An October 7, 1975, Boxoffice item about the plans of the Manos circuit to build a quad in Altoona mentions the Twin 40 Cinema at Uniontown. It had been designed by the same architect who was handling the Altoona project, Edgar Kwalwasser. The Squirrel Hill, Pennsylvania, architect had also designed the circuit’s Laurel 30 at Greensburg Pennsylvania and Twin Cinema at Elkins, West Virginia.
In 1978, Kwalwasser was the architect for a Manos triplex in Kittanning (Boxoffice, April 17, 1978), and designed a two-screen addition to the Laurel 40, originally a single-screener (Boxoffice of March 20.) In 1970, Kwalwasser had designed a 470 seat house for Manos at Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
Uniontown’s Twin 40 was opened in 1973. According to the item about the opening in Boxoffice of June 4, the first movies shown were “Class of ‘44” in Cinema 1 and “Man of la Mancha” in Cinema 2.
I’ve been unable to discover when the Twin 40 was expanded to six screens. The Manos chain had 19 theaters with a total of 80 screens when it was absorbed by Carmike in 1993.
Boxoffice of April 27, 1964, said that this theater was being designed for the Associated Theatres circuit by architects Liff & Justh. The finding aid for the J. Evan Miller Collection of Cinerama Theater Plans, which lists the Eastland, gives the firm’s name as Liff, Justh & Chetlin.
An obituary for Bernard J. Liff (he died in 2008) uses the plural “theaters” in listing the types of buildings he designed, but so far I’ve been able to find only one other theater project he was connected with. Boxoffice of December 23, 1974, said that he had been hired to design two cinemas for the downtown Pittsburg project called The Bank, which I guess would be the Bank Cinemas I & II.
A January 11, 1965, Boxoffice article about the opening of the Eastland (originally a single-screen house seating about 900) says that its projection room was equipped to run any process except three-strip Cinerama. It also says that the screen was only 40 feet wide, which seems rather small for even single-strip Cinerama, but as the house is included in the Miller collection I suppose it must have shown a Cinerama movie at least once.
Little more than a year after the opening of the Eastland, Boxoffice of January 17, 1966, said the the Eastland II was to be built adjacent to the original theater. The new auditorium was to have about 600 seats.
If this Star Theatre was previously the Wheaton Theatre, then the Wurlitzer installed in the Star Theatre in 1921 (Lost Memory’s comment of Aug 30, 2007) must have been in the other Star Theatre, aka the Knights of Pythias Hall. The Wheaton was apparently still in operation in 1937. An item in Boxoffice of June 5 that year reported a fire at the Wheaton Theatre in Weiser, so the house must have been renamed the Star when it was rebuilt following the fire.
The web site GenDisasters provides this page quoting a May 21, 1937, Ogden Standard Examiner item about the fire.
A 1916 issue of the Music Trade Review has this entry for Idaho in a list of theaters recently opened: “C. Matt Sears has just opened the Wheaton Theatre, a new moving picture house, at Weiser.”
GenWeb has this photo of the Wheaton Theatre. It does not bear much resemblance to the Star Theatre building seen in the recent photos.
A classified ad in Motion Picture Times of August 4, 1928, offered for sale a Wurlitzer K organ at $7,500 dollars. The ad was placed by A.C. Gordon. I wonder if that could have been the organ from the earlier Star Theatre?
Boxoffice of January 1, 1949, said that the Palms Theatre had opened recently. It had been built for Clayton Bennett, and was being operated by his son Gordon. The Palms was sold to Edward Eckert in 1951, as reported in various issues of Boxoffice in June and July that year.
Eckert was still operating the house at least as late as 1962, when he posed for a photo (upper right, with the marquee of the Palms in the background) that appeared in Boxoffice of March 5. The caption mistakenly dates Eckert’s purchase of the Palms to 1949.
Boxoffice of May 22, 1948, ran this item datelined Collinsville: “Millard G. Weaver, owner of the Cricket and the Sandy theatres here, has announced his candidacy for mayor. Weaver opened his first theatre in Collinsville in 1924 and three years ago replaced it with a modern house.”
Boxoffice of January 29, 1968, referred to the Cricket as “long closed” when it was mentioned in an article about houses that had been reopened the previous year. The Cricket was in operation at least as late as 1977, when it was mentioned in the April 4 issue of Boxoffice.
