Temple Theatre
139 N. 11th Street,
Fort Smith,
AR
72901
139 N. 11th Street,
Fort Smith,
AR
72901
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The Temple Theatre was located on N. 11th Street, a block from Garrison Street at B. Street. It is stated the exterior was in the design of a temple, so maybe that had to do with it being named the ‘Temple’. It had been operating prior to 1941, when it was listed as (Closed), but had re-opened by 1943 under the direction of Paramount Pictures Inc. through their subsidiary M.A. Lightman. Still open in 1950.
The building has been demolished and there is a motel in it’s place. Information from the Arkansas Historical Society magazine.
Contributed by
Chuck
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The Temple theatre was actually the auditorium for the Masonic Temple. It was located at 1138 North B Street, Fort Smith, Arkansas. Two large lion sculptures graced the entrance. It was an amazing art deco building with an Egyptian theme. The building has not been demolished, at least not when the last google street view cameras passed by. You can view it on the Google maps
http://maps.google.com/
Search for the address shown and then do street view. You have do a complete 180 degree turn because the image first shown is across the street from the theatre building.
The current google view shows that the lions are gone, but you can see the way the lions looked because their duplicates are still intact at the main entrance to the Masonic lodge (the address is 254 N 11 street), which you can also see with the Google street view. An image from 2008 on cinematours.com shows the lodge main entrance as the theatre. I know where the theatre was because I worked one college summer in the building next door and went to the theatre often.
http://www.cinematour.com/tour/us/9850.html
That cinematour.com page lists its status as demolished, but while the theatre is gone the building is still there (unless that happened after the most recent Google maps photo).
According to wikipedia the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places:
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By the way… those aren’t lions as you can see from the photo at the Masonic Lodge (on 11th Street), they are Sphinxes (just like the great Sphinx in Egypt). That’s also what the two were in front of the theatre (on B street). They do have bodies of lions, but the head of a person (as everyone knows). Since I hadn’t seen them for about 50 years, I forgot exactly what they were.
Malco theaters leased the auditorium of the Fort Smith Masonic Temple. It was open to the public except for about ten days a year when it was used for Masonic activities. The lease was rumored to be a lifesaver for the Masons who were having trouble paying their mortgage.
The Temple Theater was the second A movie house Malco theater in Fort Smith. The larger Joie Theater was the first. Malco had a monopoly on all Fort Smith movie theaters until two drive-in theaters opened in the late 1940’s.
Malco errected a large independent sign on the B street side of the building. It served as a marquee showing what movie was playing. The 11th Street side of the building was the main entrance to offices in the building. A hall outside the auditorium became the movie theater lobby. Some former emergency exits had become the movie theater entrance.
Today the auditorium is used only for Masonic activities. The marquee sign is long gone. The building is well maintained and looks good. No one would ever imagine that it had been a movie theater at
one time.
The Temple Theater had refrigerated air conditioning like the Joie Theater. All the other Malco theaters used evaporative cooling.
1982 photo of the Temple Theatre.
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