Royal Theatre

The Empire Theatre was opened by 1914. The 1920 Sanborn shows ‘Motion Pictures’ being shown in the southern storefront of a large two-story wooden building.  It’s not clear how old the structure was at this point, but the first map from 1912 shows this space as a grocery, with a store room behind.

This single story space at the rear remains an implement warehouse on the 1920 map, with entry through a doorway in the center of the theatre’s rear wall.  It seems likely that this was a fairly basic operation, possibly with a movable screen. By 1926 it had been renamed Royal Theatre. It was listed as (Closed) in 1931 thru 1934, probably never being equipped for sound.  By 1942, the theatre has reverted to a store.

The small barber shop today at 108 is the sole survivor of a half block of wooden commercial structures.  There are no addresses on the maps, but the theatre was just to the north of the barber shop, and counting down from the corner means the barber would have been at least 110.  The remaining buildings were gone as early as 2008, and likely decades before that.

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