Capitol Theatre
204 North Washington Aveenue,
Lansing,
MI
48933
204 North Washington Aveenue,
Lansing,
MI
48933
No one has favorited this theater yet
The Capitol Theatre was located at 204 N. Washington Avenue and was managed by Butterfield Theatres of Detroit. In 1955, the building was owned by the Claude Cody estate. The manager at that time was Harry Hayden, who moved on to manage the Esquire Theatre at 122 E. Michigan Avenue. The Capitol Theatre had a second run policy or as we term it today, a cheap seat theatre.
The second run policy was now in place at the Esquire Theatre which had been closed for several months but was reopened with the closing of the Capitol Theatre and the Southtown Theatres. All three theaters were managed by the Butterfield Theatre Group. The Capitol Theatre operated between 1912-1955 and its former names were the Empress Theatre and the Theatorium.
Contributed by
Charles Van Bibber
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater
Recent comments (view all 9 comments)
View link
Link will take you to some great photos of the Capitol Theatre.
The status of the Capitol in Lansing should be “demolished”. I tried to find it this weekend but I was told that it was torn down 15 years ago.
This is now the “campus” of Lansing Community College. I guess there could be worse fates for the land that used to house the theatre.
Note that it’s across from the Gladmer and it’s neon sign can be seen on a postcard from 1944 of Lansing’s “Business Section”.
This website has an old photo and a photo of the building that is located here today.
Auditorium of the Empress pictured in 1917 trade ad at upper right of this page: archive
Updated link to the webpage posted by Chuck1231 in January, 2004: View link
Butterfield took over the Capitol Theatre and remodeled it in 1936, according to the September 19 issue of The Film Daily that year.
The caption of the photo of the Empress Theatre that Tinseltoes linked to on August 10 says that the architect was Geo. J. Bockmann of Flint. It must be a misspelling of George J. Bachmann, who designed several theaters in Michigan during the first half of the 20th century.