Boxoffice of May 10, 1947, said that W.T. Kirby’s 450-seat Time Theatre was scheduled to open at Wetumka that day. It would be the town’s second movie house.
An item in Boxoffice of October 5, 1940, said that E.H. Hulsey opened the Queen Theatre in Dallas in 1913. A May 10, 1947, Boxoffice piece about long-time theater man Lou Bissinger said that he had become the manager of the Queen three months after it had opened, and was still operating the house 34 years later. The Queen was located in a building that had been remodeled into a theater.
The new Dream Theatre at Tahlequah was slated to open about May 20, according to Boxoffice of May 10, 1947. General manager of the new house, S.P. Doss, was the former owner of the Chief Theatre at Eufaula. The Dream was to seat 400 on opening.
The official web site link above no longer works. I think the place might have changed ownership. This might be the new web site, once it’s finished, but I can’t swear to it.
The Long Theatre was the first movie house in Keyes, which, according to a May 10, 1947, Boxoffice item, was a town of 227 when the 250-seat theater opened that month. Lewis W. Long was the owner of the house. The Long Theatre was still in operation at least as late as 1964, when it was mentioned in the February 3 issue of Boxoffice.
Could the Electric Theatre have become the Palace?
A Palace Theatre at Quapaw was purchased by C.E. Barber in 1927, according to a line in a “Twenty Years Ago” feature in Boxoffice of February 15, 1947. Boxoffice of November 27, 1948, reported that an entire block of the business district of Quapaw had been destroyed by a fire that began in the Palace Theatre.
I’ve found Quapaw mentioned in Boxoffice only six times. Three mention the Palace, two others mention only C.E. Barber, and the May 10, 1947, issue mentions neither, but says that the Ryan Theatre at Quapaw was scheduled to open that day. The Ryan had previously operated as a 16mm house, but the item didn’t say what its name had been. The house had been converted into a 35mm theater by Alex Rowls, and it had 260 seats. That’s the sole mention of it in the magazine. Perhaps the Ryan was the Palace, and Mr. Rowls decided not to rename it after all? As far as I’ve been able to discover, Quapaw is never mentioned in Boxoffice after the 1948 item about the fire.
Boxoffice of April 19, 1947, reported that Frank and Floyd Smith had sold a half interest in their Wayne Theatre at Corydon to the Iowa United Theatres circuit. The item said that the Smith brothers had arrived in Corydon and built the Wayne in 1936.
A September 19, 1977, Boxoffice item said that Bud Kelly had permanently closed the Wayne Theatre on August 1, so the house must have been dark for more than a decade after that.
From Boxoffice of March 16, 1957: “The Strand Theatre, Orono, Me., will close its doors March 25 because of poor business. Connie Russell jr. is the owner.”
Then the April 6 issue of Boxoffice said: “Connie Russell jr. closed the Strand, Orono, Me., and completed plans to turn it into an office building.”
The earliest mention of the Strand I’ve found in the trades is from the September 1, 1932, issue of New England Film News, which listed the house as one of half a dozen theaters in the region that had recently reopened. The item did not mention how long the Strand had been closed.
Here are the additional photos of the Lewis and Clark in Boxoffice, October 19, 1957. LThe project’s ead architect, John Graham Jr., also designed the Northgate Theatre in Seattle for the Sterling circuit.
Boxoffice of September 22, 1951, also names John Graham as the architect of the Northgate Theatre. The original operator was Sterling Theatres.
An ad for RCA carpet (who knew that RCA made carpeting for theaters?) in Boxoffice of October 4, 1952, features a photo of the Northgate’s lobby. The Native American motifs used in the otherwise moderne theater are seen.
The December 11, 1972, issue of Boxoffice said that the West Wayne Cinema was scheduled to open on December 27, 1972. It was one of the first theaters in a proposed circuit of hundreds of theaters that were to have been franchised by United General Theatres, a Los Angeles-based corporation that suffered the same quick demise as the other franchise outfits of the period such as Jerry Lewis Cinemas.
Despite having established quite a few theaters in its first three years of operation, United General collapsed amid charges of fraud and conspiracy, and in 1975 two of its executives, both of them also major stockholders, were fined and sentenced to prison terms.
