The Fox is at 2215 Broadway (though they give their box office address as 2223), so 2114 is a block down and across the street, near the corner of Jefferson. The old courthouse is at 2200 Broadway, according to the current occupant’s web site.
Here’s Google Street View of the building that once house the first Sequoia Theatre. You’ll have to be patient while that page loads.
3319 Main and 3406 Main are on opposite sides of the street, of course. I think 3406 can be ruled out as a current address for the theater’s location. It might have been a former address, but it would have been extremely strange for a city to have flipped its odd and even numbers from one side of the street to the other.
Current Google Street View shows a bar called Davey’s Uptown at 3402 Main, and a business called Nick Carter and Company at 3410 Main, and the building in between where 3406 would be is certainly not the theater. It looks old enough that it could have held a storefront theater in the 1910s or 1920s though.
On Google Street View, the odd-numbered side of the 3300 block of Main is seen to be of quite recent construction, so the theater must have been demolished. The address 3319 does not appear to be in use currently.
I think the theater must have been about where the parking lot is in front of the Verizon Wireless store now seen in Street View, though the address of that store is 3385 Main Street. What must be the theater building can be seen in a 1969 aerial view available at Historic Aerials. Their 2006 aerial shows the modern building that has the Verizon store in it, but Google Maps' satellite view shows the site vacant, so the theater must have been demolished before 2006. I don’t know how old the Google satellite view is, but it has to be pre-2006.
A July 14, 1969, Boxoffice item does give the location of Dickinson’s Kimo South Theatre as Overland Park, so the Rio must be the one.
I’ve found both the Kimo and the Kimo South mentioned in Boxoffice’s columns about weekly grosses in Kansas City theaters as late as April, 1972, but in the 1973 issues I’ve seen only the Kimo South is listed.
The recent opening of the Kimo Theatre was reported in the June 17, 1944, issue of Boxoffice. However, the article contradicts some of Chuck Van Bibber’s original intro to this page. It states that the Kimo was the result of an extensive remodeling of the Alamo Theatre, while Chuck’s intro says that the Alamo Theatre was a block away from the Kimo.
Chuck also submitted Cinema Treasures' Alamo Theatre page which, if this Boxoffice article and another Boxoffice item from March 19, 1944, are correct is a duplicate listing.
In Google searches I thought I’d found contemporary mentions of the Alamo in Boxoffice from after 1944, but they all turned out to be items in the magazines “From the Boxoffice Files: Twenty Years Ago” feature. I think we can be pretty sure the Kimo was indeed the Alamo rebuilt, but it would be good to get confirmation from other sources.
The Boxoffice article said that the Alamo had been closed for several years at the time it was rebuilt into the Kimo, so it might not be listed in FDYs from the early 1940s. The Alamo might be listed at the Kimo’s address in earlier issues, though (unless KC did a block renumbering about that time.)
There’s some confusion about the theaters in Alva. Even the October 15, 1949, Boxoffice Magazine article about the new Rialto contains within itself some conflicting information.
One paragraph says that the first Rialto was a successor to the Liberty and was opened in “… an old, barn-like auditorium that also housed a grocery store and garage….” This is supposed to have taken place after the Liberty burned, which the article says happened on October 12, 1934. The item also says that the razing of the first Rialto began on July 5, 1948, and the new Rialto was then built on the same site (this part is probably accurate.)
However, another paragraph of the same article says that in 1928 Homer Jones “…purchased half interest in the Alva Theatre Company, which was operating the Liberty and Rialto.” A few lines later it says that Jones “…left the Liberty in 1931 to devote full time to the Rialto.”
So, was the first Rialto built in 1929, as the intro above says, or earlier, if the Alva Theater Company was operating it when Jones came to town in 1928 as Boxoffice says, or in 1934, after the Liberty burned, as Boxoffice says? Or did Jones actually operate three successive Rialtos in Alva?
