Fort Wayne, by Randolph L. Harte (Google Books preview) gives the location of the Majestic Theatre as 216 East Berry Street, and says that it was demolished in 1957. That means it must never have been called the Capitol Theatre.
If this house was ever called the Capitol Theatre it had to have been after 1957. The sources I cited in my comments of October 10, 2010, and June 28, 2012, show that it opened as the Majestic on October 24, 1904, and became the Civic Theatre from 1940 until 1957. I’ve found no sources saying what became of it after 1957. If somebody knows for sure that it was renamed the Capitol at that time, please let us know. Until we have such a source, I think the page should be renamed either Majestic Theatre or Civic Theatre, though I’ve also found no sources saying that it ever ran movies as the Civic. It’s possible that the Capitol was an entirely different theater.
Also, ScorpionSkate has me convinced about the location of the Majestic. Looking at the old City Hall in Google Street View and on the aerial view I linked to on October 10, 2010, the Majestic had to have been in the 200 block of East Berry Street. For this reason I have updated Street View to match the location of the postcard view as closely as possible.
Perhaps the mysterious Capitol Theatre actually was at 172 West Berry, and Billy, Don and Billy got the number (and the name) attached to the wrong theater because the postcard mistakenly says the Majestic was on West Berry instead of East Berry? Or perhaps Fort Wayne simply changed its numbering system at some time after the postcard was published.
The Fox La Brea was closed for a while in the late 1950s before being renovated and reopened as the Art La Brea Theatre in 1960. I’m not sure how long it lasted under that name, as I remember it being called the Toho La Brea by 1963.
I’ve found the maps from 1921 and some earlier years, but haven’t seen the 1926 map. There was something peculiar in Stephenville’s street numbering system then. Both sides of the streets had both odd and even numbers, which must have been very inconvenient for people from out of town. The numbers on the theater’s block of Belknap Street also got larger going south, so the dividing line must have been at a different street then than it is now.
The 1921 map shows a Cinema at the location the Majestic Theatre was at in Don’s photo, in the second building south of Mason Street. The map gives two addresses for it, though— 112 and 236, so Stephenville must have gone through more than one change of its numbering system over the years, and apparently they were in the middle of one of them in 1921.
On the 1912 map, the lot at 112 Belknap is vacant, but the building that later housed J. C. Penney’s is already there, with the address 113-114. In 1921 it was noted as both 113-114 and 237-238.
The 1912 map also shows an Opera House on the second floor of the building at the northeast corner of Belknap and Washington, and a movie theater on College Street, in the second storefront east of Belknap. A second storefront labeled Motion Pictures was in the middle of the block of Belknap opposite the courthouse. One or the other of those might have been the first Majestic. None of the tree appear on the 1921 map.
There was a Circle Theatre operating in Manchester by 1920. The May 13, 1920, issue of The American Sugar Family, the house organ of the American Sugar Refining Company, had an article about a promotion for the company’s Domino brand products which involved the theater and the local newspaper.
The article doesn’t reveal anything about the theater, but it’s an interesting example of the sort of publicity stunts that American movie theaters used to engage in.
Patsy, the Redmond Theatre in the movie was fictional, like the town of Redmond, California, and the University of Redmond. The theater exterior in the movie was the former Orange Theatre in Orange, California, the town where many of the outside scenes were shot. It is now a church, but was dressed as a theater once again for the movie.
The theater auditorium interior shots were filmed at the Los Angeles Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. It no longer operates as a theater, except for the annual Last Remaining Seats events held by the Los Angeles Conservancy, but in recent years it has been the shooting location for many movies, television shows, and commercials.
The lobby of the Los Angeles Theatre also served as a location for one of the movie’s early scenes, but it wasn’t presented as a theater.
This page at Seeing Stars has some information about the shooting locations for First Daughter, and has a number of stills from the film you’ll probably recognize.
Theater architect Clarence Blackall wrote an article about theaters for the February, 1908, issue of the architectural journal The Brickbuilder. One of the illustrations is a main floor plan and cross section (with the auditorium turned 90 degrees in the cross section) of Benjamin W. Marshalls' original plan of the Mason Opera House.
