Bird’s Eye view of the Concord Theatre area at Bing Maps is dated 2012 and shows the theater still standing, auditorium and all. The auditorium roof looks to be in pretty rough shape, though. If it doesn’t get some attention soon, this theater will deteriorate fast.
This web page says that the Alpine Theatre was in a building at 6th and Charles Streets. There is a tiny photo in which the name on the marquee is recognizable, but not much else. It’s the only photo of the Alpine I’ve been able to find.
The May 3, 1935, issue of The Film Daily said:
“Wellsburg, W. Va. — The Palace
has been acquired by Urling and Anderson, circuit operators, with several houses in the upper Ohio Valley.”
A May 27 item noted that the Palace had previously been operated by the Manos Amusement Company, and that it had just been renamed the Alpine Theatre by its new owners.
The Film Daily of July 28, 1932, had said that the New Palace Theatre in Wellsburg had just been reopened by N. G. Anas after having been closed for two months for renovations costing $20,000. Nick Anas was operating a theater in Wellsburg at least as early as 1928, and it was probably this one.
A new theater called the Strand was opened in Wellsburg by W. G. Adams in 1920, as reported in the July 24 issue of FD. In 1916, Wellsburg had a movie house called the Majestic Theatre, which I found mentioned once in Motography. I’ve been unable to discover if either the Majestic or the Strand eventually became the Palace, or if the Palace was an entirely different theater.
The opening of the Alpine circuits new Star Theatre in Wellsburg was reported in the January 2, 1937, issue of The Film Daily. The specific date of the opening was not given, but it could have been in late 1936.
At least three times in 1936, the magazine reported on another theater project then underway in Wellsburg. The Mascolino brothers, local merchants, were planning to enter the theater business with a new house. On August 6, the Mascolino brothers said that their theater would be ready to open by Labor Day, but apparently it didn’t. I haven’t found any later mentions of their project.
It’s possible that the Mascolinos cut a deal with Anderson and Urling, and that the Alpine circuit took over their project, opening it as the Star. I’ve found Anderson and Urling’s intention to open a second house in Wellsburg mentioned only once in Film Daily. Their announcement might have been a feint to intimidate the Mascolinos.
Cumberland Valley: From Tuscarora to Chambersburg to Blue Ridge, by Ann Hull, says that the Rosedale Theatre was built on the site of the Rosedale Seminary for Young Girls, which was lost in a general conflagration that destroyed much of Chambersburg in 1964. The theater was originally called the Rosedale Opera House. It was demolished in 1961. There is a nocturnal photo of Main Street that looks to be from the 1940s with the vertical sign of the Rosedale Theatre prominently featured (Google Books preview.)
The Rosedale Theatre is listed in the 1908-1909 Cahn guide as a 1000-seat, second floor house. In 1920, the building was substantially rebuilt, moving the auditorium to the ground floor and increasing the seating capacity. This item appeared in the November 6 issue of The American Contractor:
“Chambersburg, Pa.—Theatre (M. P.): $30,000. 3 sty. 41-45 N. Main St. Archt. M. R. Rhoads, 518 Broad st. Owner Rosedale Theatre Co., Ralph Steel, pres., McKinley Hotel, 28 E. N. Main st. Gen. contr. let on cost plus basis to B. M. Shields, 241 Lincoln Way West. Plmg. to Edw. N. Wetz. 120 S. Main st. Elec. wiring to Chambersburg Elec. Service Co., Lurgan bldg., Lincoln Way West, all Chambersburg. Htg. to The American Heating Co., 1120 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, Pa. Wrecking.”
The note “Wrecking” indicates that the demolition of the building’s existing interior was then underway. I’ve been unable to find any other references to an architect named M. R. Rhoads, but a Morris R. Rhodes was practicing in Chambersburg in 1918, so it was probably he who designed the rebuilt Rosedale Theatre.
Also, 41-45 N. Main probably is the correct address for this theater. G G’s Hair Salon, just north of the parking lot where the theater used to stand, has the address 47 N. Main. A building still standing next to the parking lot on the south must have an address no lower than 31 N. Main, as the building south of it is clearly numbered 27 and 29, as can be seen in Street View.