Boxoffice doesn’t identify the source of its information for the 1949 article, but it contains so much detail about Jones’s career that he himself, or someone very close to him, must have been the original source. Most likely the copywriter garbled some of the information about the earlier Rialto, or Rialtos.
The various on-line sources of information about the Rialto and other Alva houses are sometimes not consistent with one another either. The Enid News item from 2008 says that Jones “…purchased the Rialto in 1929.” The OkieLegacy site’s item on the Jones family appears to have taken some of its information from the Boxoffice item I cited (using the first Boxoffice tale about the original Rialto but not their second tale), but also says that Jones owned another theater in Alva which burned in 1933.
Somebody will probably have to do some research in the archives of the area’s newspapers, in articles and ads from the period in which the various theaters were operating, in order to sort out the facts.
What is clear from the Boxoffice Item is that the new Rialto was operating by October, 1949, and that it had 800 seats. The 600 seat figure in the intro to this page must be for the original Rialto, though the seating capacity of the triplexed house of today might actually be pretty close to that if the auditorium had 800 seats on opening.
The marquee in the historic photo says “Vitaphone” on left end and “Movietone” on the front. The house was obviously equipped for both of these competing systems, as was not unusual at the time. It’s probable that neither Vitaphone nor Movietone was actually the name of the theater. The name Liberty might have been on the rooftop, out of the camera’s range in this photo.
In any case, this theater already has a Cinema Treasures page under the name Liberty Theatre. The same photo of it here is identified as the Liberty Theatre.
Here’s additional information about the Kimo. Its art house period began long before the 1960s. An item in the February 2, 1959, issue of Boxoffice says that “And God Created Woman” had been running at the Kimo for a full year. A later paragraph in the item says:
“The engagement is the outstanding one in the theatre during the tenure of the Dickinson operation which began in 1944. The Kimo then became the first art film theatre in Kansas City and one of the first in the midwest. Other ‘milestone’ engagements have been ‘The Red Shoes,’ ‘Lili,’ ‘Henry V,’ and ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets,’ each of which ran about six months.”
By 1968, various issues of Boxoffice are mentioning a Kimo South Theatre, also an art house operated by Dickinson. I’ve found the Kimo itself mentioned as late as the issue of March 10, 1969. I don’t know of the Kimo South was at a different location, or if Dickinson twinned the Kimo. The 1984 photo of the Dove does show an attraction board typical of 1960s twin theaters.
The closing of the Kimo in 1952 had indeed been temporary. The March 3, 1956, Boxoffice says a new air conditioning system had been installed in the Kimo Theatre at Kansas City, resulting in a considerable increase in patronage during the summer of 1955.
This was a two-page article about the air conditioning systems in the Kimo and in the new Sierra Theatre in Alamogordo, N.M., then under construction. There are a couple of interior photos of the Kimo, and the article says that the house had 515 seats, and that the auditorium was 40x70 feet.
The Kimo name remained during the theater’s art house era, at least until 1967, when Boxoffice reported in its January 23 edition that “A Man and a Woman” was still doing good business in its eighth week at the Kimo.
I think the 1984 photo must depict the Kimo. The setbacks of the inner pair of display boxes is the same as the earlier photo of the Deco facade, and the lobby is the same width and has the same configuration. That remarkably ugly fake mansard with its cheap shingles was a common feature on buildings remodeled in the 1960s. I wonder if the remodeling took place before the house began showing porn? If so, I’d consider it an architectural premonition of the theater’s future screen fare.
Harry Hart’s Boxoffice Magazine column of December 6, 1952, mentioned that Wil-Kin Theatre Supply had installed Cycloramic screens in three houses, including the Varsity. I don’t know if that indicates that the Varsity was then under construction or not. At least one of the other two theaters getting one of the screens, the Carolina in Charlotte, was an existing house.
Apparently, this is not the Carolina Theatre that opened in 1927. Boxoffice Magazine of October 17, 1942, has this item, datelined Chapel Hill: “The new Carolina, seatng 1,145, was opened here October 15 by the Wilby-Kincey circuit, which also operates the Pick and Village locally. The latter was known as the Carolina before the new unit opened.”
