The October 30, 1948, issue of Boxoffice magazine ran an article about the opening of the Harbor Theatre. The formal opening was held on October 8. The owners of the new house were Andrew Bzovi and Thomas Pascu. Bzovi had been the operator of the older Ecorse Theatre for 28 years. Architects of the Harbor were the Dearborn firm Bennett & Straight. A photo and the description of the theater indicate that the style was Art Moderne.
A rendering of the Ecorse Drive-In appeared in the February 17, 1951, issue of Boxoffice. The architect was Ted Rogvoy. The Ecorse was built for Charles Komer’s Community Theatres circuit.
I finally found the Varsity mentioned in Boxoffice in 1950. I lost track of an item that I had thought indicated a pre-1941 opening for the Varsity, but I now think I might have misread it anyway.
As the seating capacity listed for the Varsity is the same as the capacity Boxoffice gave for Caldwell’s project, it does seem most likely that Caldwell’s theater became the Varsity. For years it was operated by Dixie Theatres, which also operated the Dixie, while the Tech was independently operated by Charles Butterfield.
It looks like the Tech and the Varsity might have opened at about the same time. An article about Ed Edwards, a long-time theater manager in Ruston, was published in the January 24, 1966, issue of Boxoffice, and it said that the Tech Theatre had opened in March, 1941— but then it undermines its credibility by saying that the Ruston Drive-In opened later the same year. Multiple items in earlier issue of Boxoffice indicate that the drive-in was opened in 1950.
The June 18, 1949, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Lamar Theatre had held its formal opening on June 9 that year. The item also said that the marine-themed murals decorating the interior were the work of local artist Karl Wolfe.
Another item about the Lamar in the July 2, 1949, issue of Boxoffice inexplicably calls it the Lanmar Theatre throughout.
The December 9, 1950, issue of Boxoffice said that the Cooper Foundation’s Harber Theater in Oklahoma City, formerly the Warner Liberty, was undergoing a complete remodeling at an estimated cost of $225,000.
The July 7, 1951, Boxoffice article about the opening made it sound like the Harber occupied an entirely new building, saying it was “…built on the site of the old Liberty….” Vague phrasing in various issues of Boxoffice from early 1951 brings no clarification. A January 6 item said that the Harber was being built “…from the ground up….” Then a May 5 item about the project said that the Liberty had been “…torn down….” but later uses the word “remodeling” to describe the project.
The Cooper Foundation only had a lease on the property, the land still being owned by J.N. “Doc” Harber. Earlier Boxoffice items had said that Harber and his wife were the owners of the Liberty Theatre building, but apparently the remodeled (or new) building was owned by the Cooper Foundation. Perhaps the imprecise information about whether the building was entirely new or just extensively remodeled had something to do with the lease arrangement between Cooper and the Harbers.
In 1949, there had been a lawsuit over the lease of the Liberty Theatre, with Warner Theatres suing the Cooper Foundation, the Harbers, and a number of other parties. I’ve been unable to discover if the suit was decided against Warner or if they ultimately settled out of court.
The December, 1950, Boxoffice item named the architects of the Harber Theatre as Carl Boller and Dietz Lusk. However, Carl Boller had died in 1946, so the lead architect must have been Robert Boller. The firm was Boller & Lusk, in any case. The 1951 item said that the murals in the auditorium and lobby had been painted by Hans Teichert of Chicago. The July 21, 1951, issue of Boxoffice ran a small photo of the opening day crowds outside the theater, showing the very modern style of the new facade.
The name change to Cooper Theatre took place in 1959. The June 29 issue of Boxoffice said: “The new Cooper Theatre, formerly the Harber, was formally opened Wednesday Evening (17) by Cooper Foundation Theatres with a press showing of ‘Windjammer,’ the Cinemiracle special.”
