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.
The 1955 article I cited in my previous comment might have gotten the opening year of the A-Muse-U Theatre wrong (and perhaps the form of its name as well.) The July 6, 1912, issue of The Moving Picture World had a brief article about Clinton’s movie theaters, listing them as the Colonial, Airdome, Lyric, Casino, Bright Spot, and Superba.
A Mr. Henle, the article said, “…will soon begin the building of an attractive and cozy moving picture theater on Sixth Avenue….” and this house was to be called the Amuse-U Theatre. Another theater, which was not yet named but would open as the Royal, was already under construction. The Amuse-U (or A-Muse-U) probably opened by the end of 1912, not in 1908.
A vaudeville house called the Family Theatre had recently been operated as a movie house as well, the article said. It didn’t mention the Clinton Theatre, a large legitimate house that had opened around 1897 as the Economic Theatre. I’ve been unable to discover if the Clinton Theatre ever ran movies, but it was apparently still in operation at least as late as 1930.
The July 6, 1912, issue of The Moving Picture World had this item about the house that became the Royal Theatre:
“CLINTON, IOWA.
“DR. LANGAN, a local capitalist, is erecting an up-to-date office building at the corner of Second Street and Fourth Avenue. The lower floor will be used for a moving picture theater. The lessee has not announced himself to date.”
A later paragraph in the same item listed the movie theaters then in operation at Clinton. They were the Colonial, Airdome, Lyric, Casino, Bright Spot, and Superba. Another theater besides the Royal was about to begin construction, and was to be called the Amuse-U.
The Royal Theatre might have opened before the end of 1912, but the earliest mention of it by name I’ve found in TMPW is from November 15, 1913. The Royal was renamed the Strand in 1916, according to the web page that CSWalczak linked to earlier.
There is a photo of The Parkside Theatre on the Facebook page Clinton Movie Theatres. The page also has a couple of ads for the Lyons Theatre, one dating from 1956 and the other from 1970.
This history of Clinton’s theaters from the Centennial Edition of the Clinton Herald, June 18, 1955, does not give Clinton Theatre as an aka for the former Orpheum. At some point the house was renamed the Capitol Theatre, which was the name it was operating under in 1955.
It was still being advertised as the Capitol Theatre as late as 1966. By 1970, it had been renamed the Capri Theatre, but was still operating as a single-screen house. The conversion of the balcony to two small auditoriums and the renaming as Capri III Theatre took place in the 1980s.
The Facebook page Clinton Movie Theatres has a few photos of the house as the Orpheum and the Capri, including a couple of interior shots. There are also some ads for the Capitol and Capri.
CEC Theatres bought the house prior to building the Clinton 8 Theatre in 2003. After the opening of the Clinton 8, CEC sold the Cinema I and Capri III buildings with the stipulation that they not be used as movie theaters, and they were demolished in 2004.
This history of Clinton’s theaters from the Centennial Edition of the Clinton Herald, June 18, 1955, says that this house opened in 1908 as the A-Muse-U Theatre and was renamed the Rialto in 1922. The Rialto was remodeled and renamed Cinema I in 1965.
The Facebook page Clinton Movie Theatres has several photos of and advertisements for the Rialto/Cinema I, and a 1986 ad for the Cinema I Video Movie Mart, so the theater housed a video rental store for a time.
This article from the November 30, 2003, issue of the Quad City Times tells of the sale of the Cinema I and Capri III buildings and the plans to have them demolished the following spring.
This article from the November 30, 2003, issue of the Quad City Times, about the end of Capri III, Clinton’s last remaining downtown theater, said that Cinema Entertainment Corporation had opened its replacement, the new Clinton 8 Theatre, in October, 2003.
Paul T. Hellmann’s Historical Gazetteer of the United States says that the Star Theatre at Mercersburg was built in 1904. I’ve been unable to find any mention of Mercersburg in early trade publications, or in any editions of Julius Cahn’s guide.
This article was posted at statesboroherald.com on January 17 this year. It says that restoration of the Tos Theatre is proceeding, but slowly due to limited funding. The front of the building has been restored (sans signage) and the roof has been repaired. The marquee has been removed. Most of the seats were not salvageable, and the ceiling of the auditorium is missing. Four photos, two of them vintage shots, accompany the article.
The article notes that the Italian Garden Theatre opened in 1927, and was renamed the Tos Theatre in 1940. It closed in November, 1976, having been operated by the Tos family throughout its history. Tos' grandson Gil Mincey donated the theater to the Evans County Recreation Commission in 2003. Goals for the project include enlarging the stage and installing a retractable movie screen. When renovated, the auditorium will seat 452, 312 on the main floor and 140 in the balcony.