That’s a nice 1930s Moderne facade, but the side wall looks like much older construction. Note the bricked-up arched window. It looks like the theater was built in an existing building, or using at least one surviving wall from an earlier building.
The January 20, 1958, issue of Boxoffice ran an item mentioning the Globe: “Herschel Gilliam, better known as ‘Wild Bill,’ was in the exchange area here and said that he finally had to install CinemaScope equipment in his Globe Theatre at Ardmore. Gilliam is very optimistic about the future of motion picture theatres, especially in Ardmore. Theatres there are helped a lot by patronage from the Air Force base a few miles from town.”
Perhaps Wild Bill was over-optimistic. The Oklahoma City news column in the June 1, 1959, issue of Boxoffice mentions among visitors to film row “…Herschel ‘Wild Bill” Gilliam, Globe Theatre, Ardmore, who will close about June 1.“ The item doesn’t specify if this was a temporary closing or a permanent closing, but I’ve found no items about the Globe in later issues of Boxoffice.
From Boxoffice Magazine, September 21, 1946: “The Yale Theatre, which has been closed for remodeling the last five months, is due to open late this month, Sam Caporal, owner-operator, said. The house will be completely new from front to back, and will have an additional 300 seats, making the seating capacity about 800.”
Rich and Claud: “My Fair Lady” was filmed in Super Panavision 70, one of the early competitors of Mike Todd’s Todd-AO. It was released in both 70mm and in a 35mm anamorphic version for theaters lacking 70mm equipment.
With regard to the photo of the State, a couple of 1973 issues of Boxoffice said that the former State Theatre in Tulare was being refurbished for use as a retail shop. The address was 225 E. Kern Avenue. Today there’s a photo studio and frame shop called Gainsborough Studio operating at 227 E. Kern, which appears to be in the theater building, though the facade has been substantially altered.
The Monroe was probably the theater mentioned in the August 26, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, in an item that said that Chris Velas of the Pleasant Valley Theatre Company had a 650-seat theater under construction in Woodsfield (another issue of Boxoffice, after the house had opened, gives the seating capacity as 500.) The item also said that Jesse Shannon was opening his Life Theatre at Woodsfield that week.
Then the June 29, 1940, issue of Boxoffice said that the Monroe Theatre had been ordered to suspend operations until building requirements were met. No details were given about what requirements the theater had failed to meet, but the item said that the house had been completed within the last six months and had been in operation only a short while.
Several later issues of Boxoffice have items about the Monroe, usually mentioning the operators, a Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Fliehman. I’ve found no mentions of the Monroe later than May 14, 1962, when an article quoted excerpts from a letter written by Mrs. Fliehman excoriating the Academy Awards show.
From the August 26, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “At Woodsfield this week Jess Shannon, exhibitor there, was opening his new 600-seat house, known as the Life.”
In 1954, Joe Shannon of the New Life Theatre is quoted in several ads appearing in Boxoffice, praising the benefits of CinemaScope for small town movie houses.
From the January 7, 1956, issue: “J.J. Shannon, manager, reports the reopening of the Newlife Theatre, Woodsfield, Ohio….”
The December 11, 1978, issue of Boxoffice quotes a regional buyer and booker named Jack Talley as saying that the Swissland Cinema in Woodsfield was being opened.
That new building belongs to the Salvation Army and is apparently some sort of rehab center. It has the same address as the theater, so (assuming the theater address is correct) the Metro is gone. The Salvation Army building looks no more than a few years old. Unfortunately, Historic Aerials only has a 2004 photo for the location, and it’s too blurry to tell if the theater was still there then or not. I’m quite sure it wasn’t there on May 11 this year, though.