It can be seen on this web page (click the + sign in the toolbar at the bottom right of the page repeatedly to enlarge.)
Something I hadn’t known about the Mason Opera House is that the various levels were reached by inclines rather than stairs. That was a rarity in California theaters. As far as I know, the only other house in the Los Angeles area that had ramps to the balcony was the Raymond in Pasadena.
Bill (and Ken), Chino is one of those places that used to have a local numbering system but no longer does. The address from the 1948 directory is no longer in use. The current occupant of the former Chino Theatre is called T-Shirt Mart, and its address is 12931 Central Avenue.
In 1916, Michael and Louis Manos leased the Keaggy Theatre from Dr. J.B. Keaggy. An addition 56x60 feet was built as part of a general remodeling of the house, as noted in the January 22, 1916, issue of The American Contractor. Local architect Edward J. Nelson drew the plans for the project. The Manos brothers reopened the house as the Strand Theatre, presenting both movies and vaudeville.
The Manos brothers had entered the exhibition business in 1912, when they took over operation of a Greensburg house called the Lyric Theatre, which they still controlled at least as late as 1918. They also operated a confectionery and ice cream parlor in the Strand Building.
As Mr. Fooshee (author of the letter RidgewoodKen quotes above) arrived in Stephenville in 1871, even if he was quite young when he left home he must have been born no later than the mid-1850s. The author of the article doesn’t say what year his letter was written, but it could very easily have been before the second Majestic was built, in which case the Majestic he was referring to, the site of which the article’s writer says is now part of Cowboy Capital Park, would have been the first one.
Cowboy Capital Park must be the small area tucked into the corner of the parking lot at Washington and Belknap. I’m now more inclined to believe that 114 Belknap is where the first Majestic was located, near the corner of Washington Street, and the second Majestic, as seen in the photo DonLewis linked to, was up the block near the corner of Mason Street. Its address was probably in the 160-180 range.
The Majestic in Don’s photo probably was in the 100 block of North Belknap Street, on the west side just south of Mason Street. A building across the street from its site (4 Kids Only store) has a marquee that has been altered by the addition of a mansard-like metal addition, and I think its the building at the extreme left in the photo. The traffic light is gone, but there’s a pale patch on the sidewalk where it could have been. The other side of the block has been entirely demolished, and that’s where the theater must have been.
Chuck, what year was the Sanborn map published? If it was pre-1920, 114 N. Belknap could have been the location of the old Majestic. The new theater’s number would have been larger, I think, as it was close to the north end of the block.
The Majestic Theatre is advertised in the March 23, 1920, issue of the J-TAC, which is almost two months before the later issue of the paper said that it opened. The obvious conclusion would be that the Majestic that opened on May 14, 1920, replaced an older house of the same name— the Majestic Theatre that Chaucer Carver was operating in 1916.
I’d guess that Chaucer Caver’s plans to build a new theater in 1916 didn’t work out, or perhaps it just took him four years to get the project completed. By 1920 the theater might have changed hands, though. I can’t find any other references to a Chaucer Caver on the Internet. Of course there’s the possibility that the name Chaucer Caver was a mistake made by the magazine. Maybe he was Charles Carver, or Chauncey Grover. Odds are we’ll never know for sure.
I also fail to find Miller’s Theatre advertised in J-TAC. It must not have lasted very long.
There appears to have been an earlier Majestic Theatre in Stephenville. This is from the February 26, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Stephenville, Texas, is to have a new theater, according to an announcement made by Chaucer Caver, manager and owner of the Majestic theater of that place. Work on construction on the new building will begin in the very near future. The seating capacity is planned at 500, and the construction and equipment will be of the best, including a terra cotta front.”
The Majestic had competition, according to this item from MPW of March 11 the same year: “Miller’s theater, Stephenvllle. seating about 400, opened up February 20, under the management of J. R. Miller.”