I’ve been unable to find anything about the house being called the Cooper Cinerama Theatre. Boxoffice refers to it as simply the Cooper Theatre through most of the 1960s. In the photo on this web page, the name Cinerama is clearly above the name Cooper, so it seems likely that the house was never actually called the Cooper Cinerama Theatre, but only sported the standard Cinerama signage. An advertisement naming it Cooper Cinerama Theatre would be better evidence than that photo.
The Cooper Foundation had actually disposed of all its Oklahoma City Theaters by 1964, according to an item in Boxoffice on November 2 that year. The June 15 issue had said that the foundation had put the Midwest, Warner, and Sooner theaters up for sale after buying out the lease of Stanley Warner Theatres, who had been operating the houses for some time. The Cooper Theatre itself had been leased to Dr. and Mrs. L.A. Newcomb earlier that year.
The Paramount apparently opened in 1930. An item in the May 12, 1958, issue of Boxoffice magazine contains the following line: “Dahmer joined Jefferson Amusement Co.-East Texas Theatres in 1930 as an usher at the opening of the Paramount Theatre in Marshall, Tex….”
A 1949 item in Boxoffice’s “From the Boxoffice Files (Twenty Years Ago)” feature said that West Texas Theatres had purchased a lot at Washington and Burleson in Marshall and would build a theater on the site.
The earliest mention of the Tech Theatre I can find in Boxoffice is from the February 14, 1942, issue. The house was being operated by C.M. Butterfield.
In early 1941, there are a few issues of Boxoffice that mention a new theater being built in Ruston by John Caldwell. None of the items give the name of the new theater, and John Caldwell is not mentioned in connection with Ruston in any later issues of Boxoffice. Theaters operating in Ruston before Caldwell’s project were the Dixie and the Varsity, so his new house was neither of those. I can’t find any items about an opening of Caldwell’s theater, though, nor anything about it being sold to Charles Butterfield or anyone else.
Caldwell’s new theater was only supposed to have 450 seats according to Boxoffice, but it still seems the most likely candidate to have been the Tech. Another possibility is that the Varsity was renamed the Tech, as I can’t find any mentions of the Varsity being in operation from the period after the Tech opened. I can’t find anything about a fourth walk-in theater in Ruston, either, though there was a drive-in opened by Charles Butterfield in 1950.
The Tech Theatre in the photo is clearly in a building dating from well before 1941, so if it was indeed John Caldwell’s project of that year then he must have converted an existing structure.
Google Maps has no street view of Mississippi Avenue, but Microsoft’s mapping site (recently renamed Bing Maps) has a bird’s eye view, and I can’t see any building resembling the Tech along that street. My guess is that it occupied what is now a parking lot at the northeast corner of Mississippi and Monroe Street (there’s still some diagonal parking along Monroe, just as in the photo.) Maybe somebody familiar with Ruston can confirm that as the location. If it was, the Tech has been demolished.
The web site Walla Walla History has a pair of then and now photos of the Keylor Grand (click on the 4th thumbnail in the left-side frame on that page.)
The business currently situated in the theater’s old stage house (and a small modern addition) is an outfit going by the unusual name of H&H Sports and Loan. They give their address as 203 W. Alder Street, so that was probably the address of the theater as well.
Quite a few web sites list it as Spanky’s Night Club, but that’s the old Sequoia all right. In Google Street View you can take a look at the side of the building from Jefferson Avenue and easily make out that there was once an auditorium in it. I doubt if any of the original interior remains, though, as the place was converted to other uses so long ago, and has probably gone through multiple remodelings since. The current bland front looks like it probably dates from the 1960s.
The Century 20 Downtown isn’t listed at Cinema Treasures yet, and neither is the Century 12 on Bayshore Boulevard.
Architects of the Riviera were Peterson & Shuflin, according to the item about the opening in the February 18, 1956, issue of Boxoffice. Loew’s head Joseph R. Vogel (no relation) attended the opening.
Original plans and drawings of a Coral Gables theater designed by Peterson & Shuflin are in the J. Evan Miller Collection of Cinerama Theatre Plans at UCLA. The unnamed house must be the Riviera. I can’t find references to any other theaters designed by Peterson & Shuflin.
