken in saying that the second Orpheum was on Shoshone Street North. It was at 131 Shoshone Street East, and when the new Orpheum opened in 1921 it became the Rialto Theatre.
Thanks for the newspaper clippings about the Idaho Theatre you just uploaded to the photo section, OCRon. I was interrupted while writing my previous comment, so it sat on my computer for several hours before I finished it and posted it. (Maybe I should have re-checked the page for updates before posting.)
But the clippings confirm my suspicion that the Idaho was never called the Rialto, and as we now know that the Idaho opened in 1916, the Rialto must never have been called the Idaho, either.
Also, an undated photo of the Rialto Theatre (possibly Lost Memory’s dead link,) which was across the street from the Idaho, at 131 Shoshone Street East. The Rialto was originally the second Orpheum in Twin Falls, probably renamed when the third Orpheum opened in 1921. Here is is a photo of it as the Orpheum.
It’s possible that that the house at 131 was called the Idaho for a while before being called the Rialto, but houses called the Idaho and the Rialto were both in operation by 1927, so the theater at 130 must have been built by that year at the latest, and the house at 131 must have been renamed Rialto by then. It seems unlikely that the house at 130 was ever called the Rialto, though, so that aka should probably be removed from this page.
The author of this article at the web site of the Twin Falls Times-News claims that the Orpheum Theatre opened in its present location in 1918 (he appears to be mistaken- see the final paragraph of our description of the Gem Theatre) after having operated on Shoshone Street North for a number of years. Its original location was on Main Street South, where it opened in 1906.
A gallery accompanies the article, with exterior photos of the Lavering Opera House and the Rialto Theatre, an interior shot of the Lyric Theatre, and an early photo of Main Street that includes the original Orpheum, which was in a tiny, wood-framed building.
I was going to update the dead link to the Boxoffice article I cited in my earlier comment, but discovered that the magazine is in the process of changing formats for its online archive again. That means that Cinema Treasures is going to be hit by another epidemic of linkrot. I’m not sure it will even be possible to link to pages in the new archive yet, as the new format appears to be set up only for “sharing” pages by embedding them in other sites.
If anybody wants to check out the new Boxoffice archive (they only have the four most recent issues available so far) it’s right here.
The caption of the rendering OCRon mentioned says that the Corbin Theatre was actually designed by Gale Santocono (though it misspells his first name as Gail.) That opens the possibility that the Buena Park theater I mentioned in my comment of January 21, 2010, was also designed by Santocono, and Overpeck merely signed the plans for both houses as Santocono was not yet a licensed architect (this comment by Carol Santocono, Gale Santocono’s granddaughter, on our Raven Performing Arts Center page, says that Santocono was first licensed to practice architecture in California in the early 1960s.)
The Dreamland Theatre is listed at 3021 S. Main Street in the 1915 city directory, so the County Assessor’s office was wrong about this building having been built in 1917, unless something happened to the original building and it was rebuilt that year. I suspect it’s most likely that a document reader (human or digital) misread 1912 as 1917.
The Dreamland was most likely this project noted in the August 24, 1912, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer:
The stores with their plate glass windows have been walled up, but otherwise the building remains pretty much as described in 1912.Did he conflate the Grand with the second Orpheum in 1910, or was this house actually called the Grand for a while? If it was, it had to have gone back to Orpheum by 1918 as I’ve found references to the Orpheum dating from that year.
I found a later item in Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer that gave the address of the 1912 theater project in Pasadena as 87 N. Fair Oaks. As the Oaks was at the corner of Holly Street, there wouldn’t have been room for another theater next to it, so 87 N. Fair Oaks must have been its address in 1912. Fisher’s Theatre was reported in insurance industry publications of the period as having suffered a fire on January 5, 1911, so it must have opened in 1910 at the latest.
Notices in issues of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer in June, 1912, said that architect John E. Kunst designed a new theater that was part of a project underway at 369-373 N. Main Street. The theater was an addition to a building at 369 Main that was being remodeled.
