In the August 1, 1941, issue of Southwest Builder & Contractor there was an item saying that Clifford Balch had made plans for a theater on Maclay Avenue in San Fernando for Maude L. and John T. Rennie. This house was refereed to at least once as Rennie’s Towne Theatre in The Film Daily (Towne appears to have been the original spelling of the theater’s name.) If the Towne did open in 1942, it must have been the project designed by Balch.
Now that I’ve seen photos of the Azteca Theatre, and the Town (Centre) Theatre has been added, with an approximate opening year of 1942, I suspect that the project that Clifford Balch designed for the Rennies in 1941 was the Town Theatre, which was referred to as Rennie’s Towne Theatre at least once in The Film Daily.
A history of the San Fernando Hardware Company Building (PDF here), which was designed by Edward J. Borgmeyer in 1925, says that Borgmeyer also designed the Rennie Theatre, which had opened earlier that year. Although the paper doesn’t cite a source for the claim, it does seem plausible. Before its remodeling, the theater definitely had the look of the mid-1920s, and Borgmeyer was a well-known theater architect by 1925.
Interestingly, Borgmeyer had designed another movie theater in San Fernando almost a decade earlier. The project was noted in the May 13, 1916, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer. So far I’ve been unable to find the name of that theater or any details about it.
Walter S. Keller was the architect of the Plaza Theatre, according to his page at the University of Washington’s Pacific Coast Architecture Database. He also designed the Cabrillo Theatre next door.
Walter S. Keller was the architect of the Cabrillo Theatre, according to Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer of November 7, 1914. The construction permit had just been issued to contractors Armstrong & Peffley. Loupy & Pignot were the owners of the project.
Keller was also the architect of the adjacent Plaza Theatre, according to his page at ArchitectDB.
The November 7, 1914, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer ran an item about an addition to the Lyric Theatre in Upland. The addition was to be 34x50 feet, and the theater was to get a new pressed brick front, marble and tile lobby, and other improvements as well. The $4,500 project was designed by Los Angeles architect Homer W. Glidden.
I wonder if the Lyric got a new name along with the remodeling job? The Colonial/Upland Theatre might be the same house.
Linkrot repair: The brief item about the renovation of the Middleboro Theatre in Boxoffice of August 14, 1948, can now be found here. The item says that the architects for the extensive renovation were Krokyn & Browne of Boston.
Charles Hodgdon had opened the Park Theatre by 1917, and had renamed it the Middleboro Theatre by 1934. Charles and David Hodgdon were still operating the Middleboro when it was renovated in 1948.
The Schine circuit’s Vernon Theatre in Mount Vernon, Ohio, was listed in the “Theaters Under Construction” column of The Film Daily, April 9, 1938. The architect for the project was John Eberson.
The Riverside Theatre in Cleveland was listed in the “New Theaters” column of The Film Daily for April 9, 1938. The item named the architect only as Burrows. This must have been George Howard Burrows, architect of at least five other theaters in north central Ohio.
Skirball Brothers built Akron’s Forum Theatre in 1938, according to an item in the April 9 issue of The Film Daily that year. The architect for the project was John Eberson.
According to the April 9, 1938, issue of The Film Daily, when the Colonial Theatre was rebuilt following the fire that year, the architect for the project was Clarence Kivett. This was seven years before Kivett formed a partnership with Ralph E. Myers. From 1945 to 1975, Kivett & Myers was the leading architectural design firm in Kansas City.
The Greendale Theatre was listed in the “Theaters Planned” column of the April 9, 1938, issue of The Film Daily“Worcester — Greendale, 1,200 seats; Architect: C. Buckley; Cost: $200,000.”Architect Cornelius W. Buckley’s later firm, C. W. Buckley Inc., was in operation at least into the early 1970s.
Though not yet named, the University Theatre was probably the project that was listed as being under construction in the April 9, 1938 issue of The Film Daily:
“Charlottesville — New, 580 seats, West Main St.; Builder: Jefferson and Lafayette Theaters, Inc.; Architect: Pruitt & Brown; Cost: $60,000.”
Pruitt & Brown was a firm based in New York City, but with branch offices in Virginia and in Oklahoma.
The April 9, 1938, issue of The Film Daily listed the Blatt Brothers' Governor Theatre in Somerset among the new theaters under construction in Pennsylvania. The 1,000-seat house was to cost $65,000, and was set to open on April 20.