Here’s a color photo of the old Twilight Theatre on the City of Greensburg’s web site. This photo shows it from another angle. The cable channel Planet Green has posted this rendering of the proposed replacement for the Twilight Theatre. Plans call for 458 seats, and the building will be of neo-moderne design.
On a recent episode of Planet Green’s series about Greensburg, it was revealed that the local school district is planning to have a partnership with the operators of the theater so that when it is built it can be used for school functions during the week. The rebuilt school will not have an auditorium, and apparently the old Twilight Theatre only operated on weekends in any case. Kiowa County only had a population of a little over 3000 even before the tornado, so a full-time movie theater wouldn’t be economically viable there, especially as it will have to be located in costly new construction.
The Twilight is mentioned surprisingly often in Boxoffice Magazine, as the long-time operators Charles and Ben Spainhour frequently wrote pieces for the magazine’s “The Exhibitor Has His Say” feature. A thumbnail biography of Charles Spainhour appeared in the March 3, 1945, issue of Boxoffice, which revealed that he bought his first theater (for $375, fully equipped) in 1916. He bought the Twilight the next year. His first theater was also in Greensburg, but Boxoffice didn’t give its name.
Construction had not yet begun on the Crest when the December 4, 1948, issue of Boxoffice published Robert Boller’s rendering of the front. The firm name was not Boller Brothers, though. Carl Boller had died in 1946, and by the time the Crest was built Robert Boller was associated with Dietz Lusk in the Kansas City firm of Boller & Lusk.
Boxoffice Magazine of December 18, 1948, confirms a 1948 date for the start of construction for the Encino. It said that contracts for construction of Charles Menderson’s new theater at Ventura Boulevard and Neoline Street had been awarded to Struction of Los Angeles. The December 4 issue of Boxoffice had published the architect’s rendering of the new house to which I linked in my comment above.
The building on the northwest corner of Western and Imperial was a gas station. In the 1952 aerial photo the roofs over the pump islands are attached to the main building, but in 1972 the islands are free-standing. The gasoline companies were always rebuilding their stations, and they built duller buildings each time.
The early announcement of plans for the Rio published in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of August 21, 1948, said that the theater would be at Western and Imperial, and would include a commercial building on the corner containing seven stores. That part of the project never got built.
The Rio as built was similar to the Southside Theatre, having the same basic configuration, but was somewhat smaller at about 1100 seats to the Southside’s nearly 1500. Both houses were built for the Southside Theatres chain, the Rio in 1948 and the Southside in 1949.
The Colonial got a new facade, designed by architect Ted Rogvoy, in 1948. The project was underway according to an item in Boxoffice Magazine of June 19 that year. The Colonial was the headquarters house for Midwest Theatres by then.
Yay, the Temple Theatre page has returned from its long sojourn in Alhambra. Now maybe people from Temple City will be able to find it and the page will become active again.
As for the style of the Temple, it was an odd combination of Moderne (used primarily in the name tower) and the simplified Colonial style that was popular for a while in the 1930s and 1940s, but which was used mostly for residential buildings, churches, and small commercial and office structures.
The Temple’s auditorium featured a wood-beamed, king post truss roof, which I’ve never seen in any other theater. In fact I don’t know of any other theater quite like it in style, though it had some resemblance to Edwards' Tumbleweed Theatre in El Monte, also designed by Lee- but the Tumbleweed was far more rustic.
The Eastgate was originally built for Wilby-Kincey Theatres and opened in 1965 with 900 seats. It was on Boxoffice Magazine’s annual list of the previous year’s new theaters, published in the January 17, 1966 issue. By 1970, the Eastgate was being operated by ABC Theatres. I’ve been unable to find out when it was triplexed.
An article about A.A. Moulder in the February 20, 1954, issue of Boxoffice said that he had opened the Criterion in 1931. The Boxoffice article was based on one published in the Sapulpa Sunday Herald, for which the author had interviewed Moulder.
