Ozark Theatre
11 S. Main Street,
Webb City,
MO
64870
11 S. Main Street,
Webb City,
MO
64870
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Additional Info
Previous Names: Empress Theatre, New Ozark Theatre
Nearby Theaters
The Empress Theatre was opened by 1915. By 1933 it had been renamed New Ozark Theatre. The Ozark Theatre was the largest of the four movie theatres operating in Webb City. It is listed in the 1941 and 1943 editions of Film Daily Yearbook, but had gone from listings by 1950. The building was destroyed by fire in December 1982.
Contributed by
Ken Roe
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Recent comments (view all 2 comments)
The address of the Ozark Theater (formerly the Empress) was 11 South Main Street–one door north of the offices of the Sentinel newspaper, which reported on the troubled theater’s situation throughout the 1930s and ‘40s.
Per the Sentinel: In August 1932, “The New Ozark theater was unable to open as advertised because of federal intervention, since the building was involved in a bankruptcy case.” By April 1933, J.P. Larsen, manager of the Civic Theater, was planning to reopen the Ozark and specialize in Westerns. (The Mystic Theater–later renamed the Junior–was also scheduled to reopen that month under the management of J.D. Wineland.)
Things didn’t go very well. In November 1933, the Ozark was sold in a bankruptcy proceeding. In 1940, it was reported that the theater’s “reputed owners,” Foulke and Burden, were planning to reopen it “in default of being able to sell the building.” Then, in 1942, the City Attorney was ordered to “start proceedings looking to the repair or removal” of four allegedly dilapidated buildings, included the Ozark Theater.
The Ozark got another chance in August 1947, when Mr. and Mrs. J.J. Boucher, operators of a couple of local restaurants, purchased the building with plans to remodel the second floor into a hotel and then work on the theater itself. They got as far as demolishing the marquee and box office that fall, and then the trail goes cold. The Bouchers weren’t mentioned in the local papers again until 1953, when they bought the Paramount Cafe, and the Ozark Theater wasn’t mentioned at all. (At least not before 1964, when the newspapers.com collection of Webb City papers ends.)
The Ozark Theater and the Sentinel offices next door have both been demolished.
To expand a bit on Darren_Snow’s comment above, an article in the April 12, 2023 Webb City Sentinel says that the Empress Theatre operated at this address from 1915 to 1928. It appears on a Sanborn map dated March, 1915 (the most recent available for Webb City.) The building was much too small for a theater seating 1,100, so if the seat count is accurate it must have been expanded quite extensively at some point.
The Sentinel article says that the entire half block of buildings that had once included the Empress/Ozark Theatre was destroyed by a fire in December, 1982.
The 1915 Sanborn also shows a combination movie-vaudeville house at 21 S. Allen (now Main) Street. It was larger than the Empress. I can’t confirm a name, but it might have been the Lake Theatre that was listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD.