The September 16, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Ferry Field Theatre had opened on August 31. The theater was decorated in the Spanish Renaissance style.
The November 21, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Knickerbocker Theatre, then under construction by the Ingersoll-Gaukler Company, was expected to open by May, 1915.
Here is a newspaper article about the proposed Pantheon Theatre, published in the Toledo Times, July 3, 1919.
“TOLEDO TO GET A COSTLY NEW PICTURE HOUSE
“Pantheon Theatre Company Incorporates and Takes Over Kaiserhof Cafe.
“HAS ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS CAPITAL.
“New Theatre to Be One of the Finest in Country; Will Seat 1,200.
“Incorporation of the Pantheon Theater Co. with a capital stock of $100,000 assures Toledo the erection of one of the finest motion picture houses in the country.
“The new company has taken over the property formerly occupied by the Kaiserhof cafe.
“The exterior of the building will be glazed terra cotta.
“A large foyer, which will accommodate more than 300, will be utilized as a dance hall on special occasions, and the dances may be made a regular feature of the program. Back of the lobby will be a large reception and music room, elaborately furnished, where concerts may be held.
“The stage will be 18 feet in depth. The proscenium will measure 30 feet and there will be an elaborate equipment of built-in sets and scenery for special features.
“Elaborate simplicity is designated as the keynote of the decorations which will make the new house one of the most beautiful in this part of the country.
“There will be no balcony, but the theatre will have a seating capacity of 1,200. A $25,000 Hope Jones organ will be installed.
“A large canopy will be built over the street and there will be a double ticket window. A new lighting system, on the order of the ‘flood light,’ will be used.
“Rest rooms, a private projection room and dressing rooms for the ushers and performers will be located in the basement. A play room for children will also be down stairs.
“H. C. Horater, John Kumler and John J. Gardiner are the incorporators of the new company. Horater, who is manager, secretary and treasurer of the Alhambra theatre, will continue as managing director of both companies. Gardiner is president of the Alhambra Co.
“The Alhambra theatre was built eight years ago.
“Four years ago Horater took the active management and with a policy of showing only the best pictures has made it one of the best known motion picture houses in the country. The most promising features procurable in motion pictures have been secured for exhibition at the new house during the coming year.“
The seating capacity needs to be updated. The original Cinema I & II seated 1,805 (705 and 1,100.) The addition of the 1,140-seat third auditorium in 1967 brought the total to 2,945. I don’t know if any seats were lost when two auditoriums were later divided to make this a five-screen multiplex.
The Strand Theatre is listed at 402 E. Fourth Street in city directories from 1921 through 1978. It had the longest run under a single name of any theater in Waterloo, and the longest run of any Waterloo house but the Palace/Waterloo, which operated from 1914 to 1982.
This list of Waterloo’s theaters as they appeared in city directories has the State Theatre listed beginning in 1935. There is no directory available for 1934, so the State might have opened as early as 1933, after that year’s directory had been sent to the printer. The State Theatre is last listed in the 1954 directory.
I’ve been unable to discover if the State was newly built in the 1930s, or was an earlier house called the Crystal, listed at the same address from 1910 through 1928. It might have been remodeled and reopened. No directory is available for 1929, either, so the Crystal might have closed as late as that year. No theater is listed at 212 E. Fourth in directories from 1930, 1931, or 1933.
The Riviera probably opened in January, 1928. The January 3 issue of The Film Daily said that the house would be ready “…around the first of the year….” However, the announcement that the Riviera had opened did not appear until the issue of February 5.
Also, it was the Plaza/Iowa/Orpheum on Fourth Street that was designed by architect Mortimer Cleveland. So far I’ve been unable to discover the architect of the Grand/etc/New Iowa.
Our history for this theater is a bit off, due to two different houses in Waterloo having been called the Iowa Theatre. The house at 608 Commercial Street was never called the Plaza, but it did have the following aka’s: Grand, Family, Garden, Rialto, and Capitol.
This handy list of theaters from the Waterloo Public Library shows that the theater at 608 Commercial Street was first listed in the city directory in 1915 as the Grand Theatre. In 1916 and 1918 it is listed as the Family Theatre. From 1919 through 1921 it is listed as the Garden Theatre.
No theater is listed for this address in the 1922-23 directory, but in 1924 it reappears as the Rialto Theatre. It was still the Rialto in 1928, but no directory is available for 1929, and no theater is listed for the address again until 1936, when it appears as the location of the Capitol Theatre. The name Iowa Theatre first appears at this address in the 1939 directory, and remains through 1961. After that, no theater is listed at 608 Commercial Street.