The article also said that Moulder’s first theater had been the Lyric, which he bought in 1911. While still operating that house he and his father opened the Empress, across Main Street from the Lyric. They operated both houses for a while, but later sold the Lyric. The Moulders closed the Empress when the Criterion opened.
Both the Empress and the Criterion had sometimes presented vaudeville as well as movies, including some Orpheum circuit acts. A CinemaScope screen was installed at the Criterion in 1954.
The Capitol opened in 1940. The November 23 issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the opening of the 600-seat house was scheduled for November 28. It was the seventh theatre in Solomon and Borisky’s Independent Theatres chain. The operators intended to present vaudeville as well as first run movies in the new theater.
In 1948, the Capitol got a new porcelain front, with poster cases and remodeled boxoffice, installed by the Milwaukee firm of Poblocki & Sons. The December 4 issue of Boxoffice published a small (very small) photo of the new front. Independent’s Brainerd Theatre got a similar front at the same time.
The April 23, 1955, Boxoffice said that Jay Solomon planned to close the Capitol for 60 days for remodeling which would include installation of a CinemaScope screen. The letting of the contract for the $85,000 project was finally announced in the October 22 issue of Boxoffice.
I’ve only been able to find two mentions of the American in Boxoffice Magazine. An October 14, 1939, ad for Altec featured a letter from Abe Solomon, operator of the American, praising Altec’s sound system. Then an October 18, 1949, item said that the new management of the American planned to renovate the house to present stage shows. The item said that the house had been showing westerns. I don’t know if the planned conversion to live theater was ever carried out.
The July 10, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said that the Fox Theatre had recently opened in Red Bank. The 700-seat house was managed by Mrs. Myrtle Pitts and owned by Fox Theatres Inc. of Chatsworth, Georgia.
The October 30, 1948, issue of Boxoffice magazine ran an article about the opening of the Harbor Theatre. The formal opening was held on October 8. The owners of the new house were Andrew Bzovi and Thomas Pascu. Bzovi had been the operator of the older Ecorse Theatre for 28 years. Architects of the Harbor were the Dearborn firm Bennett & Straight. A photo and the description of the theater indicate that the style was Art Moderne.
A rendering of the Ecorse Drive-In appeared in the February 17, 1951, issue of Boxoffice. The architect was Ted Rogvoy. The Ecorse was built for Charles Komer’s Community Theatres circuit.
I finally found the Varsity mentioned in Boxoffice in 1950. I lost track of an item that I had thought indicated a pre-1941 opening for the Varsity, but I now think I might have misread it anyway.
As the seating capacity listed for the Varsity is the same as the capacity Boxoffice gave for Caldwell’s project, it does seem most likely that Caldwell’s theater became the Varsity. For years it was operated by Dixie Theatres, which also operated the Dixie, while the Tech was independently operated by Charles Butterfield.
It looks like the Tech and the Varsity might have opened at about the same time. An article about Ed Edwards, a long-time theater manager in Ruston, was published in the January 24, 1966, issue of Boxoffice, and it said that the Tech Theatre had opened in March, 1941— but then it undermines its credibility by saying that the Ruston Drive-In opened later the same year. Multiple items in earlier issue of Boxoffice indicate that the drive-in was opened in 1950.
The June 18, 1949, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Lamar Theatre had held its formal opening on June 9 that year. The item also said that the marine-themed murals decorating the interior were the work of local artist Karl Wolfe.
Another item about the Lamar in the July 2, 1949, issue of Boxoffice inexplicably calls it the Lanmar Theatre throughout.
The December 9, 1950, issue of Boxoffice said that the Cooper Foundation’s Harber Theater in Oklahoma City, formerly the Warner Liberty, was undergoing a complete remodeling at an estimated cost of $225,000.
The July 7, 1951, Boxoffice article about the opening made it sound like the Harber occupied an entirely new building, saying it was “…built on the site of the old Liberty….” Vague phrasing in various issues of Boxoffice from early 1951 brings no clarification. A January 6 item said that the Harber was being built “…from the ground up….” Then a May 5 item about the project said that the Liberty had been “…torn down….” but later uses the word “remodeling” to describe the project.