The item says that the theater was designed by an architectural firm called Walker & Mong, but I think it might have been a Pennsylvania architect who appears in the American Institute of Architects database as George L. Walker Mong. The AIA might have made a mistake, but it seems more likely that it would have been the magazine that made it.
This page has a late photo of the Majestic Theatre. Judging from the cars it was taken in the late 1940s or early 1950s. The Majestic had no attraction board on its marquee, and the posters in the cases are too small to read.
The Majestic Theatre was built in 1907. The March 23 issue of the Chicago finance and real estate journal The Economist ran this item about the project:
“Marshall & Fox are completing plans for the Majestic theater which Boyle & Holzman will build at Johnstown, Pa. It will be two stories high, 64x150, and on the roof there will be a garden. It will have a seating capacity of 1,200 and will cost $75,000.”>
Marshall & Fox designed Johnstown’s most splendid theater in the Beaux Arts style, but perched atop it a pergola for the Majestic’s roof garden. This feature is displayed in two early postcard photos of the house at JohnstownCafe (scroll down to reach the thumbnails near the bottom of the page.)
The Majestic was listed in the 1908-1909 edition of the Cahn guide as a ground floor house with 605 orchestra seats, 367 in the balcony, and a gallery accommodating 450. It had a good sized stage (40x62 feet) capable of accommodating all but the most elaborate traveling productions. However, the 1913-1914 Cahn guide said that the house was playing vaudeville exclusively.
A Robin Theatre was mentioned in the August 14, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World (it had been “extensively altered” and new equipment had been installed), but its address was given as 2301 Robin Avenue. There is no 2300 block of Robin Avenue now, and probably wasn’t then, either, unless the street has since been drastically renumbered, so the address was probably a mistake. We can’t be sure that it was this Robin Theatre that the item was about, but it’s a possibility.
Thanks for the update, Ron. As this theater opened in 1918, then it must have been the project designed by S. L. Milton that was recorded in the American Contractor item I cited in my previous comment.
I’ve found only one earlier reference to architect Milton, from 1914, but there are several references to a contractor named S. L. Milton from the early 1920s. Maybe he found there was more money in contracting. But then the clean lines of this little building are quite modern for 1918. Maybe he was just too far ahead of his time as an architect.
A 1938 advertisement for the Manos circuit’s theaters in Latrobe names them as the Manos, the Grand, and the Olympic, so the Paramount must have been the one that had been renamed Manos by that year.
Here is an item from the September 2, 1936, issue of The Film Daily:
“Latrobe, Pa. — Mike Manos, president of Manos Enterprises, which recently acquired the Temple and Chase Street Theaters in Kane, announces the purchase of all holdings of the Indiana County Theater Co., including the Paramount and Olympic here, the lease on the local Grand, the Richelieu at Blairsville, the Casino and the Arcadia at Vandergrift and the Empire at Homer City.”
From its appearance in the photo above, and from the satellite view at Google Maps, I suspect that the Manos Theatre was the former Paramount, which opened around the beginning of August, 1916, according to the report in the August 5 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“The new Paramount theater was thrown
open to the public of Latrobe, Pa., several days ago, and made a splendid impression. The house, which is owned by Peter Lampropolis, is said to be the finest between Pittsburgh and Johnstown. It is up-to-date in every way and has a seating capacity of 1,000, including a spacious balcony. The building itself measures 100 by 50 feet and and is of fireproof construction throughout. The exterior is quite attractive, while the interior combines the highest degree of good taste and comfort. Entrance to the auditorium is had from a well-arranged lobby, from each end of which wide stairways lead to the balcony seating 480 persons. The main floor of the auditorium has 520 seats, with wide aisles.”
Issues of The American Contractor from late 1915 carry notices about the Lampropolis theater project in Latrobe, and name the architect as M. Nirdlinger. Maximilian Nirdlinger also designed the Kenyon Opera House in Pittsburgh and a 1921 theater project in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, that I’ve not yet been able to identify.
Michael Manos took over the lease on the Grand Theatre in Latrobe from the Indiana County Theatre Company in 1936, according to an item in the September 2 issue of The Film Daily. He also acquired Latrobe’s Paramount and Olympic Theatres in the same deal.
The Tyler Theatre is listed in the 1926 and 1928 editions of the Film Daily Yearbook with 300 seats. In the 1929 Yearbook, a 300-seat house called the People’s Theatre is listed. The Crescent Theatre also appears in the Yearbooks from 1926 through 1929, though only in 1929 is its seating capacity given (500.)