During most of the 1930s the name Iowa Theatre belonged to the house that opened in 1914 as the Plaza and became the Orpheum sometime in 1938.
A list of Waterloo theaters as they appeared in the city directories shows that the house at 420 W. Fourth Street was first listed, as the Plaza Theatre, in the 1915 directory, and was last listed under that name in the 1928 directory. No directory is available for 1929. In 1930, it was listed as the Iowa Theatre, which it remained through the 1938 directory. In 1939, it was listed as the Orpheum Theatre, and retained that name through the 1952 directory. No directory is available for 1953. In the 1954 directory it is listed as the RKO Orpheum Theatre, and that name remained in the 1954 and 1955 directories. No theater is listed at this address in the 1956 or later directories.
The NRHP registration form for the Babcock Theatre (PDF here) has a detailed history of the theater and numerous photographs, including photos of the original 1907 interior designed by Edwin W. Houghton and of the 1927 interior with decoration in the Spanish Colonial style by Carl F. Berg of the Shearer studios in Seattle. The theater was closed from June 7 to September 24 for the 1927 remodeling project.
The architect for these major alterations, which included moving the theater entrance from an interior arcade to the street front, and the removal of the 300-seat gallery and the boxes, was not named in the document, but it might have been John G. Link, who did work on the building at some point according to this page from the Montana State University Library.
On the night of February 21 and morning of February 22, 1935, the Babcock Theatre was severely damaged by a fire that caused the roof of the auditorium to collapse. The Wutlizer Hope_Jones organ was destroyed. Reconstruction after the fire took almost six months. The rebuilding project was designed by local architect Edwin G. Osness. The decoration, in the Art Deco style, was by the Heinsbergen Studios of Los Angeles.
The Skouras-style remodeling for Fox Theatres, designed by Carl G. Moeller, which is still largely intact, was done in 1955.
I haven’t had much luck finding stuff that has gone missing from earlier comments due to linkrot, but at least I found this page from Boxoffice of March 1, 1947, featuring a couple of interior photos of the Will Rogers Theatre at the bottom of the page.
The Historical Marker Database has a page that includes the inscription and photos from the EACO Theatre marker here. The text reads:
“On this site once stood the EACO Theatre. In 1921, Dr. L.D. Whitaker organized the Educational Amusement Company for the purpose of constructing a modern theatre. A capital stock of $40,000 was subscribed to by about 100 local citizens and the EACO Theatre was soon completed on the corner of Main and Fourth Street. In 1940, the Richmond based firm Neighborhood Theatres Inc., purchased the EACO Theatre and renamed it the State Theatre. The last organization to use the building was Farmville’s Theatre Group ‘The Waterworks Players’; this group continues to perform in the Town of Farmville. The theatre collapsed unexpectedly on February 11, 1994, thus ending a 72-year old landmark for entertainment in Farmville.”
When Community Theatres took over the Lee and EACO Theatres in 1940, a brief notice of their reopening under new management appeared in the August 5 issue of Motion Picture Daily. Among the guests at the event was the architect of the remodeling, A. O. Budina.
This item is from the “Theater Changes” column of the July 17, 1940, issue of Motion Picture Daily:
“Open Kansas House Soon
“Kansas City, July 16. — The new theatre at Caney, Kan., practically rebuilt from the old Liberty by Larry Larsen, architect and builder, will be opened shortly by C. R. Gregg. The new house, renamed the Gregg, has been closed for two months.”
The Liberty Theatre at Caney, Kansas, was mentioned in the June 7, 1919, issue of The Moving Picture World. Earlier than that I’ve found a Strand Theatre (new front to be installed, MPW April 6, 1918) and an Iris Theatre (recently opened, MPW August 28, 1915) in Caney. Possibly earlier names for the same theater?
The Ritz Theatre at Chenoa, Illinois, was listed as a new theater in the May 21, 1936, issue of The Film Daily. The only earlier reference to a specific theater in Chenoa I’ve found in the trade journals is an item in the August 5, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World saying that “Charles E. Hawkins of Mahornet is remodeling the Rex theater, which he recently purchased from Arch C. Howard.”
