Attica’s Family Theatre was advertised in the December 13, 1921, issue of the Batavia Daily News. The operator was James Martina. Donovan A. Shilling’s book Rochester’s Movie Mania says that what was to become the Martina Circuit began with a theater in Attica in the 1920s, so it must have been this one.
The February 19, 1920, issue of The Attica News ran a brief item about “…F.W. Hark, former proprietor of the Bijou, now the Family Theatre….”
The January 15, 1914, issue of the Silver Springs Signal said: “Frank W. Hark of Fillmore has bought the Bijou Theatre in Attica.”
The Bijou Theatre was advertised in the August 31, 1911, issue of The Attica News. There are probably earlier mentions of the Bijou, but I haven’t been able to track them down yet.
In 1935, Terra Alta was the location of the Alpine Theatre Circuit’s main office, but by 1936 it had been moved to Kingwood, where it remained as late as 1958.
The Alpine Theatre Circuit declined rapidly in the mid-1950s. In 1953 it still had 27 houses, but by 1956 it had only nine (probably reflecting the high cost of converting theaters for CinemaScope.) In 1958 the chain was down to six houses, and by 1960 it was no longer listed in the FDY.
Here is an article about the Alpine Theatre in Hundred, dated February 16, 2011. The house had reopened following repairs occasioned by a fire two years earlier. There are photos of the interior.
This house might have been called the Victoria Theatre from the time of its opening in 1909. It is listed under that name in the 1912-1913 Cahn-Leighton guide. It was a ground floor house with 474 orchestra seats, 230 seats in the balcony, a gallery with 84 seats, and boxes seating 16. The stage was 50 feet between side walls and 41 feet front to back. The proscenium was 28x22 feet. The Hansford Opera House was not listed in the 1912 guide.
The NRHP Registration Form for the Parsons Depot has this information: “Two opera houses were built, the first in 1904 and the second in 1909. The latter became the Victoria Theatre, a movie theater.”
The only opera house at Parsons that is listed in the Cahn guide, The Hansford Opera House, appears in both the 1906 and 1909 editions, so it must have been the one built in 1904. I’ve found no clues to the name of the 1909 opera house that became the Victoria Theatre. A local source will probably have to be found.
The April 1, 1927, issue of Motion Picture News said that the new Lincoln Theatre in Cheyenne had opened the previous week. The house was owned by the Plains Theatre Corporation.
The January 22, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the new Eagle Theatre in Manchester, New Hampshire, had opened the previous week. Reports of the Secretary of State of New Hampshire for the year 1915 had this item about the Eagle Theatre Company:
“‘Eagle Theatre Company,’ Manchester. Capital stock, $4,500;. par value, $100. Object: To operate theatres and deal in real estate. Incorporators: P. K. Brown, S. H. Brown, Hertel Pariseau, Tancride Pariseau, and J. E. Charbonneau, all of Manchester. Date of record, January 22, 1915. Capital stock increased $3,000. Date of record, March 16, 1915. Further increased $7,500 July 19, 1915.”
The March 24, 1915, issue of Engineering and Contracting said that contracts for the construction of the Eagle Theatre would be let on April 3. The building was designed by local architect Wilfrid E. Provost.
When Google’s camera car last went by in June, 2011, the Albany Theatre building was occupied by the Figure 10 Restaurant and Jazz Lounge. As I said in my earlier comment, it now houses the Buddha Tea House.
Although the Rittner blog cited in my second comment says that Proctor’s Annex opened in 1904, I’ve found and item in the September 26, 1908, issue of The Billboard which says that F. F. Proctor had leased the building at 65 N.Pearl Street formerly occupied by the Theatre Comique (a 1907 directory of Albany lists a Comique Theatre at 69 N.Pearl Street, so Billboard got the address wrong) and would open a moving picture theater to be managed by Guy Graves. Guy Graves was noted in trade publications as manager of Proctor’s Annex for the next several years.
This web page about Proctor’s Theatre in Troy has a timeline of his theaters, and lists Proctor’s Albany Theatre opening in 1899, Proctor’s Annex Theatre (which must be this house) opening in 1904, and Proctor’s Grand Theatre, Albany, opening in 1913.
The March 3, 1945, issue of Boxoffice had this ad for General Electric air conditioning which featured a cross-section of Proctor’s Theatre in Troy, where GE equipment had been installed in 1940.
In the January 23, 1919, issue of The Albany Evening Journal, 69 N.Pearl Street is given as the address of a movie house called The Annex.
The building has not been demolished, though. As of 2010, a sushi restaurant was renovating it. It had previously been an OTB shop. Currently, this is the address of what appears to be a nightclub called the Buddha Tea House. This is their Facebook page.