The next few years are a bit complicated. Whitney Point is not in the Yearbooks for 1930 or 1931, but in 1932 there are three theaters listed: The Crescent, with 390 seats, the Tyler, with 250 seats, and the People’s Theatre, with 225 seats. Only the People’s Theatre is listed as open. In 1933, the first two houses are still listed as closed, but the People’s Theatre is not listed at all. The interesting thing is that the closed Crescent Theatre is now listed with 225 seats.
It seems possible that the Crescent Theatre moved into the building formerly occupied by the People’s Theatre in 1932, but was closed before the information was gathered for the 1933 Yearbook. The Crescent was listed as closed in 1935 and 1937, too, and Whitney Point did not appear in either the 1934 or 1936 Yearbooks.
Then in 1938, the Point Theatre appears for the first time, open, with 225 seats. It’s possible that this was the 225-seat former People’s and/or Crescent Theatre reopened under a new name. It’s also possible that the original Crescent, with 500 and then 390 seats, was the old Opera House, and the owners might have moved their operation to the smaller house during the lean times of the early depression. All this is speculation, of course, based on the changing seating capacities reported for the various theaters. The actual course of events, whatever it was, would have to be confirmed by other sources such as newspaper reports.
Also, note that the fact that a theater is listed as closed in the Yearbook doesn’t mean that it was closed that entire year. The Yearbook listed the status of a theater as of January 1, and information for each edition must have been gathered in the later part of the year preceding the publication date. In some cases, a theater might have closed for the winter and reopened later in the year.
I’ve checked the editions of the Film Daily Yearbook from 1926 to 1962 for theaters in Whitney Point. Keeping in mind that the Yearbooks are not definitive (numerous errors crept into them, some of them repeated year after year) the information still might offer a few clues.
I found theaters with four different names in Whitney Point: the Crescent, the Tyler, the People’s, and the Point. The Point first appears in 1938, and from then on is the only theater listed in the town, though its seating capacity changes a couple of times, and it is not listed at all in some years.
The Point Theatre is listed with 225 seats from 1938 through 1942 (the Yearbook lists theaters operating as of January 1 each year, so the Point probably began operation in 1937.) It is still listed in 1943, but with 250 seats. It is listed in 1944 but with the notation (CL), which means closed. It was open again in 1945 and 1946, but with 260 seats, and then in 1947 was open, but back down to 225 seats.
In 1948 and 1949, Whitney Point is not listed at all, but the Point Theatre reappears in 1950, now with 335 seats. The same obtains in 1951 and 1952, but in 1953 and 1954 Whitney Point vanishes from the listings again. The Point Theatre makes its last appearance in the 1956 Yearbook, and I haven’t found the town listed after that as far as I’ve searched (1962.)
I suspect that the Point Theatre might have been the same house as the Crescent Theatre that was listed as closed, but with 225 seats, in the 1933, 1935, and 1937 Yearbooks, and I suspect that that Crescent Theatre was the former Peoples Theatre that was listed as open with 225 seats in the 1932 Yearbook. The People’s Theatre first appeared in the 1929 Yearbook, but with 300 seats.
Here it gets a bit complicated. In 1932, when the 225-seat People’s Theatre was listed as open, there are also listings for a 390-seat Crescent Theatre (closed) and a 250-seat Tyler Theatre (also closed.) Were there actually three buildings in Whitney Point with theaters in them, or did the Yearbook mistakenly list one of them under two different names? Such mistakes were sometimes made.
A further complication is that, in 1933, The Crescent is listed as closed, but with 225 seats, and the Tyler is listed as closed with 250 seats. And then in 1934 and 1936, Whitney Point is not listed at all. It is not listed in 1930 or 1931, either. I don’t know if the years the town is not listed means that the theaters were all closed and the Yearbook was just saving space by not listing them, or if the town was just overlooked by accident.
In 1926, 1927, and 1928, the Crescent was listed, but without the seating capacity given, and in 1929 it was listed with 500 seats. Meanwhile, the Tyler was listed only in 1926 and 1928, but with 300 seats. Then the People’s Theatre appears with 300 seats in 1929. Did th Tyler change its name to the People’s Theatre in 1929, and the Yearbook mistakenly list it again as a closed house in 1932 and 1933? Perhaps. Did the Crescent move from its former location into the building of the 225-seat People’s Theatre sometime during 1932, but then close before the 1933 Yearbook was put together? Perhaps.