The Metropolitan Theatre was listed at 513 N. Main Street in the 1911 city directory. In 1909, 513 was the address of a photography studio and 515 of a fruit vendor and a barber shop.
This web page attributes the design of the Martin Theatre in Opelika to the firm of Biggers & Associates. James J. W. Biggers was practicing at least as late as 1949.
A history of movie exhibition in Auburn from 1894 to 1928, written as a thesis by Auburn University student Danielle E. Williams, has information about the early years of the Tiger Theatre (PDF here.)
The Tiger Theatre was opened by F. A. Rogers on September 6, 1926. It was the first regular movie theater in Auburn, though movies had been shown in the college auditorium at lest twice a week (Friday and Saturday nights) under the auspices of the local YMCA since 1912.
The College Picture Show, as the YMCA program was called, continued to operate for two years after the Tiger Theatre opened, finally suspending operations in September, 1928.
A June 16, 1907, New York Times article mentions “…the Pier Theatre, at the foot of Vernon [sic] Avenue….” Another bit of complication. Was the 1907 Times article right about the location, or was the 1904 advertisement Lost Memory cited right?
But at least we have the approximate location, which was probably on the short block between Beach 66th and Beach 67th.
Although the County Tax Assessor says that the building the De Luxe Theatre was in dates from 1910, no theater is listed at 656 S. Alvarado Street in the 1911 city directory. In fact, in 1911 there are no listings for 650, 552, or 656 S. Alvarado, and 654 is listed as the home of Jennie M. Emory. This makes me suspect that the building is not quite as old as the Assessor’s office believes it to be.
I now suspect that the Theatre De Luxe was located in the proposed building described in this item from the September 27, 1913, issue of The American Contractor:
“Store & Moving Picture Theater: 1 sty. 80x130, $30,000. Alvarado, nr. Orange st. Archt. A. Lawrence Valk, 933 Union Oil bldg. Owner Henry Laub, 108 S. Broadway. Architect is taking bids.”
Orange Street was then the name of that section of what is now Wilshire Boulevard running east from Alvarado Street. It was renamed after the street was cut through Westlake Park.
In the 1911 city directory, 527 S. Spring Street is listed as the address of the Crown Theater. No theater is listed at this address in the 1915 directory.
Thanks, psefton. Changing the search terms to Maurice R. Rhoads brings up several results.
Also, there’s a typo in the first paragraph of my previous comment. I said that much of Chambersburg was destroyed by a fire in 1964. It should read 1864. Here is the story.
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.
The 1955 article I cited in my previous comment might have gotten the opening year of the A-Muse-U Theatre wrong (and perhaps the form of its name as well.) The July 6, 1912, issue of The Moving Picture World had a brief article about Clinton’s movie theaters, listing them as the Colonial, Airdome, Lyric, Casino, Bright Spot, and Superba.
A Mr. Henle, the article said, “…will soon begin the building of an attractive and cozy moving picture theater on Sixth Avenue….” and this house was to be called the Amuse-U Theatre. Another theater, which was not yet named but would open as the Royal, was already under construction. The Amuse-U (or A-Muse-U) probably opened by the end of 1912, not in 1908.
A vaudeville house called the Family Theatre had recently been operated as a movie house as well, the article said. It didn’t mention the Clinton Theatre, a large legitimate house that had opened around 1897 as the Economic Theatre. I’ve been unable to discover if the Clinton Theatre ever ran movies, but it was apparently still in operation at least as late as 1930.
The July 6, 1912, issue of The Moving Picture World had this item about the house that became the Royal Theatre:
A later paragraph in the same item listed the movie theaters then in operation at Clinton. They were the Colonial, Airdome, Lyric, Casino, Bright Spot, and Superba. Another theater besides the Royal was about to begin construction, and was to be called the Amuse-U.The Royal Theatre might have opened before the end of 1912, but the earliest mention of it by name I’ve found in TMPW is from November 15, 1913. The Royal was renamed the Strand in 1916, according to the web page that CSWalczak linked to earlier.
The Historic League of American Theatres says that the Star was built in 1921. The building certainly has the style of the early 1910s, though.
There is a photo of The Parkside Theatre on the Facebook page Clinton Movie Theatres. The page also has a couple of ads for the Lyons Theatre, one dating from 1956 and the other from 1970.
This history of Clinton’s theaters from the Centennial Edition of the Clinton Herald, June 18, 1955, does not give Clinton Theatre as an aka for the former Orpheum. At some point the house was renamed the Capitol Theatre, which was the name it was operating under in 1955.
It was still being advertised as the Capitol Theatre as late as 1966. By 1970, it had been renamed the Capri Theatre, but was still operating as a single-screen house. The conversion of the balcony to two small auditoriums and the renaming as Capri III Theatre took place in the 1980s.
