Page Theatre

Joe Vogel on September 7, 2011 at 4:40 am

Although the 1908-1909 edition of Julius Cahn’s Theatrical Guide listed the Page Theatre at Medford as “under construction,” there was a long delay in getting the project underway. Various issues of Pacific Coast Architect from late 1912 and early 1913 said that local architects Power & West were designing a theater for Dr. F. C. Page. (Some early references to the firm call it Powers & West, but I believe that is an error. Two newspaper items calling for construction bids on projects, presumably placed by the firm itself, use Power & West, and give the firm’s address.)

This web page about the Page Theatre has excerpts from multiple newspaper articles about the theater, dating from its opening on May 19, 1913, through its destruction by fire in late December, 1923.

The Page Theatre showed movies from the year it opened, though it was also the principal venue in Medford for travelling stage shows and vaudeville. A 1920 remodeling included the installation of an organ to provide musical accompaniment for silent movies.

The gutted ruin of the Page Theatre stood for a number of years, but the house was never rebuilt. In 1932, the considerably smaller Roxy Theatre was built on the Page Theatre’s site. The Roxy was at 420 E. Main, so the Page most likely had the same address.