It’s quite a tangle, and most likely it can only be sorted out with research on the ground, meaning in the archives of the local newspaper, or with other local sources such as directories or telephone books. The assortment theater names from the Yearbook should give a good starting point for anyone doing that, though.
I’ve also searched the available trade journals of the period, but have come up empty. Apparently Whitney Point’s theaters were never mentioned in any of them, of if they were then the search applications available to me haven’t found them.
The Fall, 2007, issue of the Waseca County Historical Society’s newsletter, History Notes (PDF here), has an article about the county’s movie theaters, and there is considerable information about the theater at 118 N. State Street. There are also five photos of it.
The house was opened by brothers Elmer and Bert Dawson on June 24, 1912, as the Palace Theatre. The opening attraction was a stage play, but the house offered movies and vaudeville as well. In 1920, the Dawson brothers sold the Palace to John and Frank Manthey, who operated it until 1929, when they sold it to Elmer P. Nelson. Nelson renamed the house the State Theatre.
The State Theatre burned on February 3, 1944, and was rebuilt and reopened as the New State Theatre on October 4th that year (the long delay was probably due to wartime restrictions on construction materials, rather than the extent of the fire damage, as the facade was largely unchanged at this time.) Another fire in 1971 led to another renaming, and the house spent its final years as the Waseca Cinema. The article doesn’t say what year the theater closed, but another source says that the last show was on Sunday, August 4, 1985.
The article also notes that the Park Theatre, at 218 N. State Street, was opened by Elmer P. Nelson in 1937. It also mentions two silent era houses opened in 1914— the Unique and the Regent— but doesn’t give their locations or say how long they operated.
The July 20, 1912, issue of The Moving Picture World had another item about the A-Muse-U Theatre:
“The Amuse-U, the new Henle photoplay house at Clinton, Iowa, is to have one of the largest mirror screens made, two pianos and a Victor autophone, an indirect lighting system and comfortable seats for 1,005 persons.”
The house was mentioned yet again in the August 12 issue:
“Menaced by a decaying elm tree in front of his A-Muse-U, now in course of construction, L. M. Henle went before the city council of Clinton. Iowa, and won consent for its removal by promising to
substitute a bubbling fountain.”
a later issue of the magazine said that before installing the picture machine in the A-Muse-U, Mr. Henle put it on display in a local store window for a time. Finally, the September 28 issue of TMPW carried this announcement of the opening of the house:
“E. M. Henle opened his new "A-Muse-U” theater on Sixth Avenue, at Clinton, Iowa. September 2. The house has a seating capacity of 1,000, an indirect lighting system, fireproof operating room, and is well ventilated. The walls of the auditorium are in red and green, with handsome salmon panels. The ceiling is paneled in cream and salmon.“
As the magazine used the form A-Muse-U for the theater’s name in three consecutive items, that must have been correct.
So, to recap, this house opened as the A-Muse-U Theatre on September 2, 1912, was renamed the Rialto Theatre in 1922, and became the Cinema I in 1965.
In the August 1, 1941, issue of Southwest Builder & Contractor there was an item saying that Clifford Balch had made plans for a theater on Maclay Avenue in San Fernando for Maude L. and John T. Rennie. This house was refereed to at least once as Rennie’s Towne Theatre in The Film Daily (Towne appears to have been the original spelling of the theater’s name.) If the Towne did open in 1942, it must have been the project designed by Balch.
Now that I’ve seen photos of the Azteca Theatre, and the Town (Centre) Theatre has been added, with an approximate opening year of 1942, I suspect that the project that Clifford Balch designed for the Rennies in 1941 was the Town Theatre, which was referred to as Rennie’s Towne Theatre at least once in The Film Daily.
A history of the San Fernando Hardware Company Building (PDF here), which was designed by Edward J. Borgmeyer in 1925, says that Borgmeyer also designed the Rennie Theatre, which had opened earlier that year. Although the paper doesn’t cite a source for the claim, it does seem plausible. Before its remodeling, the theater definitely had the look of the mid-1920s, and Borgmeyer was a well-known theater architect by 1925.
Interestingly, Borgmeyer had designed another movie theater in San Fernando almost a decade earlier. The project was noted in the May 13, 1916, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer. So far I’ve been unable to find the name of that theater or any details about it.