The Moving Picture World ran this item in its issue of February 3, 1917:
“Charles Mahan, the enterprising manager of the Eagles theater, Bisbee, Arizona, is busily engaged in installing new equipment with which to open his attractive house.”
>The February 17 issue of the magazine said that Mahan had arrived in Arizona to assume management of the Eagle Theatre. It most likely opened right around that date.
While searching for information about movie theaters in Bisbee, Arizona, I came across an articlea bout Morenci in the October, 1918, issue of Safety Engineering (Google Books scan.) It says that movies were then shown in a 450-seat public hall in the Morenci Club, a building erected and maintained by Phelps Dodge & Company, the corporation that dominated this copper mining town. Its possible that the club was the same building that later became the YMCA that thegrinch remarked about in the previous comment. There are interior and exterior photos.
The photo linked in earlier comments has gone missing again, but I found this one showing the Royal Theatre at lower right in a postcard from the 1950s.
I don’t think this theater has been demolished. A shop called Divine Teas and Novelties is adjacent to the 55 Main Gallery and Imports, and it has the address 51 Main Street. Unless addresses have been shifted, the Eagle Theatre must have been in the building that now houses the 55 Main Gallery, and the building looks to be late 19th century (Bisbee was founded in 1880.)
If you look on the side of the upper floor of the building in Street View you will see a ghost sign for the F.O.E.– the Fraternal Order of Eagles- who probably owned the building and gave the Eagle Theatre its name.
The Eagle, Lyric, and Central Theatres shared an ad in a 1926 business directory of Bisbee. They might all have been operated by the same company.
The name on the arch did end with an S, so that must have been it. I wonder if it was later renamed the Globe? We don’t have any theaters but the Stadium listed for the blocks of Third Avenue to either side of 119th Street.
There is a photo of the auditorium of the Flash Teahtre at the bottom of page 113 of the Arcadia Publishing company’s “Images of America” book Tonawanda and North Tonawanda (Google Books preview.) This was a good-sized theater, probably at least 500 seats, with some very nice decorative detailing. The caption says the house was built in 1914, and in later years was converted into a roller skating rink and then a bowling alley before becoming a church.
An article about the opening of the Flash Roller Rink, located in the former Flash Theatre building, appears in an issue of the North Tonawanda Evening News that I would guess is from 1929. The date on the scan is unreadable, but the page has an article commenting on Herbert Hoover’s inaugural address, so it was probably from March, 1929. It’s possible that the Flash Theatre closed in 1927, though. I haven’t found any ads for it after the early part of that year. The opening of the Riviera Theatre at North Tonawanda in late 1926 might have left the area with too many theaters.
The first State Theatre might have been renamed the Alpine Theatre after being taken over by the Alpine Circuit in 1936. The Alpine Theatre at Point Pleasant was mentioned in the February 17, 1937, issue of The Film Daily.
The 1921 Film Daily item I cited did say that the Stadium’s site was 50x185 feet, and considering that the stadium-seated section was over the lobby then the original auditorium could have been more than three times as deep as it was wide and still leave plenty of room for projection booth and a stage.
There is a newer Google Street View of 119th Street now, so the side view of the old building is gone. I wish I’d saved a screen cap of it.
Does anyone know the name of the theater next door to the Michigan Furniture Company in the 1905 photo at iatse311’s link? A banner over the door says “Moving Pictures” so it should probably be listed at Cinema Treasures. It looks like it was down the block a few doors from the site of the Stadium, probably at 2172 Third Avenue.
The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to says that the 1949 remodeling of the Palace Theatre was designed by Des Moines architects Wetherill & Harrison.
The Alpine Theatre at Terra Alta is mentioned in two 1933 issues of The Film Daily On January 30, an item noted that Wilbur Morford had reopened the Alpine Theatre at Terra Alta. The September 2 issue said that the Alpine had been transferred from W. Murford to W. A. Brooks.
It sounds as though this house was called the Alpine before it was owned by the Alpine Circuit, which as near as I can figure was formed in either 1934 or 1935. It’s likely that this theater gave its name to the circuit, rather than the other way around.
The Pocahontas Times had listings for the Alpine Theatre as late as April, 1963. The last movies I found listed are Blue Hawaii and The Castaways, showing on April 11, but the next issue available is April 18, so the house might have closed any day during that week.