The Facebook page Clinton Movie Theatres has a few photos of the house as the Orpheum and the Capri, including a couple of interior shots. There are also some ads for the Capitol and Capri.
CEC Theatres bought the house prior to building the Clinton 8 Theatre in 2003. After the opening of the Clinton 8, CEC sold the Cinema I and Capri III buildings with the stipulation that they not be used as movie theaters, and they were demolished in 2004.
This history of Clinton’s theaters from the Centennial Edition of the Clinton Herald, June 18, 1955, says that this house opened in 1908 as the A-Muse-U Theatre and was renamed the Rialto in 1922. The Rialto was remodeled and renamed Cinema I in 1965.
The Facebook page Clinton Movie Theatres has several photos of and advertisements for the Rialto/Cinema I, and a 1986 ad for the Cinema I Video Movie Mart, so the theater housed a video rental store for a time.
This article from the November 30, 2003, issue of the Quad City Times tells of the sale of the Cinema I and Capri III buildings and the plans to have them demolished the following spring.
This article from the November 30, 2003, issue of the Quad City Times, about the end of Capri III, Clinton’s last remaining downtown theater, said that Cinema Entertainment Corporation had opened its replacement, the new Clinton 8 Theatre, in October, 2003.
Paul T. Hellmann’s Historical Gazetteer of the United States says that the Star Theatre at Mercersburg was built in 1904. I’ve been unable to find any mention of Mercersburg in early trade publications, or in any editions of Julius Cahn’s guide.
This article was posted at statesboroherald.com on January 17 this year. It says that restoration of the Tos Theatre is proceeding, but slowly due to limited funding. The front of the building has been restored (sans signage) and the roof has been repaired. The marquee has been removed. Most of the seats were not salvageable, and the ceiling of the auditorium is missing. Four photos, two of them vintage shots, accompany the article.
The article notes that the Italian Garden Theatre opened in 1927, and was renamed the Tos Theatre in 1940. It closed in November, 1976, having been operated by the Tos family throughout its history. Tos' grandson Gil Mincey donated the theater to the Evans County Recreation Commission in 2003. Goals for the project include enlarging the stage and installing a retractable movie screen. When renovated, the auditorium will seat 452, 312 on the main floor and 140 in the balcony.
The Metropolitan Theatre was listed at 513 N. Main Street in the 1911 city directory. In 1909, 513 was the address of a photography studio and 515 of a fruit vendor and a barber shop.
This web page attributes the design of the Martin Theatre in Opelika to the firm of Biggers & Associates. James J. W. Biggers was practicing at least as late as 1949.
A history of movie exhibition in Auburn from 1894 to 1928, written as a thesis by Auburn University student Danielle E. Williams, has information about the early years of the Tiger Theatre (PDF here.)
The Tiger Theatre was opened by F. A. Rogers on September 6, 1926. It was the first regular movie theater in Auburn, though movies had been shown in the college auditorium at lest twice a week (Friday and Saturday nights) under the auspices of the local YMCA since 1912.
The College Picture Show, as the YMCA program was called, continued to operate for two years after the Tiger Theatre opened, finally suspending operations in September, 1928.
A June 16, 1907, New York Times article mentions “…the Pier Theatre, at the foot of Vernon [sic] Avenue….” Another bit of complication. Was the 1907 Times article right about the location, or was the 1904 advertisement Lost Memory cited right?
But at least we have the approximate location, which was probably on the short block between Beach 66th and Beach 67th.
Although the County Tax Assessor says that the building the De Luxe Theatre was in dates from 1910, no theater is listed at 656 S. Alvarado Street in the 1911 city directory. In fact, in 1911 there are no listings for 650, 552, or 656 S. Alvarado, and 654 is listed as the home of Jennie M. Emory. This makes me suspect that the building is not quite as old as the Assessor’s office believes it to be.
I now suspect that the Theatre De Luxe was located in the proposed building described in this item from the September 27, 1913, issue of The American Contractor:
Orange Street was then the name of that section of what is now Wilshire Boulevard running east from Alvarado Street. It was renamed after the street was cut through Westlake Park.The 1909 city directory reveals an even earlier aka for the Orchestrion/Crown Theatre. That year, 527 S. Spring was the location of the Odeon Theatre.
In the 1911 city directory, 527 S. Spring Street is listed as the address of the Crown Theater. No theater is listed at this address in the 1915 directory.
Thanks, psefton. Changing the search terms to Maurice R. Rhoads brings up several results.
Also, there’s a typo in the first paragraph of my previous comment. I said that much of Chambersburg was destroyed by a fire in 1964. It should read 1864. Here is the story.