Now I’m really confused. I can’t find a photo from 4/28/09. The photo Don Lewis linked to was dated as having been taken on May 11, 2009. Assuming it does depict the Metro, and the date is correct, we’d also have to assume that the Metro was demolished, the new multi-story building seen in Google Street View was built, and Google came by to take new photos of the block, all in the last 12 days.
I’m not saying that such a thing couldn’t happen in Texas. Just that it’s very unlikely.
A couple of 1940 items from Boxoffice Magazine concern the Mecca Theatre. The issue of September 7 says that Cumberland Amusement Co., operators of the Strand, had leased a building on Lincoln Street and planned to convert it into a movie theatre. The December 14 issue specifically names the Mecca, saying it was scheduled to open on the day of publication. The house was to have 400 seats.
The Army’s Camp Peay, later renamed Camp Forrest, was located near Tullahoma, and the arrival of some 20,000 recruits as WWII approached created a demand for new theaters in the town.
The Swiss Theatre opened in the summer of 1948, according to an item in the October 23 issue of Boxoffice Magazine that year. The 449-seat theater was designed by the Evansville, Indiana, firm of Warweg and Hagel. Other issues of Boxoffice give the name of the original operator of this independent house as Silver Rayley (or Raley- their spelling is inconsistent.)
At various times, Tell City also had theaters called the Royal, the Rialto, and the Ohio.
The Northgate Theatre was featured in an article in the January 21, 1963, issue of Boxoffice magazine. A preview of the house was held on December 21, 1962, with a screening of “Jumbo” for an audience of invited guests. The public opening of the theater took place on Christmas Day.
The Northgate Theatre was built and owned by the developers of the Northgate Shopping Center, and was first operated by Consolidated Theatres of Charlotte. The theater was designed by the Raleigh architectural firm Leif Valand & Associates.
Boxoffice Magazine of July 19, 1941, said the Clover Theatre had opened on Friday (the 19th was a Saturday that year.) According to Boxoffice, the theater had “…ultra-modern appointments and decorations.” The seating capacity was given as 700. The first manager was Don W. Randolph, formerly of Asheville, N.C., and the projectionist was B.P. Bopkins.
The Fox is at 2215 Broadway (though they give their box office address as 2223), so 2114 is a block down and across the street, near the corner of Jefferson. The old courthouse is at 2200 Broadway, according to the current occupant’s web site.
Here’s Google Street View of the building that once house the first Sequoia Theatre. You’ll have to be patient while that page loads.
3319 Main and 3406 Main are on opposite sides of the street, of course. I think 3406 can be ruled out as a current address for the theater’s location. It might have been a former address, but it would have been extremely strange for a city to have flipped its odd and even numbers from one side of the street to the other.
Current Google Street View shows a bar called Davey’s Uptown at 3402 Main, and a business called Nick Carter and Company at 3410 Main, and the building in between where 3406 would be is certainly not the theater. It looks old enough that it could have held a storefront theater in the 1910s or 1920s though.
On Google Street View, the odd-numbered side of the 3300 block of Main is seen to be of quite recent construction, so the theater must have been demolished. The address 3319 does not appear to be in use currently.
I think the theater must have been about where the parking lot is in front of the Verizon Wireless store now seen in Street View, though the address of that store is 3385 Main Street. What must be the theater building can be seen in a 1969 aerial view available at Historic Aerials. Their 2006 aerial shows the modern building that has the Verizon store in it, but Google Maps' satellite view shows the site vacant, so the theater must have been demolished before 2006. I don’t know how old the Google satellite view is, but it has to be pre-2006.
A July 14, 1969, Boxoffice item does give the location of Dickinson’s Kimo South Theatre as Overland Park, so the Rio must be the one.
I’ve found both the Kimo and the Kimo South mentioned in Boxoffice’s columns about weekly grosses in Kansas City theaters as late as April, 1972, but in the 1973 issues I’ve seen only the Kimo South is listed.
The recent opening of the Kimo Theatre was reported in the June 17, 1944, issue of Boxoffice. However, the article contradicts some of Chuck Van Bibber’s original intro to this page. It states that the Kimo was the result of an extensive remodeling of the Alamo Theatre, while Chuck’s intro says that the Alamo Theatre was a block away from the Kimo.