As the quote matnhornmann cited indicates that this theater already existed and the Pasadena Playhouse took it over, we know that it probably dates from the 1910s or earlier. I’ve come across a reference to a house called Fisher’s Theatre on North Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena, operating in 1912. There is no address for it, but I wonder if it was the same house as the Oaks? The June 15, 1912 issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer said this:
If Fisher’s Theatre was not the same house that later became the Oaks, then there had to have been another theater on North Fair Oaks Avenue, but I’ve never heard of any others being there.This house was listed as the Royal Theatre in the 1915 and 1917 city directories. It was probably the theater that was built in 1912 by F.L. Spaulding, as noted in the June 15 issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer:
I don’t have access to city directories for 1913 and 1914, so I can’t be positive that this project was built, but if it wasn’t then somebody soon built a theater on this site.This house didn’t become the Savoy until sometime in the 1940s. The Savoy Theatre that got the Wurlitzer organ in 1923 was a different house, at 3rd Avenue and C Street. It was a legitimate house for most of its history, but it was on the Pantages vaudeville circuit for a while, which is probably when the organ was installed.
Google’s street view on this page is six blocks too far west. The Lyceum was actually at the northeast corner of E. 3rd Avenue and F Street, and Google street view won’t be able to show it as the intersection was obliterated by the construction of the Horton Plaza shopping center.
Work on the mixed-use building that included the Lyceum Theatre began in the spring of 1912, as noted in this announcement from the May 25 issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer:
As built, the building only had four floors, not the five originally planned. Hamilton & Smith Bros. designed at least three other theaters in San Diego, but I haven’t been able to identify them yet. Early San Diego Theaters indicates that there was a theater called the Gaiety on this site in 1909. It was apparently demolished to make way for the Chaffey & Cobb project.An announcement about plans to build this theater were published int he November 9, 1912, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer:
I have checked the back of the building at Broadway and Workman in Google Street View, and I now suspect that the auditorium has indeed been demolished and replaced by a parking lot. The existing structure is not 110x165 feet. Also, the rear of the part of the building that the theater entrance was in has a large recess that has been walled up, and that was probably once the entrance to the theater’s auditorium.The November 9, 1912, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer has an item that is about the project that became the Savoy Theatre:
In the 1915 city directory, this house was listed as the Palace Theatre, and in the 1917 directory as the New Palace Theatre. I think it is pretty likely that this theater was the project noted in the November 16, 1912, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer:
The theater most likely opened in early 1913. The location was Moneta and 47th Place rather than Moneta and 47th Street. The magazine made a careless mistake.Aside from a discrepancy in seating capacity (which might have been exaggerated in the article and might have been reduced in later years) this item from the November 16, 1912, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer sounds like it could have been about this theater:
As noted earlier, this house was listed as Gore’s Theatre in the Los Angeles Times of November 9, 1914, and in the 1915 city directory. In the 1917 directory it is listed as the New Georgia Theatre.The December 20, 1919, issue of The Economist, Chicago’s weekly business and real estate journal, reported that Charles Bugg, operator of the Bugg Theatre, had bought the property containing the nearby Republican [sic] Theatre, an adjacent store and apartment building, and a garage fronting on Robey Street (Damon Avenue.) It looks as though Bugg bought the property in order to shut down the competition. The Bugg Theatre might have outlived the Republic, but the Republic’s building is still standing and the Bugg’s is long gone.
This undated photo of the Orpheum Theatre shows part of the neighboring Gem Theatre, which was featuring a Clara Kimbell Young movie. Young was getting lead roles by 1915, so the photo might date from the period when the Gem was still the America or the Isis. The name of the theater isn’t displayed anywhere that I can see.
The first Orpheum Theatre in Twin Falls was operating by 1906 in a small, wood framed building on Main Street. This photo depicts the second Orpheum at 131 Shoshone Street. It also gives a glimpse of the Gem Theatre next door, advertising a Clara Kimball Young movie.