The building is supposed to be one of only two old commercial structures with cast iron fronts that survive in Albany.
There was at house called the Albany Theatre at least as early as 1892, and it was part of the Proctor vaudeville circuit after about 1900, but I don’t know if it was this house. It was supposed to have been designed by Francis H. Kimball, and I don’t think he did cast iron fronts. For now, this Albany Theatre looks to have been just a conversion of an existing building into a modest sized movie theater that was renamed the Albany sometime after 1919.
The Warrensburgh News of November 24, 1927, had an item about improvements to the Palace Theatre in Tupper Lake. The lobby had been doubled in size, the boxoffice moved to one side of the entrance to provide five exit doors instead of the previous two, the sidewalk had been rebuilt to eliminate stairs at the theater entrance, and a new marquee with eighty electric lights had been installed. The project had cost $5,000.
I have found references to a Mr. William A. Donovan being the operator of the Palace Theatre at Tupper Lake as early as 1915 and as late as 1931.
On October 21, 1968, the Watertown Times ran the obituary of Mrs. William A. Donovan, saying that since her marriage she had assisted her husband in the operation of Donovan’s studio gift shop and the State Theatre, so unless this Mr. Donovan was the son of the original owner, he must have operated this theater for more than half a century.
On April 5, 1923, Variety published a brief article that included this information: “Tupper Lake will be scene of picture opposition. A second house is being created by F. G. Pond, of Malone, backed by local capital.” I don’t know if Mr.Pond’s theater was built. In 1924, issues of Variety indicated that he was in financial trouble, and had been obliged to stop selling stock in his company that had intended to build theaters in several small towns upstate. In any case, the item indicates that, as of 1923, there was only one movie theater operating in Tupper Lake.
David Welling’s Cinema Houston attributes the design of the Almeda Theatre to the firm of MacKie & Kamrath. The Karl Kamrath Collection at the University of Texas, Austin, has one drawing of the Almeda Theatre, but the Interstate Theatre Collection at the Dallas Public Library has 13 sheets of plans for the Almeda, attributed to architects Raymond F. Smith of Dallas J. W. Denhart of Houston.
It’s possible that both firms worked on this house. I can’t find anything else about J. W. Denhart. Perhaps he worked in MacKie & Kamrath’s office? Maybe somebody in Texas can check the collections, especially the Interstate Collection, and see if they give any clues.
There are nine sheets of plans for the Wayside Theatre in the Interstate Theatre Collection at the Dallas Public Library. The Wayside Theatre was designed by Pettigrew & Worley.
Thirteen sheets of drawings for the Denton Theatre and a house called the Varsity Theatre are preserved in the Interstate Theatre Collection at the Dallas Public Library. The plans are by Dallas architect John Rowland Thompson, and are dated c1969. I don’t see a Varsity Theatre listed for Denton at Cinema Treasures. It was located on Hinkle Drive.
Plans for the Village Theatre preserved in the Interstate Theatre Collection at the Dallas Public Library were drawn by architects Fooshee & Cheek (Marion Fooshee and James B. Cheek.) The firm designed the Highland Park Village Shopping Center, which was established in 1929 and gradually expanded. Cheek’s friend, artist Reveau Bassett, painted the murals in the Village Theatre. I’m not sure if any of the murals have survived.
Does your browser have a “Find” feature? (I use Opera, and “Find” is in the drop-down menu of the “Edit” section at the top, but other browsers might be different.) If so, you can use it to search any plain text web page (such as this one.) It won’t find text in image formats such as .jpg or .png, or on Flash pages, or PDF files, but if you’ve got “Find” it will speed up searching pages such as the Interstate collection.
The single reference to Dunne is near the bottom of the page, and it says: “Dallas, Texas – Tower Theatre. Conversion of building at Elm St., Pacific and St. Paul. W. Scott Dunne, Arch. (2 sheets) August 10, 1936.”
I don’t think Interstate ever had a theater in Seguin, and that’s why it isn’t mentioned on that page. The collection is probably not exhaustive, though. There could have been quite a bit of stuff that was lost before the heap in the Majestic was salvaged.
If 100 N. Main Street is the correct address for the State Theatre, and if Kingfisher has not altered its numbering system since that address was published, then the theater had to have been at the south end of the block, probably on the parking lot next to what is now Snider’s Catering, which is at 102 N. Main (Royce was probably using “across the street” rather loosely.) Obviously, if that’s where it was then it has been demolished.