Many of the UGT operations were 16mm houses, but the West Wayne Cinema was equipped with 35mm equipment. A 16mm UGT house was set to open at Niagara Falls the same day the Macedon house was to be opened.
Marilee West: Thanks for the information about your father. He has had an impressively long career.
Here’s a corection of my earlier comment: The reference I cited, saying there was an architect named Derald West working at Lake Geneva in 1911, was the result of my misreading of information about an architect named William Woodworth. What the source actually said was that Woodworth, while working in a summer job at Derald West’s office, made drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Geneva Inn— which had been built in 1911. No more speed reading on the Internet for me.
Two interior photos of the Glenwood illustrate this article in Boxoffice of March 20, 1967. Richard Wells of William Behrman and Associates engineered the building and designed the exterior of the Glenwood, but the interior was designed by architect Mel Glatz.
Boxoffice of January 31, 1953, reporting on a fire that had gutted the Monte Theatre, said the house had been built 16 years before by John Davis, and had been extensively remodeled as recently as 1951. At the time of the fire the Monte was being operated by the widowed Mrs. Davis and her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Thurber. The 500-seat theater was the only movie house in town. The March 21 issue of Boxoffice said that local citizens were working to help with the repairs, and the Jaycees were donating their efforts to repair or replace the damaged seats.
The December 29, 1956, issue of Boxoffice said that the Monte Theatre would be in operation only four days a week during the winter. Then on May 5, 1958, Boxoffice said that Mrs. Joe Thurber had closed the Monte Theater after three years of declining business. Finally. Boxoffice of June 12, 1961, reported that Kathryn Davis had sold the Monte Theatre building to F.R. “Bob” Brownell, who planned to remodel it for his business. The item didn’t say what sort of business Brownell Industries was in, but today the company is a purveyor of small arms supplies, as can be seen at their web site.
The Monte’s seats survived the theater and, according to Boxoffice of September 18, 1961, were purchased by the Toledo Community Theatre Guild and installed in the Wieting Theatre, then undrgoing renovation in Toledo, Iowa. The Wieting Theatre is still in operation, but I don’t know if it still sports the Monte’s old seats. If it does, it’s about time they replaced them.
The Glenwood Theatre was opened in 1966, according to Boxoffice of January 16, 1967. The original seating capacity was given as 1000. The number was probably rounded off. I’ve only found the Glenwood briefly mentioned twice in Boxoffice, and no other details about it were ever noted.
The Melba Theatre was mentioned in Boxoffice of August 21, 1937. The house was still in operation in 1951, when the last mention of it I can find in Boxoffice appeared in the issue of July 28.
The Mankato Free Press article about the Flame Theatre (link on the front page of the Wells web site) says that Sid Heath opened his theater in Wells in 1912 and operated it under various names until finally settling on State Theatre. Although the article says that the original theater burned down in 1960, the June 22, 1959, issue of Boxoffice mentioned the State Theatre having recently been destroyed in a fire. Most likely the Flame opened in 1960, though I can’t find the event mentioned in Boxoffice.
The Free Press article also says that Sid Heath held a contest to choose a name for the new theater he built to replace the burned State, and Flame Theatre was the winning entry. That’s quite a sense of humor they have in Minnesota.
Since posting the comment above, I’ve come across scores of web sites saying that there was a Cine 4 at this address. Most of these web sites are of the “directory” type, which commonly replicate each others content just so they’ll have something to wrap around their advertising, and it’s possible that they are all just repeating the same error, but in the absence of any reliable source saying that the Excellence Theatres proposal to expand Cine 2 to six screens in 1988 was actually carried out, it’s possible that the house did operate with only four screens until 2004. There are also quite a few sites reporting a Cine 6 at this address, but they might have been posted since 2004, and could also be errors if the name was changed to Stadium Cinema 6 that year.
Once again the Internet proves to be a reliable source of confusion and contradiction. Somebody familiar with Mankato, or at least with access to reliable local sources, will have to clear this up.