Walter S. Keller was the architect of the Plaza Theatre, according to his page at the University of Washington’s Pacific Coast Architecture Database. He also designed the Cabrillo Theatre next door.
Walter S. Keller was the architect of the Cabrillo Theatre, according to Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer of November 7, 1914. The construction permit had just been issued to contractors Armstrong & Peffley. Loupy & Pignot were the owners of the project.
Keller was also the architect of the adjacent Plaza Theatre, according to his page at ArchitectDB.
The November 7, 1914, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer ran an item about an addition to the Lyric Theatre in Upland. The addition was to be 34x50 feet, and the theater was to get a new pressed brick front, marble and tile lobby, and other improvements as well. The $4,500 project was designed by Los Angeles architect Homer W. Glidden.
I wonder if the Lyric got a new name along with the remodeling job? The Colonial/Upland Theatre might be the same house.
Linkrot repair: The brief item about the renovation of the Middleboro Theatre in Boxoffice of August 14, 1948, can now be found here. The item says that the architects for the extensive renovation were Krokyn & Browne of Boston.
Charles Hodgdon had opened the Park Theatre by 1917, and had renamed it the Middleboro Theatre by 1934. Charles and David Hodgdon were still operating the Middleboro when it was renovated in 1948.
The Schine circuit’s Vernon Theatre in Mount Vernon, Ohio, was listed in the “Theaters Under Construction” column of The Film Daily, April 9, 1938. The architect for the project was John Eberson.
The Riverside Theatre in Cleveland was listed in the “New Theaters” column of The Film Daily for April 9, 1938. The item named the architect only as Burrows. This must have been George Howard Burrows, architect of at least five other theaters in north central Ohio.
Skirball Brothers built Akron’s Forum Theatre in 1938, according to an item in the April 9 issue of The Film Daily that year. The architect for the project was John Eberson.
According to the April 9, 1938, issue of The Film Daily, when the Colonial Theatre was rebuilt following the fire that year, the architect for the project was Clarence Kivett. This was seven years before Kivett formed a partnership with Ralph E. Myers. From 1945 to 1975, Kivett & Myers was the leading architectural design firm in Kansas City.
The Greendale Theatre was listed in the “Theaters Planned” column of the April 9, 1938, issue of The Film Daily“Worcester — Greendale, 1,200 seats; Architect: C. Buckley; Cost: $200,000.”Architect Cornelius W. Buckley’s later firm, C. W. Buckley Inc., was in operation at least into the early 1970s.
Though not yet named, the University Theatre was probably the project that was listed as being under construction in the April 9, 1938 issue of The Film Daily:
Pruitt & Brown was a firm based in New York City, but with branch offices in Virginia and in Oklahoma.The April 9, 1938, issue of The Film Daily listed the Blatt Brothers' Governor Theatre in Somerset among the new theaters under construction in Pennsylvania. The 1,000-seat house was to cost $65,000, and was set to open on April 20.
The item says that the theater was designed by an architectural firm called Walker & Mong, but I think it might have been a Pennsylvania architect who appears in the American Institute of Architects database as George L. Walker Mong. The AIA might have made a mistake, but it seems more likely that it would have been the magazine that made it.
This page has a late photo of the Majestic Theatre. Judging from the cars it was taken in the late 1940s or early 1950s. The Majestic had no attraction board on its marquee, and the posters in the cases are too small to read.
The Majestic Theatre was built in 1907. The March 23 issue of the Chicago finance and real estate journal The Economist ran this item about the project:
Marshall & Fox designed Johnstown’s most splendid theater in the Beaux Arts style, but perched atop it a pergola for the Majestic’s roof garden. This feature is displayed in two early postcard photos of the house at JohnstownCafe (scroll down to reach the thumbnails near the bottom of the page.)The Majestic was listed in the 1908-1909 edition of the Cahn guide as a ground floor house with 605 orchestra seats, 367 in the balcony, and a gallery accommodating 450. It had a good sized stage (40x62 feet) capable of accommodating all but the most elaborate traveling productions. However, the 1913-1914 Cahn guide said that the house was playing vaudeville exclusively.
A Robin Theatre was mentioned in the August 14, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World (it had been “extensively altered” and new equipment had been installed), but its address was given as 2301 Robin Avenue. There is no 2300 block of Robin Avenue now, and probably wasn’t then, either, unless the street has since been drastically renumbered, so the address was probably a mistake. We can’t be sure that it was this Robin Theatre that the item was about, but it’s a possibility.
