Capitol Theater
Main Street,
Frankfort,
KY
40601
Main Street,
Frankfort,
KY
40601
No one has favorited this theater yet
Was open in 1971 was I was projectionist. Last known movies shown included “The Godfather”, “Billy Jack”, “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”, “Pocket Money”, and “Summer of ‘42”.
Contributed by
CRAIG ESCHERICH
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Recent comments (view all 9 comments)
Listed as operating in Film Daily Yearbook’s from at least 1941.
This theater on Main Street was open in 1916. Obviously no way to tell if this was the Capitol or some other theater.
http://tinyurl.com/2hkwcl
The Capitol was a Chakeres theater in 1970. It doesn’t look like it was open for too long after that.
The date given for this photo is November of 1940.
The Capitol Theater did not close in 1974, it closed in 1978 and was demolished in 1979.
It was actually located on the odd side of the 200 block of West Main St. When they tore it down they rebuilt a building there which is now the Dept. of Insurance located at 215 West main St.
The address of the Capitol was actually 213 West Main Street. At one time the building was owned by the city of Frankfort. During the early years, City Hall was located on the second floor of the theatre. Built as an opra house, the theatre had a fly loft and large stage. Dressing rooms were located below the stage.
The Capitol Theatre was built in 1883 as the Frankfort Opera House, and was designed by none other than the noted Chicago theater architect Oscar Cobb. It was among the buildings listed in a 1971 survey of historic sites in Kentucky, prepared for the Kentucky Historical Commission.
The Frankfort Opera House and City Hall was also listed in an advertisement for Cobb’s firm that appeared in the 1884-1885 edition of Harry Miner’s American Dramatic Directory, and in an article about Cobb in a book about the Chicago Board of Trade published in 1885. Here, from the latter publication, is a list (probably not exhaustive) of theaters Cobb had designed up to that time:
During the lunch hour on a mild fall day, October 20th 1977, a tractor trailer rolling eastbound down US Highway 60 towards Louisville Hill collided with a car at the intersection of Leawood Drive.
Later that evening around 8:00 PM eastern, an aircraft en route to Baton Rouge crashed in southern Mississippi.
About two hours later the electric arc in the lamp house of projector #1 at the old Capitol Theatre extinguished for the last time, the light faded from the screen and the orange glow of the spent carbon rods faded to a sooty black. Concomitantly, the well oiled gears and sprockets on the old projector head wound down to a final stop as the weighted flywheel on the drive motor gave up its angular momentum and the tail of the film flapped noisily in the lower reel housing.
The farewell film was The Bad News Bears Breaking Training and it was I recall five 20 minute reels. As I recall SG ran projection that evening. I recall there were two patrons who attended that final 8:00 P.M. exhibition as I stood in the rear of the auditorium. They were the last two patrons to ever experience the magic of that old forgotten theatre in of the heart one of the smallest but most beautiful capital cities in the country, a city where I spent my childhood and teenaged years.
In its final summer, the Capitol Theatre exhibited for two weeks only a first run film about a timeless struggle between good and evil in an ancient civilization, light years away. Also illuminating the screen that summer was a cat and mouse comedy featuring an overweight salty-mouthed southern sheriff, an iconic good old boy, and a beautiful young woman who three decades later pitched for a drug company during the nightly news. Neither film really packed the house in our sleepy little town.
By 1977 the single screen movie house was at end, having been replaced by the more profitable twin theatre, a somewhat newer concept at the time, but in retrospect, quaint, as the next decade of theatre construction around the country would prove.
As a coming of age projectionist during that spring summer and early fall of 1977, the three aforementioned events of that October day, though unrelated and perhaps linked by no one other than me, etched a permanent remembrance in my mind. It is as if it were yesterday, and I can when I think about it still feel and smell that old brown sound fold which draped the towering walls of the old Capitol theatre and hid from immediate view the magnificent artwork and architectural beauty of this old theatre. I can still hear in my mind’s ear the radio breaking the news about the band the next morning, and I can still see clearly in my mind’s eye the newspaper picture of the crumpled car where it came to rest in the parking lot of what was then a service station.
The demolition of the Capitol Theatre commencing about a year later in the late summer of 1978 was a poignant epilogue. It started from the top and rear of the building by the river and worked its way slowly down and towards Main Street. It seems like rumors had circulated that the front facade was to be spared but sadly it was only rumor. As the building was slowly dismantled and hauled away, I remember being fascinated at the multiple layers of brick which formed the outer walls. The old structure was built to last forever and would have but for the wrecking ball.
The local newspaper covered all three stories on the front page on Friday October 21st 1977 and I kept that newspaper for at least two decades following. Many job and home relocations later, I have since misplaced it and have years ago forgotten the name of the woman who tragically lost her life that day. Unlike the band, I suspect she was just an ordinary individual whose name has long ago been forgotten by most except her family. I will never forget her, though I never knew her and never saw her face.
The band had the previous year given a tour de force performance in the fabulous Fox Theatre in Atlanta, captured live and recorded on a double vinyl album which I still pull from the closet and enjoy on my aging turntable whenever I feel nostalgic. I still think about the old Capitol Theatre, and her, whenever I hear Tuesday’s Gone.
But for the preservationists, that magnificent old Fox theatre, in which I and my wife have enjoyed many events through the following years, would have met the same fate as the old Capitol theatre. In retrospect, it seems prophetic that one of the first events I attended at the Fox in about 1982 with TC was the exhibition of what had to have been a pink copy of Gone with the Wind, most likely delivered from the Benton Bros. warehouse over on Baker Street several blocks from Ga Tech.
Fortunately there are a few of these old relics from yesteryear still in existence around the country and every time we see one, we pause to appreciate the efforts to save them. Sadly, too many of these gems exist today only in the memories of the now aging dedicated young people who made them the entertainment palaces of a better time.
RF, you advised me many years ago to never let my picture get out of frame. Those words of wisdom, perhaps passed down to you, have never left me and I have on occasion offered them to those who have faithfully served me as I hope I served you.