An October 7, 1975, Boxoffice item about the plans of the Manos circuit to build a quad in Altoona mentions the Twin 40 Cinema at Uniontown. It had been designed by the same architect who was handling the Altoona project, Edgar Kwalwasser. The Squirrel Hill, Pennsylvania, architect had also designed the circuit’s Laurel 30 at Greensburg Pennsylvania and Twin Cinema at Elkins, West Virginia.
In 1978, Kwalwasser was the architect for a Manos triplex in Kittanning (Boxoffice, April 17, 1978), and designed a two-screen addition to the Laurel 40, originally a single-screener (Boxoffice of March 20.) In 1970, Kwalwasser had designed a 470 seat house for Manos at Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
Uniontown’s Twin 40 was opened in 1973. According to the item about the opening in Boxoffice of June 4, the first movies shown were “Class of ‘44” in Cinema 1 and “Man of la Mancha” in Cinema 2.
I’ve been unable to discover when the Twin 40 was expanded to six screens. The Manos chain had 19 theaters with a total of 80 screens when it was absorbed by Carmike in 1993.
Boxoffice of April 27, 1964, said that this theater was being designed for the Associated Theatres circuit by architects Liff & Justh. The finding aid for the J. Evan Miller Collection of Cinerama Theater Plans, which lists the Eastland, gives the firm’s name as Liff, Justh & Chetlin.
An obituary for Bernard J. Liff (he died in 2008) uses the plural “theaters” in listing the types of buildings he designed, but so far I’ve been able to find only one other theater project he was connected with. Boxoffice of December 23, 1974, said that he had been hired to design two cinemas for the downtown Pittsburg project called The Bank, which I guess would be the Bank Cinemas I & II.
A January 11, 1965, Boxoffice article about the opening of the Eastland (originally a single-screen house seating about 900) says that its projection room was equipped to run any process except three-strip Cinerama. It also says that the screen was only 40 feet wide, which seems rather small for even single-strip Cinerama, but as the house is included in the Miller collection I suppose it must have shown a Cinerama movie at least once.
Little more than a year after the opening of the Eastland, Boxoffice of January 17, 1966, said the the Eastland II was to be built adjacent to the original theater. The new auditorium was to have about 600 seats.
If this Star Theatre was previously the Wheaton Theatre, then the Wurlitzer installed in the Star Theatre in 1921 (Lost Memory’s comment of Aug 30, 2007) must have been in the other Star Theatre, aka the Knights of Pythias Hall. The Wheaton was apparently still in operation in 1937. An item in Boxoffice of June 5 that year reported a fire at the Wheaton Theatre in Weiser, so the house must have been renamed the Star when it was rebuilt following the fire.
The web site GenDisasters provides this page quoting a May 21, 1937, Ogden Standard Examiner item about the fire.
A 1916 issue of the Music Trade Review has this entry for Idaho in a list of theaters recently opened: “C. Matt Sears has just opened the Wheaton Theatre, a new moving picture house, at Weiser.”
GenWeb has this photo of the Wheaton Theatre. It does not bear much resemblance to the Star Theatre building seen in the recent photos.
A classified ad in Motion Picture Times of August 4, 1928, offered for sale a Wurlitzer K organ at $7,500 dollars. The ad was placed by A.C. Gordon. I wonder if that could have been the organ from the earlier Star Theatre?
The exact opening date of this Jerry Lewis Cinema was April 15, 1972, according to the May 5 issue of Boxoffice. The house had 322 seats.
Boxoffice of January 1, 1949, said that the Palms Theatre had opened recently. It had been built for Clayton Bennett, and was being operated by his son Gordon. The Palms was sold to Edward Eckert in 1951, as reported in various issues of Boxoffice in June and July that year.
Eckert was still operating the house at least as late as 1962, when he posed for a photo (upper right, with the marquee of the Palms in the background) that appeared in Boxoffice of March 5. The caption mistakenly dates Eckert’s purchase of the Palms to 1949.
Boxoffice of May 22, 1948, ran this item datelined Collinsville: “Millard G. Weaver, owner of the Cricket and the Sandy theatres here, has announced his candidacy for mayor. Weaver opened his first theatre in Collinsville in 1924 and three years ago replaced it with a modern house.”
Boxoffice of January 29, 1968, referred to the Cricket as “long closed” when it was mentioned in an article about houses that had been reopened the previous year. The Cricket was in operation at least as late as 1977, when it was mentioned in the April 4 issue of Boxoffice.