This web page has a transcript of the “Entertainment” section of El Paso Story, a book published in 1954. It describes the Grand Opera House and the El Paso Theatre as the same house. The Opera House was not replaced by the El Paso Theatre, it was renamed the El Paso Theatre at some point. Out page for the El Paso just has the wrong location.
Thanks for the information, keithyorkcity. This page from the Museum of the City of New York has a drawing of the Wadsworth Theatre by Anthony Dumas, and the notation says that it opened in 1910 and was torn down in 1916.
The building on the site now appears to be fairly old, the brickwork being characteristic of the 1910s, but the Wadsworth Theatre was a big, elaborate building, and I can’t fathom why it would have been demolished when it was only five years old, even if it was unprofitable as a theater. It seems that it could have been converted to some other use. That it would have been replaced by the single-story building on the lot now is very strange.
The Dumas drawing is dated 1939, so if the theater was demolished in 1916 he must have been working from old photos or the architects' own drawings. But it also makes me wonder if the museum’s claim of a 1916 demolition might be wrong.
WoodyinNYC: While it’s always possible that there was another architect named Ayers who worked in San Antonio at the time, there probably wasn’t. Trade journals from back in the day were typically riddled with typos and other errors. Much of the information was sent in by people in the trade who were moonlighting for a bit of extra cash.
I checked the Daily Bulletin and found another item about the theater, appearing in the issue of February 11, and in that one the architect’s name was given as A. C. Ayers.
It’s most likely that both entries were mistaken, and the one in February was just less mistaken than the one in March. Possibly some salesman with sloppy lettering sent in both items, and maybe the magazine’s typesetter was drunk, to boot. In any case, it probably was Atlee B. Ayers who was designing the proposed theater in 1907.
So far I’ve been unable to find anything else about Mr. Nolte’s mystery theater of 1907, but new sources do surface on the Internet now and then, so (if it was built) something about it could turn up eventually.
Cheboygan, by Matthew J. Friday (Google Books preview) says that the Kingston Theatre opened in March, 1920. The October 16, 1920, issue of Michigan Manufacturer & Financial Record confirms that the house was built that year.
It was because the letter in the photo looked more like a C than a G to me that I decided to check the Internet for period sources. I think the stone carver just used a boxy style and overdid the extensions. Also, enlarging the picture I don’t see the cross-bar on the lower extension that would indicate a G.
This web page about the Butler Historic District says that the Majestic Theatre was built in 1904-1905 and was designed by local architect F. J. Porter.
The founder of the Cozy Theatre was named Henry Krech, not Kregh. Every document, both modern and historic, that I’ve seen on the Internet uses the name Krech, including this item from the April 6, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World: “Spirit Lake, Idaho. — H. Krech has opened a new motion picture theater here.”
My apologies for the confusion over the location of the Colonial Theatre in my earlier comment. I carelessly misread the text in Bennick’s book. The Colonial was at 168 Main Street, not 168 Johnson Street.
From items in two 1912 issues of the trade journal Motography it looks as though Roesner and Mott either moved the Princess Theatre to a new location or rebuilt the original building that year. The March, 1912, issue said “A new motion picture theater is being erected at Winona by Messrs. Roesner and Mott.” The item in the May issue said “The Princess motion picture theater of Winona is nearing completion and will be opened to the public early in the month.”
winonakid: If you check the local sources from the spring of 1912, you might find a notice that the Princess was moving to a new location. The March, 1912, issue of Motography said “A new motion picture theater is being erected at Winona by Messrs. Roesner and Mott.” Then the May issue had this item: “The Princess motion picture theater of Winona is nearing completion and will be opened to the public early in the month.”
The April issue of the same publication has an item about the Dream Theatre: “Beyerstedt Brothers have opened the new Dream Theater at the corner of Third and Main streets, Winona. Daylight pictures will be shown.” You might be able to find a local article about that event as well.
1912 was a busy time for theaters in Winona. Another projected movie house was mentioned in the February issue of Motography: “An up-to-date moving-picture theater, the fourth in the place, will be opened at Winona by J. F. Glubka… and David Janikowski….” Assuming that this project was carried to completion, the event must have been noted in the local press.
