Quincy Music Theatre

Uploaded a photo of the Leaf as it appeared in the Gadsden County Times of October 20, 1949 just prior to its opening.

I remember both the Shaw and Leaf theater’s as a child in the 50’s I would be dropped off every Saturday at the Shaw theater with 25 cents in my hand . Admission was 9 cents , For that you got to see 2 grade B westerns Roy Rogers , Gene Au try . Hopalong cassidy , Johnny Mack Brown and many others .2 serials and at least 3 cartoons . candy was 5 cents . popcorn was 5 cents and of course they had penny candy so the got the entire 25 cents ! We would always watch everything 2 times so it was the cheapest way to babysit kids for about 5 hours !

There’s a great nightime shot of the Leaf in Jonathon Demme’s ‘Something Wild’

Can you tell me where the Roxy was located?

Thanks. I was most likely going to be in the Quincy area tomorrow and thought I would try and check them out. I’ll poke around downtown, I guess.

The Leaf Theatre opened on October 24, 1949, with 1022 seats- 700 on the main floor and 322 in a segregated balcony. The house was operated by Interstate Enterprises, according to items in Boxoffice Magazine on November 5 and November 19, 1949. These items attribute the design of the theater to Prentiss Huddleston & Associates, Tallahassee.

An Item in 1947 said that Kemp, Bunch & Jackson would design the new theater at Quincy, with Prentiss Huddleston as a local associate architect. A September, 1948 item names Prentiss Huddleston as the lead architect of the Leaf Theatre, with Kemp, Bunch & Jackson as the associated architects. The items about the opening don’t mention Kemp, Bunch & Jackson at all, so I don’t know how much, if any, input that firm had in the final design of the Leaf Theatre.

The plans had already been revised several times by early 1948, according to an item in Boxoffice of January 24 that year, due to repeated refusal by government authorities to issue a permit for construction of the theater as designed.

Interstate Enterprises, a company with theaters in Georgia and Florida, not to be confused with Texas-based Interstate Theatres, already operated two other theaters in Quincy, the Shaw and the Roxy, and later opened a drive-in there as well.