Boxoffice of May 10, 1947, said that W.T. Kirby’s 450-seat Time Theatre was scheduled to open at Wetumka that day. It would be the town’s second movie house.
An item in Boxoffice of October 5, 1940, said that E.H. Hulsey opened the Queen Theatre in Dallas in 1913. A May 10, 1947, Boxoffice piece about long-time theater man Lou Bissinger said that he had become the manager of the Queen three months after it had opened, and was still operating the house 34 years later. The Queen was located in a building that had been remodeled into a theater.
The new Dream Theatre at Tahlequah was slated to open about May 20, according to Boxoffice of May 10, 1947. General manager of the new house, S.P. Doss, was the former owner of the Chief Theatre at Eufaula. The Dream was to seat 400 on opening.
The official web site link above no longer works. I think the place might have changed ownership. This might be the new web site, once it’s finished, but I can’t swear to it.
The Long Theatre was the first movie house in Keyes, which, according to a May 10, 1947, Boxoffice item, was a town of 227 when the 250-seat theater opened that month. Lewis W. Long was the owner of the house. The Long Theatre was still in operation at least as late as 1964, when it was mentioned in the February 3 issue of Boxoffice.
Could the Electric Theatre have become the Palace?
A Palace Theatre at Quapaw was purchased by C.E. Barber in 1927, according to a line in a “Twenty Years Ago” feature in Boxoffice of February 15, 1947. Boxoffice of November 27, 1948, reported that an entire block of the business district of Quapaw had been destroyed by a fire that began in the Palace Theatre.
I’ve found Quapaw mentioned in Boxoffice only six times. Three mention the Palace, two others mention only C.E. Barber, and the May 10, 1947, issue mentions neither, but says that the Ryan Theatre at Quapaw was scheduled to open that day. The Ryan had previously operated as a 16mm house, but the item didn’t say what its name had been. The house had been converted into a 35mm theater by Alex Rowls, and it had 260 seats. That’s the sole mention of it in the magazine. Perhaps the Ryan was the Palace, and Mr. Rowls decided not to rename it after all? As far as I’ve been able to discover, Quapaw is never mentioned in Boxoffice after the 1948 item about the fire.
Boxoffice of April 19, 1947, reported that Frank and Floyd Smith had sold a half interest in their Wayne Theatre at Corydon to the Iowa United Theatres circuit. The item said that the Smith brothers had arrived in Corydon and built the Wayne in 1936.
A September 19, 1977, Boxoffice item said that Bud Kelly had permanently closed the Wayne Theatre on August 1, so the house must have been dark for more than a decade after that.
From Boxoffice of March 16, 1957: “The Strand Theatre, Orono, Me., will close its doors March 25 because of poor business. Connie Russell jr. is the owner.”
Then the April 6 issue of Boxoffice said: “Connie Russell jr. closed the Strand, Orono, Me., and completed plans to turn it into an office building.”
The earliest mention of the Strand I’ve found in the trades is from the September 1, 1932, issue of New England Film News, which listed the house as one of half a dozen theaters in the region that had recently reopened. The item did not mention how long the Strand had been closed.
Here are the additional photos of the Lewis and Clark in Boxoffice, October 19, 1957. LThe project’s ead architect, John Graham Jr., also designed the Northgate Theatre in Seattle for the Sterling circuit.
Note that it was John Graham Jr. who designed the Northgate Theatre. His father, John Graham Sr., was also a noted Seattle architect.
Boxoffice of September 22, 1951, also names John Graham as the architect of the Northgate Theatre. The original operator was Sterling Theatres.
An ad for RCA carpet (who knew that RCA made carpeting for theaters?) in Boxoffice of October 4, 1952, features a photo of the Northgate’s lobby. The Native American motifs used in the otherwise moderne theater are seen.
The December 11, 1972, issue of Boxoffice said that the West Wayne Cinema was scheduled to open on December 27, 1972. It was one of the first theaters in a proposed circuit of hundreds of theaters that were to have been franchised by United General Theatres, a Los Angeles-based corporation that suffered the same quick demise as the other franchise outfits of the period such as Jerry Lewis Cinemas.