Chuck also submitted Cinema Treasures' Alamo Theatre page which, if this Boxoffice article and another Boxoffice item from March 19, 1944, are correct is a duplicate listing.
In Google searches I thought I’d found contemporary mentions of the Alamo in Boxoffice from after 1944, but they all turned out to be items in the magazines “From the Boxoffice Files: Twenty Years Ago” feature. I think we can be pretty sure the Kimo was indeed the Alamo rebuilt, but it would be good to get confirmation from other sources.
The Boxoffice article said that the Alamo had been closed for several years at the time it was rebuilt into the Kimo, so it might not be listed in FDYs from the early 1940s. The Alamo might be listed at the Kimo’s address in earlier issues, though (unless KC did a block renumbering about that time.)
There’s some confusion about the theaters in Alva. Even the October 15, 1949, Boxoffice Magazine article about the new Rialto contains within itself some conflicting information.
One paragraph says that the first Rialto was a successor to the Liberty and was opened in “… an old, barn-like auditorium that also housed a grocery store and garage….” This is supposed to have taken place after the Liberty burned, which the article says happened on October 12, 1934. The item also says that the razing of the first Rialto began on July 5, 1948, and the new Rialto was then built on the same site (this part is probably accurate.)
However, another paragraph of the same article says that in 1928 Homer Jones “…purchased half interest in the Alva Theatre Company, which was operating the Liberty and Rialto.” A few lines later it says that Jones “…left the Liberty in 1931 to devote full time to the Rialto.”
So, was the first Rialto built in 1929, as the intro above says, or earlier, if the Alva Theater Company was operating it when Jones came to town in 1928 as Boxoffice says, or in 1934, after the Liberty burned, as Boxoffice says? Or did Jones actually operate three successive Rialtos in Alva?
Boxoffice doesn’t identify the source of its information for the 1949 article, but it contains so much detail about Jones’s career that he himself, or someone very close to him, must have been the original source. Most likely the copywriter garbled some of the information about the earlier Rialto, or Rialtos.
The various on-line sources of information about the Rialto and other Alva houses are sometimes not consistent with one another either. The Enid News item from 2008 says that Jones “…purchased the Rialto in 1929.” The OkieLegacy site’s item on the Jones family appears to have taken some of its information from the Boxoffice item I cited (using the first Boxoffice tale about the original Rialto but not their second tale), but also says that Jones owned another theater in Alva which burned in 1933.
Somebody will probably have to do some research in the archives of the area’s newspapers, in articles and ads from the period in which the various theaters were operating, in order to sort out the facts.
What is clear from the Boxoffice Item is that the new Rialto was operating by October, 1949, and that it had 800 seats. The 600 seat figure in the intro to this page must be for the original Rialto, though the seating capacity of the triplexed house of today might actually be pretty close to that if the auditorium had 800 seats on opening.
The marquee in the historic photo says “Vitaphone” on left end and “Movietone” on the front. The house was obviously equipped for both of these competing systems, as was not unusual at the time. It’s probable that neither Vitaphone nor Movietone was actually the name of the theater. The name Liberty might have been on the rooftop, out of the camera’s range in this photo.
In any case, this theater already has a Cinema Treasures page under the name Liberty Theatre. The same photo of it here is identified as the Liberty Theatre.
In the last paragraph it should read “I don’t know if the Kimo South….”
Here’s additional information about the Kimo. Its art house period began long before the 1960s. An item in the February 2, 1959, issue of Boxoffice says that “And God Created Woman” had been running at the Kimo for a full year. A later paragraph in the item says:
By 1968, various issues of Boxoffice are mentioning a Kimo South Theatre, also an art house operated by Dickinson. I’ve found the Kimo itself mentioned as late as the issue of March 10, 1969. I don’t know of the Kimo South was at a different location, or if Dickinson twinned the Kimo. The 1984 photo of the Dove does show an attraction board typical of 1960s twin theaters.The closing of the Kimo in 1952 had indeed been temporary. The March 3, 1956, Boxoffice says a new air conditioning system had been installed in the Kimo Theatre at Kansas City, resulting in a considerable increase in patronage during the summer of 1955.