The Alpine Theatre was one of several buildings destroyed in a fire that struck Marlinton’s downtown in January, 1968. GenDisasters has a page with two very small, blurry photos here. I can’t tell if the photos show the theater or some other building.
In 1933 and 1936 there was a house called the Seneca Theatre operating in Marlinton. As the Alpine circuit grew primarily by taking over existing theaters, frequently renaming them, it’s possible that Seneca is an aka for this Alpine.
Two old references to theaters in Lebanon might or might not refer to the Princess. One is from The Moving Picture World of May 3, 1913:
“Lebanon, Tenn. — W. B. Scales, of Shelbyville, who has recently moved his family here, opened his new theater at this place. This makes the second moving picture and vaudeville house for Lebanon. The other one ‘The New Lyric’ is owned by E. E. Adams and is leased by L. B. Long, formerly of Cookeville.”
The other item is from the December 23, 1922, issue of The American Contractor:
The New Lyric Theatre mentioned in the first item was a 662-seat house that was listed in the 1913-1914 Cahn-Leighton guide, but it was mentioned in Variety at least as early as 1908. Any of these three theaters (assuming the Crescent project of 1922 was carried to completion) could have been the house that became the Princess.
As this house was called the Capri Theatre for more than a decade, from 1960 until its closing in the 1970s, isn’t that how it should be listed? Almost nobody under 60 is likely to remember it as the Melba.
The Seeley Theatre was designed by Seattle architect E. W. Houghton, according to data compiled for the NRHP nomination for the Downtown Pomeroy Historic District.
Until the late 19th-early 20th century, theaters were more likely to be built on the second floor of a building than the ground floor. The owners of the buildings wanted to keep the street floor for retail shops and other daytime uses. The change to ground floor theaters was partly the result of increasingly strict fire laws, but the growing popularity of movies probably helped accelerate the transition. Live theaters typically had matinees only one or two days a week, but movie theaters could afford to open by noon and run far into the evening, keeping the valuable street-floor space busy most of the day.
Clickable version of joelmoses' link. The article says that the Capitol Theatre originally opened on December 9, 1941, and closed in 1980. It was renovated by new owner Bob Black beginning in 2009, and reopened in the early summer of 2013.
Here is the official web site, the History page of which notes that the Capitol was originally owned by the Crescent Amusement Company, but was taken over by Martin Theatres in 1961.
Bird’s Eye view of the Concord Theatre area at Bing Maps is dated 2012 and shows the theater still standing, auditorium and all. The auditorium roof looks to be in pretty rough shape, though. If it doesn’t get some attention soon, this theater will deteriorate fast.
Linkrot repair: The February 22, 1947, Boxoffice item (with photo) about the Grove Theatre in Upland is now at this link.
Chuck, the Palace became the Alpine. See the Alpine page for the history, as far as I’ve been able to discover it.
This web page says that the Alpine Theatre was in a building at 6th and Charles Streets. There is a tiny photo in which the name on the marquee is recognizable, but not much else. It’s the only photo of the Alpine I’ve been able to find.
The May 3, 1935, issue of The Film Daily said:
A May 27 item noted that the Palace had previously been operated by the Manos Amusement Company, and that it had just been renamed the Alpine Theatre by its new owners.The Film Daily of July 28, 1932, had said that the New Palace Theatre in Wellsburg had just been reopened by N. G. Anas after having been closed for two months for renovations costing $20,000. Nick Anas was operating a theater in Wellsburg at least as early as 1928, and it was probably this one.
A new theater called the Strand was opened in Wellsburg by W. G. Adams in 1920, as reported in the July 24 issue of FD. In 1916, Wellsburg had a movie house called the Majestic Theatre, which I found mentioned once in Motography. I’ve been unable to discover if either the Majestic or the Strand eventually became the Palace, or if the Palace was an entirely different theater.
The opening of the Alpine circuits new Star Theatre in Wellsburg was reported in the January 2, 1937, issue of The Film Daily. The specific date of the opening was not given, but it could have been in late 1936.
At least three times in 1936, the magazine reported on another theater project then underway in Wellsburg. The Mascolino brothers, local merchants, were planning to enter the theater business with a new house. On August 6, the Mascolino brothers said that their theater would be ready to open by Labor Day, but apparently it didn’t. I haven’t found any later mentions of their project.