Despite having established quite a few theaters in its first three years of operation, United General collapsed amid charges of fraud and conspiracy, and in 1975 two of its executives, both of them also major stockholders, were fined and sentenced to prison terms.
Many of the UGT operations were 16mm houses, but the West Wayne Cinema was equipped with 35mm equipment. A 16mm UGT house was set to open at Niagara Falls the same day the Macedon house was to be opened.
Marilee West: Thanks for the information about your father. He has had an impressively long career.
Here’s a corection of my earlier comment: The reference I cited, saying there was an architect named Derald West working at Lake Geneva in 1911, was the result of my misreading of information about an architect named William Woodworth. What the source actually said was that Woodworth, while working in a summer job at Derald West’s office, made drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Geneva Inn— which had been built in 1911. No more speed reading on the Internet for me.
Two interior photos of the Glenwood illustrate this article in Boxoffice of March 20, 1967. Richard Wells of William Behrman and Associates engineered the building and designed the exterior of the Glenwood, but the interior was designed by architect Mel Glatz.
Here are before and after photos of the remodeled Spring Theatre, formerly the Regent Theatre, in Boxoffice of March 20, 1967.
Boxoffice of January 31, 1953, reporting on a fire that had gutted the Monte Theatre, said the house had been built 16 years before by John Davis, and had been extensively remodeled as recently as 1951. At the time of the fire the Monte was being operated by the widowed Mrs. Davis and her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Thurber. The 500-seat theater was the only movie house in town. The March 21 issue of Boxoffice said that local citizens were working to help with the repairs, and the Jaycees were donating their efforts to repair or replace the damaged seats.
The December 29, 1956, issue of Boxoffice said that the Monte Theatre would be in operation only four days a week during the winter. Then on May 5, 1958, Boxoffice said that Mrs. Joe Thurber had closed the Monte Theater after three years of declining business. Finally. Boxoffice of June 12, 1961, reported that Kathryn Davis had sold the Monte Theatre building to F.R. “Bob” Brownell, who planned to remodel it for his business. The item didn’t say what sort of business Brownell Industries was in, but today the company is a purveyor of small arms supplies, as can be seen at their web site.
The Monte’s seats survived the theater and, according to Boxoffice of September 18, 1961, were purchased by the Toledo Community Theatre Guild and installed in the Wieting Theatre, then undrgoing renovation in Toledo, Iowa. The Wieting Theatre is still in operation, but I don’t know if it still sports the Monte’s old seats. If it does, it’s about time they replaced them.
The Glenwood Theatre was opened in 1966, according to Boxoffice of January 16, 1967. The original seating capacity was given as 1000. The number was probably rounded off. I’ve only found the Glenwood briefly mentioned twice in Boxoffice, and no other details about it were ever noted.
The Melba Theatre was mentioned in Boxoffice of August 21, 1937. The house was still in operation in 1951, when the last mention of it I can find in Boxoffice appeared in the issue of July 28.
The Mankato Free Press article about the Flame Theatre (link on the front page of the Wells web site) says that Sid Heath opened his theater in Wells in 1912 and operated it under various names until finally settling on State Theatre. Although the article says that the original theater burned down in 1960, the June 22, 1959, issue of Boxoffice mentioned the State Theatre having recently been destroyed in a fire. Most likely the Flame opened in 1960, though I can’t find the event mentioned in Boxoffice.
The Free Press article also says that Sid Heath held a contest to choose a name for the new theater he built to replace the burned State, and Flame Theatre was the winning entry. That’s quite a sense of humor they have in Minnesota.
Since posting the comment above, I’ve come across scores of web sites saying that there was a Cine 4 at this address. Most of these web sites are of the “directory” type, which commonly replicate each others content just so they’ll have something to wrap around their advertising, and it’s possible that they are all just repeating the same error, but in the absence of any reliable source saying that the Excellence Theatres proposal to expand Cine 2 to six screens in 1988 was actually carried out, it’s possible that the house did operate with only four screens until 2004. There are also quite a few sites reporting a Cine 6 at this address, but they might have been posted since 2004, and could also be errors if the name was changed to Stadium Cinema 6 that year.
Once again the Internet proves to be a reliable source of confusion and contradiction. Somebody familiar with Mankato, or at least with access to reliable local sources, will have to clear this up.