In this photo the second Orpheum has become the Rialto. A sliver of the Gem’s building, no longer a theater by this time, appears here as well.
This page from the Maine Memory Network says that the Paramount opened in April, 1930.
In 1929, Publix was operating a house at Fort Fairfield called the Park Theatre. It had 557 seats. The Paramount was its replacement. The October 27, 1929, issue of The Film Daily had this item:
This was soon followed by this notice in a list of projects Publix had underway, published in the November 8 issue:I’ve been unable to discover the opening date of the Paramount, but if it was on schedule it should have been 1930.Interestingly, the firm of Bunker & Savage is still in operation, though I don’t see any theaters among their recent projects.
If they’ve gone to the expense of installing digital equipment for the Scarlett Johannson movie they must be intending to show movies frequently. You don’t spend that much for something you’ll rarely use.
In my previous comment I was mistaken in saying that the second Orpheum was on Shoshone Street North. It was at 131 Shoshone Street East, and when the new Orpheum opened in 1921 it became the Rialto Theatre.
Thanks for the newspaper clippings about the Idaho Theatre you just uploaded to the photo section, OCRon. I was interrupted while writing my previous comment, so it sat on my computer for several hours before I finished it and posted it. (Maybe I should have re-checked the page for updates before posting.)
But the clippings confirm my suspicion that the Idaho was never called the Rialto, and as we now know that the Idaho opened in 1916, the Rialto must never have been called the Idaho, either.
Photos of the Idaho Theatre from 1968 (one or the other of these is probably kencmcintyre’s dead link):
One
Two
Also, an undated photo of the Rialto Theatre (possibly Lost Memory’s dead link,) which was across the street from the Idaho, at 131 Shoshone Street East. The Rialto was originally the second Orpheum in Twin Falls, probably renamed when the third Orpheum opened in 1921. Here is is a photo of it as the Orpheum.
It’s possible that that the house at 131 was called the Idaho for a while before being called the Rialto, but houses called the Idaho and the Rialto were both in operation by 1927, so the theater at 130 must have been built by that year at the latest, and the house at 131 must have been renamed Rialto by then. It seems unlikely that the house at 130 was ever called the Rialto, though, so that aka should probably be removed from this page.
The 1939 photo of the Roxy Theatre that Lost Memory linked to can now be found at this link.
The author of this article at the web site of the Twin Falls Times-News claims that the Orpheum Theatre opened in its present location in 1918 (he appears to be mistaken- see the final paragraph of our description of the Gem Theatre) after having operated on Shoshone Street North for a number of years. Its original location was on Main Street South, where it opened in 1906.
A gallery accompanies the article, with exterior photos of the Lavering Opera House and the Rialto Theatre, an interior shot of the Lyric Theatre, and an early photo of Main Street that includes the original Orpheum, which was in a tiny, wood-framed building.
I was going to update the dead link to the Boxoffice article I cited in my earlier comment, but discovered that the magazine is in the process of changing formats for its online archive again. That means that Cinema Treasures is going to be hit by another epidemic of linkrot. I’m not sure it will even be possible to link to pages in the new archive yet, as the new format appears to be set up only for “sharing” pages by embedding them in other sites.
If anybody wants to check out the new Boxoffice archive (they only have the four most recent issues available so far) it’s right here.
The caption of the rendering OCRon mentioned says that the Corbin Theatre was actually designed by Gale Santocono (though it misspells his first name as Gail.) That opens the possibility that the Buena Park theater I mentioned in my comment of January 21, 2010, was also designed by Santocono, and Overpeck merely signed the plans for both houses as Santocono was not yet a licensed architect (this comment by Carol Santocono, Gale Santocono’s granddaughter, on our Raven Performing Arts Center page, says that Santocono was first licensed to practice architecture in California in the early 1960s.)