This was a two-page article about the air conditioning systems in the Kimo and in the new Sierra Theatre in Alamogordo, N.M., then under construction. There are a couple of interior photos of the Kimo, and the article says that the house had 515 seats, and that the auditorium was 40x70 feet.
The Kimo name remained during the theater’s art house era, at least until 1967, when Boxoffice reported in its January 23 edition that “A Man and a Woman” was still doing good business in its eighth week at the Kimo.
I think the 1984 photo must depict the Kimo. The setbacks of the inner pair of display boxes is the same as the earlier photo of the Deco facade, and the lobby is the same width and has the same configuration. That remarkably ugly fake mansard with its cheap shingles was a common feature on buildings remodeled in the 1960s. I wonder if the remodeling took place before the house began showing porn? If so, I’d consider it an architectural premonition of the theater’s future screen fare.
Harry Hart’s Boxoffice Magazine column of December 6, 1952, mentioned that Wil-Kin Theatre Supply had installed Cycloramic screens in three houses, including the Varsity. I don’t know if that indicates that the Varsity was then under construction or not. At least one of the other two theaters getting one of the screens, the Carolina in Charlotte, was an existing house.
Apparently, this is not the Carolina Theatre that opened in 1927. Boxoffice Magazine of October 17, 1942, has this item, datelined Chapel Hill: “The new Carolina, seatng 1,145, was opened here October 15 by the Wilby-Kincey circuit, which also operates the Pick and Village locally. The latter was known as the Carolina before the new unit opened.”
That’s a nice 1930s Moderne facade, but the side wall looks like much older construction. Note the bricked-up arched window. It looks like the theater was built in an existing building, or using at least one surviving wall from an earlier building.
The January 20, 1958, issue of Boxoffice ran an item mentioning the Globe: “Herschel Gilliam, better known as ‘Wild Bill,’ was in the exchange area here and said that he finally had to install CinemaScope equipment in his Globe Theatre at Ardmore. Gilliam is very optimistic about the future of motion picture theatres, especially in Ardmore. Theatres there are helped a lot by patronage from the Air Force base a few miles from town.”
Perhaps Wild Bill was over-optimistic. The Oklahoma City news column in the June 1, 1959, issue of Boxoffice mentions among visitors to film row “…Herschel ‘Wild Bill” Gilliam, Globe Theatre, Ardmore, who will close about June 1.“ The item doesn’t specify if this was a temporary closing or a permanent closing, but I’ve found no items about the Globe in later issues of Boxoffice.
From Boxoffice Magazine, September 21, 1946: “The Yale Theatre, which has been closed for remodeling the last five months, is due to open late this month, Sam Caporal, owner-operator, said. The house will be completely new from front to back, and will have an additional 300 seats, making the seating capacity about 800.”
Rich and Claud: “My Fair Lady” was filmed in Super Panavision 70, one of the early competitors of Mike Todd’s Todd-AO. It was released in both 70mm and in a 35mm anamorphic version for theaters lacking 70mm equipment.
I totally screwed up one of the dates in my previous comment. In paragraph three, it should read October 20, 1945, not October 20, 1949.
With regard to the photo of the State, a couple of 1973 issues of Boxoffice said that the former State Theatre in Tulare was being refurbished for use as a retail shop. The address was 225 E. Kern Avenue. Today there’s a photo studio and frame shop called Gainsborough Studio operating at 227 E. Kern, which appears to be in the theater building, though the facade has been substantially altered.