The Cooper Foundation only had a lease on the property, the land still being owned by J.N. “Doc” Harber. Earlier Boxoffice items had said that Harber and his wife were the owners of the Liberty Theatre building, but apparently the remodeled (or new) building was owned by the Cooper Foundation. Perhaps the imprecise information about whether the building was entirely new or just extensively remodeled had something to do with the lease arrangement between Cooper and the Harbers.
In 1949, there had been a lawsuit over the lease of the Liberty Theatre, with Warner Theatres suing the Cooper Foundation, the Harbers, and a number of other parties. I’ve been unable to discover if the suit was decided against Warner or if they ultimately settled out of court.
The December, 1950, Boxoffice item named the architects of the Harber Theatre as Carl Boller and Dietz Lusk. However, Carl Boller had died in 1946, so the lead architect must have been Robert Boller. The firm was Boller & Lusk, in any case. The 1951 item said that the murals in the auditorium and lobby had been painted by Hans Teichert of Chicago. The July 21, 1951, issue of Boxoffice ran a small photo of the opening day crowds outside the theater, showing the very modern style of the new facade.
The name change to Cooper Theatre took place in 1959. The June 29 issue of Boxoffice said: “The new Cooper Theatre, formerly the Harber, was formally opened Wednesday Evening (17) by Cooper Foundation Theatres with a press showing of ‘Windjammer,’ the Cinemiracle special.”
I’ve been unable to find anything about the house being called the Cooper Cinerama Theatre. Boxoffice refers to it as simply the Cooper Theatre through most of the 1960s. In the photo on this web page, the name Cinerama is clearly above the name Cooper, so it seems likely that the house was never actually called the Cooper Cinerama Theatre, but only sported the standard Cinerama signage. An advertisement naming it Cooper Cinerama Theatre would be better evidence than that photo.
The Cooper Foundation had actually disposed of all its Oklahoma City Theaters by 1964, according to an item in Boxoffice on November 2 that year. The June 15 issue had said that the foundation had put the Midwest, Warner, and Sooner theaters up for sale after buying out the lease of Stanley Warner Theatres, who had been operating the houses for some time. The Cooper Theatre itself had been leased to Dr. and Mrs. L.A. Newcomb earlier that year.
The Paramount apparently opened in 1930. An item in the May 12, 1958, issue of Boxoffice magazine contains the following line: “Dahmer joined Jefferson Amusement Co.-East Texas Theatres in 1930 as an usher at the opening of the Paramount Theatre in Marshall, Tex….”
A 1949 item in Boxoffice’s “From the Boxoffice Files (Twenty Years Ago)” feature said that West Texas Theatres had purchased a lot at Washington and Burleson in Marshall and would build a theater on the site.
The earliest mention of the Tech Theatre I can find in Boxoffice is from the February 14, 1942, issue. The house was being operated by C.M. Butterfield.
In early 1941, there are a few issues of Boxoffice that mention a new theater being built in Ruston by John Caldwell. None of the items give the name of the new theater, and John Caldwell is not mentioned in connection with Ruston in any later issues of Boxoffice. Theaters operating in Ruston before Caldwell’s project were the Dixie and the Varsity, so his new house was neither of those. I can’t find any items about an opening of Caldwell’s theater, though, nor anything about it being sold to Charles Butterfield or anyone else.
Caldwell’s new theater was only supposed to have 450 seats according to Boxoffice, but it still seems the most likely candidate to have been the Tech. Another possibility is that the Varsity was renamed the Tech, as I can’t find any mentions of the Varsity being in operation from the period after the Tech opened. I can’t find anything about a fourth walk-in theater in Ruston, either, though there was a drive-in opened by Charles Butterfield in 1950.
The Tech Theatre in the photo is clearly in a building dating from well before 1941, so if it was indeed John Caldwell’s project of that year then he must have converted an existing structure.