The most complete history of movie theaters in Chenoa is from a Centennial history published in 1954, but it’s wording is rather ambiguous. It never explicitly states that the Lyceum and the Ritz were one and the same, but doesn’t say they weren’t. It does say that the Rex was on the site of the Ritz:
“THE RITZ THEATER
“The first motion picture theatre (silent pictures) in Chenoa, known as the Rex, was owned and operated by Dexter and Clagget of Lexington about 1909, at the present location of the Ritz Theatre. Among others who later owned or operated the theatre were C. D. Caster, A. M. Blake, Richardson and Broadwell, Mr. Hawkins and Arch Swan.
“In August, 1919 the Rex was purchased and operated by John Pittman, now of Fairbury, who continued operation with the assistance of Lewis (Tubby) Claudon, until 1925. Mr. Claudon was closely connected with the motion picture industry here for many years. The first multi-reel picture shown here was ‘The Christian.’
“Later motion pictures were also shown at the Lyceum for many years, Les Twomey operating the machine.
“Music and entertainment was furnished at these shows by numerous local young people, among whom were Bernadine Twomey Elson, Clara Power Green, Myrtle Bower Winter and Georgia Green Power.
“On Feb. 8, 1938 under management of Elmer Larsen, the Ritz Theatre, in the present location was opened, and we might add it was 22 degrees below on that day. In 1944 the building was remodeled as it is now and was the first to operate a "talking picture” movie theatre in Chenoa. The Ritz burned on Dec. 19, 1940 and re-opened in March, 1941, still under management of Elmer Larsen.
“Mr. Tom Whetzell of Urbana, purchased the Ritz in May, 1951, which continues operations with Paul Hallbeck as manager and Ray Moore, machine operator.”
In this Bing Maps bird’s eye view, the Ritz Theatre building can be seen on the west side of South Veto Street just north of East Owsley Street.
jlinamen1229 is correct. The Grove Theatre’s building is still standing at the corner of Grove Avenue and Prairie Street, as seen in Street View. Part of the building is still occupied by the Prairie Rock Grill, reopened in 2012. The former auditorium, however, once the location of the microbrewery, is now occupied by Discover Church. A new entrance was built for the church at 200 Prairie Street.
A newspaper page from the Norwood News, dated November 7, without a year displayed but from the period 1903-1905, has this item about the Hetrick Opera House:
“Some strange things have happened out in Kansas. Oil has been discovered, and men who a few days ago were poor are now rich.
“One of the most striking cases is that of a man named Frank Hetrick. He owned a farm near the town of Chanute, and bad a hard time keeping the wolf from the door. He can neither read nor write.
His oil royalties now amount to $800 a month He has just completed the finest opera house in Kansas. It occupies half a block in Chanute. He said he Wanted to leave something for a monument.
“Mr. Hetrlck gives a box party at each performance, and Hetrick himself is always behind the scenes, seeing how the actors and actresses do things. They are having the times of their lives, and Chanute has become one of the best theatre towns in the west.”
As the Hetrick Opera House is mentioned in the February 13, 1904, issue of The Billboard, it must have opened either in 1903 or in early 1904.
The 1929 article in Motion Picture News that Tinseltoes linked to earlier was written by Victor A. Rigaumont, architect of the remodeling job that had recently been done at the Avon Theatre.
It is possible that the part of the building the theater was in dated from 1905 and was incorporated into the 1917 project. In the early photo at the Rialto Cafe, the theater part of the building, given a fancy new facade when converted into a bank in 1930, and the office and commercial building on the corner, remodeled in a simpler style at some point, then had a single, unified facade.
The Rohs Theatre, in the photo above, now the home of The Cynthiana-Harrison County Museum, is at 134 S. Walnut Street. This is the museum’s web site.
Cynthiana is also the home of The Rohs Opera House, an entirely different theater located at 133 E. Pike Street. The two are conflated all over the Internet, and we don’t want to be adding to the confusion. According to various web sites, the Opera House dates back to 1871, but a movie theater was installed on the ground floor (the Opera House was upstairs) in 1941.
The Rohs Theatre is mentioned in the trade publications a few times, though the earliest I’ve found so far is from 1929, but there is also an item in the May 10, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World announcing the recent opening of the 400-seat “Prows Theater” in Cynthiana. It’s possible that a typesetter scanning hastily scribbled notes misread “Rohs” as Prows, but it’s also possible that there was a Prows Theater, as an Internet search brings up quite a few people with the surname Prows in that region of Kentucky. The latter seems less likely than the former to me, though. Plus, from its architectural style, the Rohs Theatre building looks quite likely to have been built in the early 1910s.