Thanks for the update, Ron. As this theater opened in 1918, then it must have been the project designed by S. L. Milton that was recorded in the American Contractor item I cited in my previous comment.
I’ve found only one earlier reference to architect Milton, from 1914, but there are several references to a contractor named S. L. Milton from the early 1920s. Maybe he found there was more money in contracting. But then the clean lines of this little building are quite modern for 1918. Maybe he was just too far ahead of his time as an architect.
A Grand Theatre in Latrobe is mentioned in the January 22, 1910, issue of The Moving Picture World.
A 1938 advertisement for the Manos circuit’s theaters in Latrobe names them as the Manos, the Grand, and the Olympic, so the Paramount must have been the one that had been renamed Manos by that year.
Here is an item from the September 2, 1936, issue of The Film Daily:
From its appearance in the photo above, and from the satellite view at Google Maps, I suspect that the Manos Theatre was the former Paramount, which opened around the beginning of August, 1916, according to the report in the August 5 issue of The Moving Picture World:Issues of The American Contractor from late 1915 carry notices about the Lampropolis theater project in Latrobe, and name the architect as M. Nirdlinger. Maximilian Nirdlinger also designed the Kenyon Opera House in Pittsburgh and a 1921 theater project in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, that I’ve not yet been able to identify.Michael Manos took over the lease on the Grand Theatre in Latrobe from the Indiana County Theatre Company in 1936, according to an item in the September 2 issue of The Film Daily. He also acquired Latrobe’s Paramount and Olympic Theatres in the same deal.
The Tyler Theatre is listed in the 1926 and 1928 editions of the Film Daily Yearbook with 300 seats. In the 1929 Yearbook, a 300-seat house called the People’s Theatre is listed. The Crescent Theatre also appears in the Yearbooks from 1926 through 1929, though only in 1929 is its seating capacity given (500.)
The next few years are a bit complicated. Whitney Point is not in the Yearbooks for 1930 or 1931, but in 1932 there are three theaters listed: The Crescent, with 390 seats, the Tyler, with 250 seats, and the People’s Theatre, with 225 seats. Only the People’s Theatre is listed as open. In 1933, the first two houses are still listed as closed, but the People’s Theatre is not listed at all. The interesting thing is that the closed Crescent Theatre is now listed with 225 seats.
It seems possible that the Crescent Theatre moved into the building formerly occupied by the People’s Theatre in 1932, but was closed before the information was gathered for the 1933 Yearbook. The Crescent was listed as closed in 1935 and 1937, too, and Whitney Point did not appear in either the 1934 or 1936 Yearbooks.
Then in 1938, the Point Theatre appears for the first time, open, with 225 seats. It’s possible that this was the 225-seat former People’s and/or Crescent Theatre reopened under a new name. It’s also possible that the original Crescent, with 500 and then 390 seats, was the old Opera House, and the owners might have moved their operation to the smaller house during the lean times of the early depression. All this is speculation, of course, based on the changing seating capacities reported for the various theaters. The actual course of events, whatever it was, would have to be confirmed by other sources such as newspaper reports.
Also, note that the fact that a theater is listed as closed in the Yearbook doesn’t mean that it was closed that entire year. The Yearbook listed the status of a theater as of January 1, and information for each edition must have been gathered in the later part of the year preceding the publication date. In some cases, a theater might have closed for the winter and reopened later in the year.
I’ve checked the editions of the Film Daily Yearbook from 1926 to 1962 for theaters in Whitney Point. Keeping in mind that the Yearbooks are not definitive (numerous errors crept into them, some of them repeated year after year) the information still might offer a few clues.
I found theaters with four different names in Whitney Point: the Crescent, the Tyler, the People’s, and the Point. The Point first appears in 1938, and from then on is the only theater listed in the town, though its seating capacity changes a couple of times, and it is not listed at all in some years.
The Point Theatre is listed with 225 seats from 1938 through 1942 (the Yearbook lists theaters operating as of January 1 each year, so the Point probably began operation in 1937.) It is still listed in 1943, but with 250 seats. It is listed in 1944 but with the notation (CL), which means closed. It was open again in 1945 and 1946, but with 260 seats, and then in 1947 was open, but back down to 225 seats.