Attica’s Family Theatre was advertised in the December 13, 1921, issue of the Batavia Daily News. The operator was James Martina. Donovan A. Shilling’s book Rochester’s Movie Mania says that what was to become the Martina Circuit began with a theater in Attica in the 1920s, so it must have been this one.
The February 19, 1920, issue of The Attica News ran a brief item about “…F.W. Hark, former proprietor of the Bijou, now the Family Theatre….”
The January 15, 1914, issue of the Silver Springs Signal said: “Frank W. Hark of Fillmore has bought the Bijou Theatre in Attica.”
The Bijou Theatre was advertised in the August 31, 1911, issue of The Attica News. There are probably earlier mentions of the Bijou, but I haven’t been able to track them down yet.
In 1935, Terra Alta was the location of the Alpine Theatre Circuit’s main office, but by 1936 it had been moved to Kingwood, where it remained as late as 1958.
The Alpine Theatre Circuit declined rapidly in the mid-1950s. In 1953 it still had 27 houses, but by 1956 it had only nine (probably reflecting the high cost of converting theaters for CinemaScope.) In 1958 the chain was down to six houses, and by 1960 it was no longer listed in the FDY.
Here is an article about the Alpine Theatre in Hundred, dated February 16, 2011. The house had reopened following repairs occasioned by a fire two years earlier. There are photos of the interior.
This house might have been called the Victoria Theatre from the time of its opening in 1909. It is listed under that name in the 1912-1913 Cahn-Leighton guide. It was a ground floor house with 474 orchestra seats, 230 seats in the balcony, a gallery with 84 seats, and boxes seating 16. The stage was 50 feet between side walls and 41 feet front to back. The proscenium was 28x22 feet. The Hansford Opera House was not listed in the 1912 guide.
The NRHP Registration Form for the Parsons Depot has this information: “Two opera houses were built, the first in 1904 and the second in 1909. The latter became the Victoria Theatre, a movie theater.”
The only opera house at Parsons that is listed in the Cahn guide, The Hansford Opera House, appears in both the 1906 and 1909 editions, so it must have been the one built in 1904. I’ve found no clues to the name of the 1909 opera house that became the Victoria Theatre. A local source will probably have to be found.
The Wyoming Theatre in Torrington opened on March 25, 1927, according the April 1 issue of Motion Picture News.
The April 1, 1927, issue of Motion Picture News said that the new Lincoln Theatre in Cheyenne had opened the previous week. The house was owned by the Plains Theatre Corporation.
George Miller’s A Delaware Album says that the Garrick Theatre was leased to Warner Brothers from 1921 until closing in 1930.
Zip code is 44052.
The January 22, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the new Eagle Theatre in Manchester, New Hampshire, had opened the previous week. Reports of the Secretary of State of New Hampshire for the year 1915 had this item about the Eagle Theatre Company:
The March 24, 1915, issue of Engineering and Contracting said that contracts for the construction of the Eagle Theatre would be let on April 3. The building was designed by local architect Wilfrid E. Provost.When Google’s camera car last went by in June, 2011, the Albany Theatre building was occupied by the Figure 10 Restaurant and Jazz Lounge. As I said in my earlier comment, it now houses the Buddha Tea House.
Although the Rittner blog cited in my second comment says that Proctor’s Annex opened in 1904, I’ve found and item in the September 26, 1908, issue of The Billboard which says that F. F. Proctor had leased the building at 65 N.Pearl Street formerly occupied by the Theatre Comique (a 1907 directory of Albany lists a Comique Theatre at 69 N.Pearl Street, so Billboard got the address wrong) and would open a moving picture theater to be managed by Guy Graves. Guy Graves was noted in trade publications as manager of Proctor’s Annex for the next several years.
Rats. That’s what happens when I have too many tabs open at once.
Proctor’s Theatre cross section from Boxoffice.
This web page about Proctor’s Theatre in Troy has a timeline of his theaters, and lists Proctor’s Albany Theatre opening in 1899, Proctor’s Annex Theatre (which must be this house) opening in 1904, and Proctor’s Grand Theatre, Albany, opening in 1913.
A glimpse of Proctor’s Grand Theatre in Albany can be seen at far right in this photo.
The March 3, 1945, issue of Boxoffice had this ad for General Electric air conditioning which featured a cross-section of Proctor’s Theatre in Troy, where GE equipment had been installed in 1940.
In the January 23, 1919, issue of The Albany Evening Journal, 69 N.Pearl Street is given as the address of a movie house called The Annex.
The building has not been demolished, though. As of 2010, a sushi restaurant was renovating it. It had previously been an OTB shop. Currently, this is the address of what appears to be a nightclub called the Buddha Tea House. This is their Facebook page.