Fort Wayne, by Randolph L. Harte (Google Books preview) gives the location of the Majestic Theatre as 216 East Berry Street, and says that it was demolished in 1957. That means it must never have been called the Capitol Theatre.
If this house was ever called the Capitol Theatre it had to have been after 1957. The sources I cited in my comments of October 10, 2010, and June 28, 2012, show that it opened as the Majestic on October 24, 1904, and became the Civic Theatre from 1940 until 1957. I’ve found no sources saying what became of it after 1957. If somebody knows for sure that it was renamed the Capitol at that time, please let us know. Until we have such a source, I think the page should be renamed either Majestic Theatre or Civic Theatre, though I’ve also found no sources saying that it ever ran movies as the Civic. It’s possible that the Capitol was an entirely different theater.
Also, ScorpionSkate has me convinced about the location of the Majestic. Looking at the old City Hall in Google Street View and on the aerial view I linked to on October 10, 2010, the Majestic had to have been in the 200 block of East Berry Street. For this reason I have updated Street View to match the location of the postcard view as closely as possible.
Perhaps the mysterious Capitol Theatre actually was at 172 West Berry, and Billy, Don and Billy got the number (and the name) attached to the wrong theater because the postcard mistakenly says the Majestic was on West Berry instead of East Berry? Or perhaps Fort Wayne simply changed its numbering system at some time after the postcard was published.
The Fox La Brea was closed for a while in the late 1950s before being renovated and reopened as the Art La Brea Theatre in 1960. I’m not sure how long it lasted under that name, as I remember it being called the Toho La Brea by 1963.
I’ve found the maps from 1921 and some earlier years, but haven’t seen the 1926 map. There was something peculiar in Stephenville’s street numbering system then. Both sides of the streets had both odd and even numbers, which must have been very inconvenient for people from out of town. The numbers on the theater’s block of Belknap Street also got larger going south, so the dividing line must have been at a different street then than it is now.
The 1921 map shows a Cinema at the location the Majestic Theatre was at in Don’s photo, in the second building south of Mason Street. The map gives two addresses for it, though— 112 and 236, so Stephenville must have gone through more than one change of its numbering system over the years, and apparently they were in the middle of one of them in 1921.
On the 1912 map, the lot at 112 Belknap is vacant, but the building that later housed J. C. Penney’s is already there, with the address 113-114. In 1921 it was noted as both 113-114 and 237-238.
The 1912 map also shows an Opera House on the second floor of the building at the northeast corner of Belknap and Washington, and a movie theater on College Street, in the second storefront east of Belknap. A second storefront labeled Motion Pictures was in the middle of the block of Belknap opposite the courthouse. One or the other of those might have been the first Majestic. None of the tree appear on the 1921 map.
There was a Circle Theatre operating in Manchester by 1920. The May 13, 1920, issue of The American Sugar Family, the house organ of the American Sugar Refining Company, had an article about a promotion for the company’s Domino brand products which involved the theater and the local newspaper.
The article doesn’t reveal anything about the theater, but it’s an interesting example of the sort of publicity stunts that American movie theaters used to engage in.
Patsy, the Redmond Theatre in the movie was fictional, like the town of Redmond, California, and the University of Redmond. The theater exterior in the movie was the former Orange Theatre in Orange, California, the town where many of the outside scenes were shot. It is now a church, but was dressed as a theater once again for the movie.
The theater auditorium interior shots were filmed at the Los Angeles Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. It no longer operates as a theater, except for the annual Last Remaining Seats events held by the Los Angeles Conservancy, but in recent years it has been the shooting location for many movies, television shows, and commercials.
The lobby of the Los Angeles Theatre also served as a location for one of the movie’s early scenes, but it wasn’t presented as a theater.
This page at Seeing Stars has some information about the shooting locations for First Daughter, and has a number of stills from the film you’ll probably recognize.
Theater architect Clarence Blackall wrote an article about theaters for the February, 1908, issue of the architectural journal The Brickbuilder. One of the illustrations is a main floor plan and cross section (with the auditorium turned 90 degrees in the cross section) of Benjamin W. Marshalls' original plan of the Mason Opera House.