In 1948 and 1949, Whitney Point is not listed at all, but the Point Theatre reappears in 1950, now with 335 seats. The same obtains in 1951 and 1952, but in 1953 and 1954 Whitney Point vanishes from the listings again. The Point Theatre makes its last appearance in the 1956 Yearbook, and I haven’t found the town listed after that as far as I’ve searched (1962.)
I suspect that the Point Theatre might have been the same house as the Crescent Theatre that was listed as closed, but with 225 seats, in the 1933, 1935, and 1937 Yearbooks, and I suspect that that Crescent Theatre was the former Peoples Theatre that was listed as open with 225 seats in the 1932 Yearbook. The People’s Theatre first appeared in the 1929 Yearbook, but with 300 seats.
Here it gets a bit complicated. In 1932, when the 225-seat People’s Theatre was listed as open, there are also listings for a 390-seat Crescent Theatre (closed) and a 250-seat Tyler Theatre (also closed.) Were there actually three buildings in Whitney Point with theaters in them, or did the Yearbook mistakenly list one of them under two different names? Such mistakes were sometimes made.
A further complication is that, in 1933, The Crescent is listed as closed, but with 225 seats, and the Tyler is listed as closed with 250 seats. And then in 1934 and 1936, Whitney Point is not listed at all. It is not listed in 1930 or 1931, either. I don’t know if the years the town is not listed means that the theaters were all closed and the Yearbook was just saving space by not listing them, or if the town was just overlooked by accident.
In 1926, 1927, and 1928, the Crescent was listed, but without the seating capacity given, and in 1929 it was listed with 500 seats. Meanwhile, the Tyler was listed only in 1926 and 1928, but with 300 seats. Then the People’s Theatre appears with 300 seats in 1929. Did th Tyler change its name to the People’s Theatre in 1929, and the Yearbook mistakenly list it again as a closed house in 1932 and 1933? Perhaps. Did the Crescent move from its former location into the building of the 225-seat People’s Theatre sometime during 1932, but then close before the 1933 Yearbook was put together? Perhaps.
It’s quite a tangle, and most likely it can only be sorted out with research on the ground, meaning in the archives of the local newspaper, or with other local sources such as directories or telephone books. The assortment theater names from the Yearbook should give a good starting point for anyone doing that, though.
I’ve also searched the available trade journals of the period, but have come up empty. Apparently Whitney Point’s theaters were never mentioned in any of them, of if they were then the search applications available to me haven’t found them.
The Fall, 2007, issue of the Waseca County Historical Society’s newsletter, History Notes (PDF here), has an article about the county’s movie theaters, and there is considerable information about the theater at 118 N. State Street. There are also five photos of it.
The house was opened by brothers Elmer and Bert Dawson on June 24, 1912, as the Palace Theatre. The opening attraction was a stage play, but the house offered movies and vaudeville as well. In 1920, the Dawson brothers sold the Palace to John and Frank Manthey, who operated it until 1929, when they sold it to Elmer P. Nelson. Nelson renamed the house the State Theatre.
The State Theatre burned on February 3, 1944, and was rebuilt and reopened as the New State Theatre on October 4th that year (the long delay was probably due to wartime restrictions on construction materials, rather than the extent of the fire damage, as the facade was largely unchanged at this time.) Another fire in 1971 led to another renaming, and the house spent its final years as the Waseca Cinema. The article doesn’t say what year the theater closed, but another source says that the last show was on Sunday, August 4, 1985.
The article also notes that the Park Theatre, at 218 N. State Street, was opened by Elmer P. Nelson in 1937. It also mentions two silent era houses opened in 1914— the Unique and the Regent— but doesn’t give their locations or say how long they operated.
Ken: Digital projection and sound equipment was installed in the Chalet Theatre in June, 2013.
Ken Kerr, who had operated the Chalet Theatre since 1977, passed away in December, 2012, and the theater is now operated by his nephew, Charles Kerr.
The July 20, 1912, issue of The Moving Picture World had another item about the A-Muse-U Theatre:
The house was mentioned yet again in the August 12 issue:a later issue of the magazine said that before installing the picture machine in the A-Muse-U, Mr. Henle put it on display in a local store window for a time. Finally, the September 28 issue of TMPW carried this announcement of the opening of the house:As the magazine used the form A-Muse-U for the theater’s name in three consecutive items, that must have been correct.So, to recap, this house opened as the A-Muse-U Theatre on September 2, 1912, was renamed the Rialto Theatre in 1922, and became the Cinema I in 1965.