It’s possible that the Mascolinos cut a deal with Anderson and Urling, and that the Alpine circuit took over their project, opening it as the Star. I’ve found Anderson and Urling’s intention to open a second house in Wellsburg mentioned only once in Film Daily. Their announcement might have been a feint to intimidate the Mascolinos.
Architect Jack Corgan’s plans for the Telenews Theatre in Dallas were featured in this article from Boxoffice of July 18, 1942.
Cumberland Valley: From Tuscarora to Chambersburg to Blue Ridge, by Ann Hull, says that the Rosedale Theatre was built on the site of the Rosedale Seminary for Young Girls, which was lost in a general conflagration that destroyed much of Chambersburg in 1964. The theater was originally called the Rosedale Opera House. It was demolished in 1961. There is a nocturnal photo of Main Street that looks to be from the 1940s with the vertical sign of the Rosedale Theatre prominently featured (Google Books preview.)
The Rosedale Theatre is listed in the 1908-1909 Cahn guide as a 1000-seat, second floor house. In 1920, the building was substantially rebuilt, moving the auditorium to the ground floor and increasing the seating capacity. This item appeared in the November 6 issue of The American Contractor:
The note “Wrecking” indicates that the demolition of the building’s existing interior was then underway. I’ve been unable to find any other references to an architect named M. R. Rhoads, but a Morris R. Rhodes was practicing in Chambersburg in 1918, so it was probably he who designed the rebuilt Rosedale Theatre.Also, 41-45 N. Main probably is the correct address for this theater. G G’s Hair Salon, just north of the parking lot where the theater used to stand, has the address 47 N. Main. A building still standing next to the parking lot on the south must have an address no lower than 31 N. Main, as the building south of it is clearly numbered 27 and 29, as can be seen in Street View.
A 1944 telephone directory gives the address of the Newville Theatre as 35 S. High Street.
The Moving Picture World ran this item in its issue of February 3, 1917:
>The February 17 issue of the magazine said that Mahan had arrived in Arizona to assume management of the Eagle Theatre. It most likely opened right around that date.While searching for information about movie theaters in Bisbee, Arizona, I came across an articlea bout Morenci in the October, 1918, issue of Safety Engineering (Google Books scan.) It says that movies were then shown in a 450-seat public hall in the Morenci Club, a building erected and maintained by Phelps Dodge & Company, the corporation that dominated this copper mining town. Its possible that the club was the same building that later became the YMCA that thegrinch remarked about in the previous comment. There are interior and exterior photos.
The photo linked in earlier comments has gone missing again, but I found this one showing the Royal Theatre at lower right in a postcard from the 1950s.
I don’t think this theater has been demolished. A shop called Divine Teas and Novelties is adjacent to the 55 Main Gallery and Imports, and it has the address 51 Main Street. Unless addresses have been shifted, the Eagle Theatre must have been in the building that now houses the 55 Main Gallery, and the building looks to be late 19th century (Bisbee was founded in 1880.)
If you look on the side of the upper floor of the building in Street View you will see a ghost sign for the F.O.E.– the Fraternal Order of Eagles- who probably owned the building and gave the Eagle Theatre its name.
The Eagle, Lyric, and Central Theatres shared an ad in a 1926 business directory of Bisbee. They might all have been operated by the same company.
The name on the arch did end with an S, so that must have been it. I wonder if it was later renamed the Globe? We don’t have any theaters but the Stadium listed for the blocks of Third Avenue to either side of 119th Street.
There is a photo of the auditorium of the Flash Teahtre at the bottom of page 113 of the Arcadia Publishing company’s “Images of America” book Tonawanda and North Tonawanda (Google Books preview.) This was a good-sized theater, probably at least 500 seats, with some very nice decorative detailing. The caption says the house was built in 1914, and in later years was converted into a roller skating rink and then a bowling alley before becoming a church.
An article about the opening of the Flash Roller Rink, located in the former Flash Theatre building, appears in an issue of the North Tonawanda Evening News that I would guess is from 1929. The date on the scan is unreadable, but the page has an article commenting on Herbert Hoover’s inaugural address, so it was probably from March, 1929. It’s possible that the Flash Theatre closed in 1927, though. I haven’t found any ads for it after the early part of that year. The opening of the Riviera Theatre at North Tonawanda in late 1926 might have left the area with too many theaters.
