Grand Theatre

624 Main Street,
Zanesville, OH 43701

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Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on October 29, 2013 at 1:05 pm

The building appears to still have some of the gear with which that ornate Art Nouveau front of 1907 or 1908 was attached to the structure. Though the theater front is gone, that single window on the second floor also remains as a testament to the alterations the facade underwent when the theater was installed.

The earliest instance of the name Casino Theatre being used at Zanesville that I’ve found in trade publications is in the September 26, 1908, issue of The Billboard. Prior to that, Clyde Quimby is noted as the manager of a movie house called the Pictorium. I don’t know if Pictorium was an earlier name for the Casino or not. Interestingly, some earlier issues of the magazine from 1908 also list a Grand Theatre in operation at Zanesville. It was a movie house managed by J. G. Harlan.

A photo of the interior of the Casino Theatre appears in an ad for the Rudolph Wurlizer Comapny on this page of The Moving Picture World along with a letter from W.C. Quimby, dated September 11, 1911, praising the Wurlitzer PianOrchestra which he had recently installed in the house.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on October 28, 2013 at 7:15 pm

The building at this address looks quite old. The three-story front is shallow, and the lower building behind it does look as though it could have been the auditorium. I think the Grand Theatre’s building is still standing, though the theater has undoubtedly long since been dismantled.