Esquire Theater
217 W. Randolph Avenue,
Enid,
OK
73701
217 W. Randolph Avenue,
Enid,
OK
73701
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Built in 1969, to replace an earlier 1,147 seat Esquire Theater, which burnt down in March 1969. In 1987 the Esquire Theater was housed in a dark red corner brick building. "Esquire" was spelled out with black letters on large individual white squares attached to the top front of the building.
Under the lettering was a typical pointed marquee and an overhang sheltering the entrance.
Contributed by
Billy Smith / Don Lewis
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Recent comments (view all 10 comments)
A photo of the Esquire Theater taken in 1984.
The location that I found for the Esquire is East Randolph Avenue.
In the 1983 photo, I like how the marquee has a short synopsis of the Mr. Mom movie. Don’t see that very often, if at all.
The Esquire Theatre in the photos dates from late 1969 or early 1970. It was built for Video Independent Theatres to replace an earlier Esquire Theatre which had been destroyed by fire on March 9, 1969. The new Esquire was the subject of an article with several photos in the Modern Theatre section of Boxoffice Magazine, February 16, 1970.
Boxoffice does not state explicitly that the new theater was on the same site as the old one, but it’s strongly implied by a quote from a Video Independent executive saying that the new house had only 500 seats, compared to the old Esquire’s 1100, partly because the new house was on one floor while the old theater had had a balcony.
The new Esquire was designed by Oklahoma City architect Larry Blackledge, son of Kenneth Blackledge, president of Video Independent Theatres of Oklahoma. Larry Blackledge & Associates designed a number of other theaters for Video Independent.
The East Randolph Avenue location came from a chat site where people were talking about Oklahoma theaters. Apparently someone got east and west mixed up. Okay, if the theater building is two doors away from the restaurant and it’s a “dark, red, corner brick building” as mentioned in the introduction above, you won’t be able to see much of it in the map photo because a large tree is located right in front of the building.
This website has a photo of the first Esquire that appears to be from the early 1960s. You can see that the earlier Esquire was a taller building.
This is what the old Esquire Theatre looks like these days,
View link
This link has a photo (30 down) of the first Esquire Theatre, designed by Carl Boller. This was sister house to the Bison Theatre in Shawnee, OK. There is also a shot of the new Esquire taken shortly after it closed,
http://www.enidbuzz.com/downtownenidvintage.htm
Original name for the Esquire Theatre was Criterion. Then it was renamed Aztec before being known as the Esquire.
To see vintage photos of this theatre building under various names go to below link, in match all words field type in either “enid theater” or “enid theatre”,
View link
Boxoffice Magazine’s 1970 article about the rebuilt Esquire, cited in my earlier comment, can be seen at this link.
This was a fairly new theatre in downtown Enid during the era when I lived there. Good sightlines and sound.