Winona Theatre
167 Johnson Street,
Winona,
MN
55987
167 Johnson Street,
Winona,
MN
55987
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The Winona Theater had it’s final film screening on October 16, 1978. The last film shown was (appropriately enough) “The Goodbye Girl”.
The original architect of the Winona Opera House was Oscar Cobb. This notice appeared in the “Synopsis of Building News” section of the April, 1892 issue of The Inland Architect and News Record:
The Arcadia Publishing Company’s book Winona, by Walter Bennick, features four early photos of the Opera House on pages 110 and 111 (Google Books preview.) The Opera House opened in December, 1892.In 1926 the theatres that were listed as open were: WEST END 300 seats, Broadway 350 seats, COLONIAL 800 seats, STRAND 500 seats, and the Opera House 950 seats
The Opera House changed name to the State Theatre in December 1925. The Apollo Theatre took the State Theatre name and this theater was named the Winona Theatre in September 1926.
As I stated before, the Opera House did show movies as early as 1915 (I found an ad for “Birth Of A Nation”). After it became the Winona Theater, they did continue to stage plays in addition to showing movies. I attended some plays there as late as the 1970s.
The finding aid to the Liebenberg & Kaplan papers indicates that the firm worked on the Winona Theatre during the years 1936-1940 and again in 1950. One of those projects was probably the one in which the original Romanesque Revival facade was covered by one in the Streamline Modern style.
The Winona Opera House opened on Monday, December 5, 1892. The first play presented that night was “By Proxy”.
I’ve found ads from as early as 1915 that show the Winona Opera House showing movies (in addition to the usual live musicals and vaudeville shows).
It’s possible that this house was never called the Colonial Theatre. Winona, by Walter Bennick, has a photo (bottom of page 113 of the Google Books preview) showing the opening of the Colonial Theatre on August 29, 1912. The Colonial Amusement Company leased the Winona Opera House in 1915, according to an item in the November 6 issue of The Moving Picture World, which said that the company was operating the house as a movie theater.
I’ve been unable to establish a timeline for the Colonial Theatre, but it appears to have still been operating in the mid-1930s when the Winona Theatre had already become a Paramount-Publix house.
The Winona Opera House was built in 1892. I’ve found movie listings as early as 1926. The building was demolished in 1990.
Your closing dates are incorrect. Both the Winona and the State theaters were open at least until the late 1970s. I saw several movies at both as a kid in the 1970s.
Either many additional pictures have been added to the Winona gallery to which I linked in my comment of December 23, 2009, or the pictures have been rearranged. The 1908 photo showing the Winona Opera House in no longer 6th from the top of the page, but 21st from the top.
Better, it’s now possible to link to individual images in the gallery, so here’s the Winona Opera House, 1908.
Movie Age of November 30, 1929 said that the Winona Theatre, extensively remodeled, had reopened and was the second theater in town to install sound. The item also made reference to “…the atmospheric State Theatre in Winona” where improvements to the projection booth costing $5,000 were underway. The State appears to have been the town’s “A” house.
A picture postcard dated 1908, showing the Winona Theatre when it was still the Winona Opera House, can be seen on this page (sixth card from the top.) The splendid Richardsonian Romanesque facade suggests that it was constructed in the 1880s or 1890s.