It can be seen on this web page (click the + sign in the toolbar at the bottom right of the page repeatedly to enlarge.)
Something I hadn’t known about the Mason Opera House is that the various levels were reached by inclines rather than stairs. That was a rarity in California theaters. As far as I know, the only other house in the Los Angeles area that had ramps to the balcony was the Raymond in Pasadena.
Bill (and Ken), Chino is one of those places that used to have a local numbering system but no longer does. The address from the 1948 directory is no longer in use. The current occupant of the former Chino Theatre is called T-Shirt Mart, and its address is 12931 Central Avenue.
In 1916, Michael and Louis Manos leased the Keaggy Theatre from Dr. J.B. Keaggy. An addition 56x60 feet was built as part of a general remodeling of the house, as noted in the January 22, 1916, issue of The American Contractor. Local architect Edward J. Nelson drew the plans for the project. The Manos brothers reopened the house as the Strand Theatre, presenting both movies and vaudeville.
The Manos brothers had entered the exhibition business in 1912, when they took over operation of a Greensburg house called the Lyric Theatre, which they still controlled at least as late as 1918. They also operated a confectionery and ice cream parlor in the Strand Building.
As Mr. Fooshee (author of the letter RidgewoodKen quotes above) arrived in Stephenville in 1871, even if he was quite young when he left home he must have been born no later than the mid-1850s. The author of the article doesn’t say what year his letter was written, but it could very easily have been before the second Majestic was built, in which case the Majestic he was referring to, the site of which the article’s writer says is now part of Cowboy Capital Park, would have been the first one.
Cowboy Capital Park must be the small area tucked into the corner of the parking lot at Washington and Belknap. I’m now more inclined to believe that 114 Belknap is where the first Majestic was located, near the corner of Washington Street, and the second Majestic, as seen in the photo DonLewis linked to, was up the block near the corner of Mason Street. Its address was probably in the 160-180 range.
The Majestic in Don’s photo probably was in the 100 block of North Belknap Street, on the west side just south of Mason Street. A building across the street from its site (4 Kids Only store) has a marquee that has been altered by the addition of a mansard-like metal addition, and I think its the building at the extreme left in the photo. The traffic light is gone, but there’s a pale patch on the sidewalk where it could have been. The other side of the block has been entirely demolished, and that’s where the theater must have been.
Chuck, what year was the Sanborn map published? If it was pre-1920, 114 N. Belknap could have been the location of the old Majestic. The new theater’s number would have been larger, I think, as it was close to the north end of the block.
The Majestic Theatre is advertised in the March 23, 1920, issue of the J-TAC, which is almost two months before the later issue of the paper said that it opened. The obvious conclusion would be that the Majestic that opened on May 14, 1920, replaced an older house of the same name— the Majestic Theatre that Chaucer Carver was operating in 1916.
I’d guess that Chaucer Caver’s plans to build a new theater in 1916 didn’t work out, or perhaps it just took him four years to get the project completed. By 1920 the theater might have changed hands, though. I can’t find any other references to a Chaucer Caver on the Internet. Of course there’s the possibility that the name Chaucer Caver was a mistake made by the magazine. Maybe he was Charles Carver, or Chauncey Grover. Odds are we’ll never know for sure.
I also fail to find Miller’s Theatre advertised in J-TAC. It must not have lasted very long.
There appears to have been an earlier Majestic Theatre in Stephenville. This is from the February 26, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World:
The Majestic had competition, according to this item from MPW of March 11 the same year: “Miller’s theater, Stephenvllle. seating about 400, opened up February 20, under the management of J. R. Miller.”Here is a photo of the Opera House and Masonic Temple in El Paso, Illinois, from a souvenir album published in 1896.
This web page has a transcript of the “Entertainment” section of El Paso Story, a book published in 1954. It describes the Grand Opera House and the El Paso Theatre as the same house. The Opera House was not replaced by the El Paso Theatre, it was renamed the El Paso Theatre at some point. Out page for the El Paso just has the wrong location.