Street View has been set to a location in Highland Park several miles from the Grand River Avenue site of the theater. The zip code is 48208.
The September 16, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Ferry Field Theatre had opened on August 31. The theater was decorated in the Spanish Renaissance style.
The November 21, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Knickerbocker Theatre, then under construction by the Ingersoll-Gaukler Company, was expected to open by May, 1915.
Here is a newspaper article about the proposed Pantheon Theatre, published in the Toledo Times, July 3, 1919.
The seating capacity needs to be updated. The original Cinema I & II seated 1,805 (705 and 1,100.) The addition of the 1,140-seat third auditorium in 1967 brought the total to 2,945. I don’t know if any seats were lost when two auditoriums were later divided to make this a five-screen multiplex.
The Strand Theatre is listed at 402 E. Fourth Street in city directories from 1921 through 1978. It had the longest run under a single name of any theater in Waterloo, and the longest run of any Waterloo house but the Palace/Waterloo, which operated from 1914 to 1982.
This list of Waterloo’s theaters as they appeared in city directories has the State Theatre listed beginning in 1935. There is no directory available for 1934, so the State might have opened as early as 1933, after that year’s directory had been sent to the printer. The State Theatre is last listed in the 1954 directory.
I’ve been unable to discover if the State was newly built in the 1930s, or was an earlier house called the Crystal, listed at the same address from 1910 through 1928. It might have been remodeled and reopened. No directory is available for 1929, either, so the Crystal might have closed as late as that year. No theater is listed at 212 E. Fourth in directories from 1930, 1931, or 1933.
The Riviera probably opened in January, 1928. The January 3 issue of The Film Daily said that the house would be ready “…around the first of the year….” However, the announcement that the Riviera had opened did not appear until the issue of February 5.
Also, it was the Plaza/Iowa/Orpheum on Fourth Street that was designed by architect Mortimer Cleveland. So far I’ve been unable to discover the architect of the Grand/etc/New Iowa.
Our history for this theater is a bit off, due to two different houses in Waterloo having been called the Iowa Theatre. The house at 608 Commercial Street was never called the Plaza, but it did have the following aka’s: Grand, Family, Garden, Rialto, and Capitol.
This handy list of theaters from the Waterloo Public Library shows that the theater at 608 Commercial Street was first listed in the city directory in 1915 as the Grand Theatre. In 1916 and 1918 it is listed as the Family Theatre. From 1919 through 1921 it is listed as the Garden Theatre.
No theater is listed for this address in the 1922-23 directory, but in 1924 it reappears as the Rialto Theatre. It was still the Rialto in 1928, but no directory is available for 1929, and no theater is listed for the address again until 1936, when it appears as the location of the Capitol Theatre. The name Iowa Theatre first appears at this address in the 1939 directory, and remains through 1961. After that, no theater is listed at 608 Commercial Street.
During most of the 1930s the name Iowa Theatre belonged to the house that opened in 1914 as the Plaza and became the Orpheum sometime in 1938.
A list of Waterloo theaters as they appeared in the city directories shows that the house at 420 W. Fourth Street was first listed, as the Plaza Theatre, in the 1915 directory, and was last listed under that name in the 1928 directory. No directory is available for 1929. In 1930, it was listed as the Iowa Theatre, which it remained through the 1938 directory. In 1939, it was listed as the Orpheum Theatre, and retained that name through the 1952 directory. No directory is available for 1953. In the 1954 directory it is listed as the RKO Orpheum Theatre, and that name remained in the 1954 and 1955 directories. No theater is listed at this address in the 1956 or later directories.
The NRHP registration form for the Babcock Theatre (PDF here) has a detailed history of the theater and numerous photographs, including photos of the original 1907 interior designed by Edwin W. Houghton and of the 1927 interior with decoration in the Spanish Colonial style by Carl F. Berg of the Shearer studios in Seattle. The theater was closed from June 7 to September 24 for the 1927 remodeling project.
The architect for these major alterations, which included moving the theater entrance from an interior arcade to the street front, and the removal of the 300-seat gallery and the boxes, was not named in the document, but it might have been John G. Link, who did work on the building at some point according to this page from the Montana State University Library.
On the night of February 21 and morning of February 22, 1935, the Babcock Theatre was severely damaged by a fire that caused the roof of the auditorium to collapse. The Wutlizer Hope_Jones organ was destroyed. Reconstruction after the fire took almost six months. The rebuilding project was designed by local architect Edwin G. Osness. The decoration, in the Art Deco style, was by the Heinsbergen Studios of Los Angeles.