The first State Theatre might have been renamed the Alpine Theatre after being taken over by the Alpine Circuit in 1936. The Alpine Theatre at Point Pleasant was mentioned in the February 17, 1937, issue of The Film Daily.
Looking back over the old comments, maybe the unknown theater was the Globe, which AlAlvarez asked about in this comment?
The 1921 Film Daily item I cited did say that the Stadium’s site was 50x185 feet, and considering that the stadium-seated section was over the lobby then the original auditorium could have been more than three times as deep as it was wide and still leave plenty of room for projection booth and a stage.
There is a newer Google Street View of 119th Street now, so the side view of the old building is gone. I wish I’d saved a screen cap of it.
Does anyone know the name of the theater next door to the Michigan Furniture Company in the 1905 photo at iatse311’s link? A banner over the door says “Moving Pictures” so it should probably be listed at Cinema Treasures. It looks like it was down the block a few doors from the site of the Stadium, probably at 2172 Third Avenue.
The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to says that the 1949 remodeling of the Palace Theatre was designed by Des Moines architects Wetherill & Harrison.
Thanks, dallasmovietheaters. I’m glad we’ve finally gotten that confusion cleared up. Now we need a page for the Telenews/Dallas Theatre.
The Alpine Theatre at Terra Alta is mentioned in two 1933 issues of The Film Daily On January 30, an item noted that Wilbur Morford had reopened the Alpine Theatre at Terra Alta. The September 2 issue said that the Alpine had been transferred from W. Murford to W. A. Brooks.
It sounds as though this house was called the Alpine before it was owned by the Alpine Circuit, which as near as I can figure was formed in either 1934 or 1935. It’s likely that this theater gave its name to the circuit, rather than the other way around.
The Pocahontas Times had listings for the Alpine Theatre as late as April, 1963. The last movies I found listed are Blue Hawaii and The Castaways, showing on April 11, but the next issue available is April 18, so the house might have closed any day during that week.
The Alpine Theatre was one of several buildings destroyed in a fire that struck Marlinton’s downtown in January, 1968. GenDisasters has a page with two very small, blurry photos here. I can’t tell if the photos show the theater or some other building.
In 1933 and 1936 there was a house called the Seneca Theatre operating in Marlinton. As the Alpine circuit grew primarily by taking over existing theaters, frequently renaming them, it’s possible that Seneca is an aka for this Alpine.
Two old references to theaters in Lebanon might or might not refer to the Princess. One is from The Moving Picture World of May 3, 1913:
The other item is from the December 23, 1922, issue of The American Contractor:The New Lyric Theatre mentioned in the first item was a 662-seat house that was listed in the 1913-1914 Cahn-Leighton guide, but it was mentioned in Variety at least as early as 1908. Any of these three theaters (assuming the Crescent project of 1922 was carried to completion) could have been the house that became the Princess.As this house was called the Capri Theatre for more than a decade, from 1960 until its closing in the 1970s, isn’t that how it should be listed? Almost nobody under 60 is likely to remember it as the Melba.
The Seeley Theatre was designed by Seattle architect E. W. Houghton, according to data compiled for the NRHP nomination for the Downtown Pomeroy Historic District.
Until the late 19th-early 20th century, theaters were more likely to be built on the second floor of a building than the ground floor. The owners of the buildings wanted to keep the street floor for retail shops and other daytime uses. The change to ground floor theaters was partly the result of increasingly strict fire laws, but the growing popularity of movies probably helped accelerate the transition. Live theaters typically had matinees only one or two days a week, but movie theaters could afford to open by noon and run far into the evening, keeping the valuable street-floor space busy most of the day.
Clickable version of joelmoses' link. The article says that the Capitol Theatre originally opened on December 9, 1941, and closed in 1980. It was renovated by new owner Bob Black beginning in 2009, and reopened in the early summer of 2013.
Here is the official web site, the History page of which notes that the Capitol was originally owned by the Crescent Amusement Company, but was taken over by Martin Theatres in 1961.