Google Maps has no street view of Mississippi Avenue, but Microsoft’s mapping site (recently renamed Bing Maps) has a bird’s eye view, and I can’t see any building resembling the Tech along that street. My guess is that it occupied what is now a parking lot at the northeast corner of Mississippi and Monroe Street (there’s still some diagonal parking along Monroe, just as in the photo.) Maybe somebody familiar with Ruston can confirm that as the location. If it was, the Tech has been demolished.
The web site Walla Walla History has a pair of then and now photos of the Keylor Grand (click on the 4th thumbnail in the left-side frame on that page.)
The business currently situated in the theater’s old stage house (and a small modern addition) is an outfit going by the unusual name of H&H Sports and Loan. They give their address as 203 W. Alder Street, so that was probably the address of the theater as well.
Is the Queen Theatre at 2427 Jensen Drive listed at Cinema Treasures under another name?
Boxoffice of June 20, 1946: “Robb & Rowley opened its new Rita, San Angelo, June 14.”
Quite a few web sites list it as Spanky’s Night Club, but that’s the old Sequoia all right. In Google Street View you can take a look at the side of the building from Jefferson Avenue and easily make out that there was once an auditorium in it. I doubt if any of the original interior remains, though, as the place was converted to other uses so long ago, and has probably gone through multiple remodelings since. The current bland front looks like it probably dates from the 1960s.
The Century 20 Downtown isn’t listed at Cinema Treasures yet, and neither is the Century 12 on Bayshore Boulevard.
None needed. My phrasing was probably a bit odd and confusing. I hope you won’t be leaving Cinema Treasures. You make a lot of useful contributions.
Architects of the Riviera were Peterson & Shuflin, according to the item about the opening in the February 18, 1956, issue of Boxoffice. Loew’s head Joseph R. Vogel (no relation) attended the opening.
Original plans and drawings of a Coral Gables theater designed by Peterson & Shuflin are in the J. Evan Miller Collection of Cinerama Theatre Plans at UCLA. The unnamed house must be the Riviera. I can’t find references to any other theaters designed by Peterson & Shuflin.
The Vineland was the 26th drive-in opened by Pacific. The April 16, 1955, issue of Boxoffice said that it had opened on the 15th.
Here’s a color photo of the old Twilight Theatre on the City of Greensburg’s web site. This photo shows it from another angle. The cable channel Planet Green has posted this rendering of the proposed replacement for the Twilight Theatre. Plans call for 458 seats, and the building will be of neo-moderne design.
On a recent episode of Planet Green’s series about Greensburg, it was revealed that the local school district is planning to have a partnership with the operators of the theater so that when it is built it can be used for school functions during the week. The rebuilt school will not have an auditorium, and apparently the old Twilight Theatre only operated on weekends in any case. Kiowa County only had a population of a little over 3000 even before the tornado, so a full-time movie theater wouldn’t be economically viable there, especially as it will have to be located in costly new construction.
The Twilight is mentioned surprisingly often in Boxoffice Magazine, as the long-time operators Charles and Ben Spainhour frequently wrote pieces for the magazine’s “The Exhibitor Has His Say” feature. A thumbnail biography of Charles Spainhour appeared in the March 3, 1945, issue of Boxoffice, which revealed that he bought his first theater (for $375, fully equipped) in 1916. He bought the Twilight the next year. His first theater was also in Greensburg, but Boxoffice didn’t give its name.
Construction had not yet begun on the Crest when the December 4, 1948, issue of Boxoffice published Robert Boller’s rendering of the front. The firm name was not Boller Brothers, though. Carl Boller had died in 1946, and by the time the Crest was built Robert Boller was associated with Dietz Lusk in the Kansas City firm of Boller & Lusk.
Boxoffice Magazine of December 18, 1948, confirms a 1948 date for the start of construction for the Encino. It said that contracts for construction of Charles Menderson’s new theater at Ventura Boulevard and Neoline Street had been awarded to Struction of Los Angeles. The December 4 issue of Boxoffice had published the architect’s rendering of the new house to which I linked in my comment above.