The Monroe was probably the theater mentioned in the August 26, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, in an item that said that Chris Velas of the Pleasant Valley Theatre Company had a 650-seat theater under construction in Woodsfield (another issue of Boxoffice, after the house had opened, gives the seating capacity as 500.) The item also said that Jesse Shannon was opening his Life Theatre at Woodsfield that week.
Then the June 29, 1940, issue of Boxoffice said that the Monroe Theatre had been ordered to suspend operations until building requirements were met. No details were given about what requirements the theater had failed to meet, but the item said that the house had been completed within the last six months and had been in operation only a short while.
Several later issues of Boxoffice have items about the Monroe, usually mentioning the operators, a Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Fliehman. I’ve found no mentions of the Monroe later than May 14, 1962, when an article quoted excerpts from a letter written by Mrs. Fliehman excoriating the Academy Awards show.
From the August 26, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “At Woodsfield this week Jess Shannon, exhibitor there, was opening his new 600-seat house, known as the Life.”
In 1954, Joe Shannon of the New Life Theatre is quoted in several ads appearing in Boxoffice, praising the benefits of CinemaScope for small town movie houses.
From the January 7, 1956, issue: “J.J. Shannon, manager, reports the reopening of the Newlife Theatre, Woodsfield, Ohio….”
The December 11, 1978, issue of Boxoffice quotes a regional buyer and booker named Jack Talley as saying that the Swissland Cinema in Woodsfield was being opened.
That new building belongs to the Salvation Army and is apparently some sort of rehab center. It has the same address as the theater, so (assuming the theater address is correct) the Metro is gone. The Salvation Army building looks no more than a few years old. Unfortunately, Historic Aerials only has a 2004 photo for the location, and it’s too blurry to tell if the theater was still there then or not. I’m quite sure it wasn’t there on May 11 this year, though.
Now I’m really confused. I can’t find a photo from 4/28/09. The photo Don Lewis linked to was dated as having been taken on May 11, 2009. Assuming it does depict the Metro, and the date is correct, we’d also have to assume that the Metro was demolished, the new multi-story building seen in Google Street View was built, and Google came by to take new photos of the block, all in the last 12 days.
I’m not saying that such a thing couldn’t happen in Texas. Just that it’s very unlikely.
A couple of 1940 items from Boxoffice Magazine concern the Mecca Theatre. The issue of September 7 says that Cumberland Amusement Co., operators of the Strand, had leased a building on Lincoln Street and planned to convert it into a movie theatre. The December 14 issue specifically names the Mecca, saying it was scheduled to open on the day of publication. The house was to have 400 seats.
The Army’s Camp Peay, later renamed Camp Forrest, was located near Tullahoma, and the arrival of some 20,000 recruits as WWII approached created a demand for new theaters in the town.
The Swiss Theatre opened in the summer of 1948, according to an item in the October 23 issue of Boxoffice Magazine that year. The 449-seat theater was designed by the Evansville, Indiana, firm of Warweg and Hagel. Other issues of Boxoffice give the name of the original operator of this independent house as Silver Rayley (or Raley- their spelling is inconsistent.)
At various times, Tell City also had theaters called the Royal, the Rialto, and the Ohio.
The Northgate Theatre was featured in an article in the January 21, 1963, issue of Boxoffice magazine. A preview of the house was held on December 21, 1962, with a screening of “Jumbo” for an audience of invited guests. The public opening of the theater took place on Christmas Day.
The Northgate Theatre was built and owned by the developers of the Northgate Shopping Center, and was first operated by Consolidated Theatres of Charlotte. The theater was designed by the Raleigh architectural firm Leif Valand & Associates.
Boxoffice Magazine of July 19, 1941, said the Clover Theatre had opened on Friday (the 19th was a Saturday that year.) According to Boxoffice, the theater had “…ultra-modern appointments and decorations.” The seating capacity was given as 700. The first manager was Don W. Randolph, formerly of Asheville, N.C., and the projectionist was B.P. Bopkins.
That should read “Esseness” rather than Essanass. My mind has been wandering into Beavis and Butthead territory again.