Thanks for the information, keithyorkcity. This page from the Museum of the City of New York has a drawing of the Wadsworth Theatre by Anthony Dumas, and the notation says that it opened in 1910 and was torn down in 1916.
The building on the site now appears to be fairly old, the brickwork being characteristic of the 1910s, but the Wadsworth Theatre was a big, elaborate building, and I can’t fathom why it would have been demolished when it was only five years old, even if it was unprofitable as a theater. It seems that it could have been converted to some other use. That it would have been replaced by the single-story building on the lot now is very strange.
The Dumas drawing is dated 1939, so if the theater was demolished in 1916 he must have been working from old photos or the architects' own drawings. But it also makes me wonder if the museum’s claim of a 1916 demolition might be wrong.
WoodyinNYC: While it’s always possible that there was another architect named Ayers who worked in San Antonio at the time, there probably wasn’t. Trade journals from back in the day were typically riddled with typos and other errors. Much of the information was sent in by people in the trade who were moonlighting for a bit of extra cash.
I checked the Daily Bulletin and found another item about the theater, appearing in the issue of February 11, and in that one the architect’s name was given as A. C. Ayers.
It’s most likely that both entries were mistaken, and the one in February was just less mistaken than the one in March. Possibly some salesman with sloppy lettering sent in both items, and maybe the magazine’s typesetter was drunk, to boot. In any case, it probably was Atlee B. Ayers who was designing the proposed theater in 1907.
So far I’ve been unable to find anything else about Mr. Nolte’s mystery theater of 1907, but new sources do surface on the Internet now and then, so (if it was built) something about it could turn up eventually.
Cheboygan, by Matthew J. Friday (Google Books preview) says that the Kingston Theatre opened in March, 1920. The October 16, 1920, issue of Michigan Manufacturer & Financial Record confirms that the house was built that year.
It was because the letter in the photo looked more like a C than a G to me that I decided to check the Internet for period sources. I think the stone carver just used a boxy style and overdid the extensions. Also, enlarging the picture I don’t see the cross-bar on the lower extension that would indicate a G.
This web page about the Butler Historic District says that the Majestic Theatre was built in 1904-1905 and was designed by local architect F. J. Porter.
The Loveland Stage Company is open again. Our web site link needs to be repaired. This one should work.
The founder of the Cozy Theatre was named Henry Krech, not Kregh. Every document, both modern and historic, that I’ve seen on the Internet uses the name Krech, including this item from the April 6, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World: “Spirit Lake, Idaho. — H. Krech has opened a new motion picture theater here.”
My apologies for the confusion over the location of the Colonial Theatre in my earlier comment. I carelessly misread the text in Bennick’s book. The Colonial was at 168 Main Street, not 168 Johnson Street.
From items in two 1912 issues of the trade journal Motography it looks as though Roesner and Mott either moved the Princess Theatre to a new location or rebuilt the original building that year. The March, 1912, issue said “A new motion picture theater is being erected at Winona by Messrs. Roesner and Mott.” The item in the May issue said “The Princess motion picture theater of Winona is nearing completion and will be opened to the public early in the month.”
winonakid: If you check the local sources from the spring of 1912, you might find a notice that the Princess was moving to a new location. The March, 1912, issue of Motography said “A new motion picture theater is being erected at Winona by Messrs. Roesner and Mott.” Then the May issue had this item: “The Princess motion picture theater of Winona is nearing completion and will be opened to the public early in the month.”
The April issue of the same publication has an item about the Dream Theatre: “Beyerstedt Brothers have opened the new Dream Theater at the corner of Third and Main streets, Winona. Daylight pictures will be shown.” You might be able to find a local article about that event as well.
1912 was a busy time for theaters in Winona. Another projected movie house was mentioned in the February issue of Motography: “An up-to-date moving-picture theater, the fourth in the place, will be opened at Winona by J. F. Glubka… and David Janikowski….” Assuming that this project was carried to completion, the event must have been noted in the local press.