The building on the northwest corner of Western and Imperial was a gas station. In the 1952 aerial photo the roofs over the pump islands are attached to the main building, but in 1972 the islands are free-standing. The gasoline companies were always rebuilding their stations, and they built duller buildings each time.
The early announcement of plans for the Rio published in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of August 21, 1948, said that the theater would be at Western and Imperial, and would include a commercial building on the corner containing seven stores. That part of the project never got built.
The Rio as built was similar to the Southside Theatre, having the same basic configuration, but was somewhat smaller at about 1100 seats to the Southside’s nearly 1500. Both houses were built for the Southside Theatres chain, the Rio in 1948 and the Southside in 1949.
The Colonial got a new facade, designed by architect Ted Rogvoy, in 1948. The project was underway according to an item in Boxoffice Magazine of June 19 that year. The Colonial was the headquarters house for Midwest Theatres by then.
Yay, the Temple Theatre page has returned from its long sojourn in Alhambra. Now maybe people from Temple City will be able to find it and the page will become active again.
As for the style of the Temple, it was an odd combination of Moderne (used primarily in the name tower) and the simplified Colonial style that was popular for a while in the 1930s and 1940s, but which was used mostly for residential buildings, churches, and small commercial and office structures.
The Temple’s auditorium featured a wood-beamed, king post truss roof, which I’ve never seen in any other theater. In fact I don’t know of any other theater quite like it in style, though it had some resemblance to Edwards' Tumbleweed Theatre in El Monte, also designed by Lee- but the Tumbleweed was far more rustic.
The Eastgate was originally built for Wilby-Kincey Theatres and opened in 1965 with 900 seats. It was on Boxoffice Magazine’s annual list of the previous year’s new theaters, published in the January 17, 1966 issue. By 1970, the Eastgate was being operated by ABC Theatres. I’ve been unable to find out when it was triplexed.
An article about A.A. Moulder in the February 20, 1954, issue of Boxoffice said that he had opened the Criterion in 1931. The Boxoffice article was based on one published in the Sapulpa Sunday Herald, for which the author had interviewed Moulder.
The article also said that Moulder’s first theater had been the Lyric, which he bought in 1911. While still operating that house he and his father opened the Empress, across Main Street from the Lyric. They operated both houses for a while, but later sold the Lyric. The Moulders closed the Empress when the Criterion opened.
Both the Empress and the Criterion had sometimes presented vaudeville as well as movies, including some Orpheum circuit acts. A CinemaScope screen was installed at the Criterion in 1954.
The Capitol opened in 1940. The November 23 issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the opening of the 600-seat house was scheduled for November 28. It was the seventh theatre in Solomon and Borisky’s Independent Theatres chain. The operators intended to present vaudeville as well as first run movies in the new theater.
In 1948, the Capitol got a new porcelain front, with poster cases and remodeled boxoffice, installed by the Milwaukee firm of Poblocki & Sons. The December 4 issue of Boxoffice published a small (very small) photo of the new front. Independent’s Brainerd Theatre got a similar front at the same time.
The April 23, 1955, Boxoffice said that Jay Solomon planned to close the Capitol for 60 days for remodeling which would include installation of a CinemaScope screen. The letting of the contract for the $85,000 project was finally announced in the October 22 issue of Boxoffice.
I’ve only been able to find two mentions of the American in Boxoffice Magazine. An October 14, 1939, ad for Altec featured a letter from Abe Solomon, operator of the American, praising Altec’s sound system. Then an October 18, 1949, item said that the new management of the American planned to renovate the house to present stage shows. The item said that the house had been showing westerns. I don’t know if the planned conversion to live theater was ever carried out.
The July 10, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said that the Fox Theatre had recently opened in Red Bank. The 700-seat house was managed by Mrs. Myrtle Pitts and owned by Fox Theatres Inc. of Chatsworth, Georgia.