The building is supposed to be one of only two old commercial structures with cast iron fronts that survive in Albany.
There was at house called the Albany Theatre at least as early as 1892, and it was part of the Proctor vaudeville circuit after about 1900, but I don’t know if it was this house. It was supposed to have been designed by Francis H. Kimball, and I don’t think he did cast iron fronts. For now, this Albany Theatre looks to have been just a conversion of an existing building into a modest sized movie theater that was renamed the Albany sometime after 1919.
The Warrensburgh News of November 24, 1927, had an item about improvements to the Palace Theatre in Tupper Lake. The lobby had been doubled in size, the boxoffice moved to one side of the entrance to provide five exit doors instead of the previous two, the sidewalk had been rebuilt to eliminate stairs at the theater entrance, and a new marquee with eighty electric lights had been installed. The project had cost $5,000.
I have found references to a Mr. William A. Donovan being the operator of the Palace Theatre at Tupper Lake as early as 1915 and as late as 1931.
On October 21, 1968, the Watertown Times ran the obituary of Mrs. William A. Donovan, saying that since her marriage she had assisted her husband in the operation of Donovan’s studio gift shop and the State Theatre, so unless this Mr. Donovan was the son of the original owner, he must have operated this theater for more than half a century.
On April 5, 1923, Variety published a brief article that included this information: “Tupper Lake will be scene of picture opposition. A second house is being created by F. G. Pond, of Malone, backed by local capital.” I don’t know if Mr.Pond’s theater was built. In 1924, issues of Variety indicated that he was in financial trouble, and had been obliged to stop selling stock in his company that had intended to build theaters in several small towns upstate. In any case, the item indicates that, as of 1923, there was only one movie theater operating in Tupper Lake.
As the building is currently for sale, the Grand Theatre must not have been demolished. It most recently served as a church, but might be vacant now.
The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to identifies Jack Corgan as the architect of the Westwood Theatre.
David Welling’s Cinema Houston attributes the design of the Almeda Theatre to the firm of MacKie & Kamrath. The Karl Kamrath Collection at the University of Texas, Austin, has one drawing of the Almeda Theatre, but the Interstate Theatre Collection at the Dallas Public Library has 13 sheets of plans for the Almeda, attributed to architects Raymond F. Smith of Dallas J. W. Denhart of Houston.
It’s possible that both firms worked on this house. I can’t find anything else about J. W. Denhart. Perhaps he worked in MacKie & Kamrath’s office? Maybe somebody in Texas can check the collections, especially the Interstate Collection, and see if they give any clues.
There are nine sheets of plans for the Wayside Theatre in the Interstate Theatre Collection at the Dallas Public Library. The Wayside Theatre was designed by Pettigrew & Worley.
Thirteen sheets of drawings for the Denton Theatre and a house called the Varsity Theatre are preserved in the Interstate Theatre Collection at the Dallas Public Library. The plans are by Dallas architect John Rowland Thompson, and are dated c1969. I don’t see a Varsity Theatre listed for Denton at Cinema Treasures. It was located on Hinkle Drive.
Plans for the Village Theatre preserved in the Interstate Theatre Collection at the Dallas Public Library were drawn by architects Fooshee & Cheek (Marion Fooshee and James B. Cheek.) The firm designed the Highland Park Village Shopping Center, which was established in 1929 and gradually expanded. Cheek’s friend, artist Reveau Bassett, painted the murals in the Village Theatre. I’m not sure if any of the murals have survived.
Does your browser have a “Find” feature? (I use Opera, and “Find” is in the drop-down menu of the “Edit” section at the top, but other browsers might be different.) If so, you can use it to search any plain text web page (such as this one.) It won’t find text in image formats such as .jpg or .png, or on Flash pages, or PDF files, but if you’ve got “Find” it will speed up searching pages such as the Interstate collection.
The single reference to Dunne is near the bottom of the page, and it says: “Dallas, Texas – Tower Theatre. Conversion of building at Elm St., Pacific and St. Paul. W. Scott Dunne, Arch. (2 sheets) August 10, 1936.”
I don’t think Interstate ever had a theater in Seguin, and that’s why it isn’t mentioned on that page. The collection is probably not exhaustive, though. There could have been quite a bit of stuff that was lost before the heap in the Majestic was salvaged.
If 100 N. Main Street is the correct address for the State Theatre, and if Kingfisher has not altered its numbering system since that address was published, then the theater had to have been at the south end of the block, probably on the parking lot next to what is now Snider’s Catering, which is at 102 N. Main (Royce was probably using “across the street” rather loosely.) Obviously, if that’s where it was then it has been demolished.