The Skouras-style remodeling for Fox Theatres, designed by Carl G. Moeller, which is still largely intact, was done in 1955.
The Lynn Theatre’s official web site link is dead. It appears that they are now using this Facebook page in lieu of an actual web site.
I haven’t had much luck finding stuff that has gone missing from earlier comments due to linkrot, but at least I found this page from Boxoffice of March 1, 1947, featuring a couple of interior photos of the Will Rogers Theatre at the bottom of the page.
Here is photo of the Gem Theatre. The building now houses a retail store.
The Victory Theatre became the Gaslight Restaurant & Theatre in 1971. Today it is called Gaslight Pizza & Grill. The venue presents live performances.
The Historical Marker Database has a page that includes the inscription and photos from the EACO Theatre marker here. The text reads:
When Community Theatres took over the Lee and EACO Theatres in 1940, a brief notice of their reopening under new management appeared in the August 5 issue of Motion Picture Daily. Among the guests at the event was the architect of the remodeling, A. O. Budina.This item is from the “Theater Changes” column of the July 17, 1940, issue of Motion Picture Daily:
The Liberty Theatre at Caney, Kansas, was mentioned in the June 7, 1919, issue of The Moving Picture World. Earlier than that I’ve found a Strand Theatre (new front to be installed, MPW April 6, 1918) and an Iris Theatre (recently opened, MPW August 28, 1915) in Caney. Possibly earlier names for the same theater?The Ritz Theatre at Chenoa, Illinois, was listed as a new theater in the May 21, 1936, issue of The Film Daily. The only earlier reference to a specific theater in Chenoa I’ve found in the trade journals is an item in the August 5, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World saying that “Charles E. Hawkins of Mahornet is remodeling the Rex theater, which he recently purchased from Arch C. Howard.”
The most complete history of movie theaters in Chenoa is from a Centennial history published in 1954, but it’s wording is rather ambiguous. It never explicitly states that the Lyceum and the Ritz were one and the same, but doesn’t say they weren’t. It does say that the Rex was on the site of the Ritz:
In this Bing Maps bird’s eye view, the Ritz Theatre building can be seen on the west side of South Veto Street just north of East Owsley Street.jlinamen1229 is correct. The Grove Theatre’s building is still standing at the corner of Grove Avenue and Prairie Street, as seen in Street View. Part of the building is still occupied by the Prairie Rock Grill, reopened in 2012. The former auditorium, however, once the location of the microbrewery, is now occupied by Discover Church. A new entrance was built for the church at 200 Prairie Street.
OCRon: BigScreen has a complete list of the Muvico locations acquired by Carmike.
A newspaper page from the Norwood News, dated November 7, without a year displayed but from the period 1903-1905, has this item about the Hetrick Opera House:
As the Hetrick Opera House is mentioned in the February 13, 1904, issue of The Billboard, it must have opened either in 1903 or in early 1904.The 1929 article in Motion Picture News that Tinseltoes linked to earlier was written by Victor A. Rigaumont, architect of the remodeling job that had recently been done at the Avon Theatre.
It is possible that the part of the building the theater was in dated from 1905 and was incorporated into the 1917 project. In the early photo at the Rialto Cafe, the theater part of the building, given a fancy new facade when converted into a bank in 1930, and the office and commercial building on the corner, remodeled in a simpler style at some point, then had a single, unified facade.
The Rohs Theatre, in the photo above, now the home of The Cynthiana-Harrison County Museum, is at 134 S. Walnut Street. This is the museum’s web site.
Cynthiana is also the home of The Rohs Opera House, an entirely different theater located at 133 E. Pike Street. The two are conflated all over the Internet, and we don’t want to be adding to the confusion. According to various web sites, the Opera House dates back to 1871, but a movie theater was installed on the ground floor (the Opera House was upstairs) in 1941.
The Rohs Theatre is mentioned in the trade publications a few times, though the earliest I’ve found so far is from 1929, but there is also an item in the May 10, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World announcing the recent opening of the 400-seat “Prows Theater” in Cynthiana. It’s possible that a typesetter scanning hastily scribbled notes misread “Rohs” as Prows, but it’s also possible that there was a Prows Theater, as an Internet search brings up quite a few people with the surname Prows in that region of Kentucky. The latter seems less likely than the former to me, though. Plus, from its architectural style, the Rohs Theatre building looks quite likely to have been built in the early 1910s.