State Theater
504 N. Main Street,
Clovis,
NM
88101
504 N. Main Street,
Clovis,
NM
88101
1 person
favorited this theater
Although a common name, this State, which was opened in 1936, featured some uncommon and unique, colorful signage. Its centerpiece was a huge circular column that was covered in glass brick on the front and was trimmed in red and blue on its top. Attached to and protruding from the column was a vertical support that had State spelled out in individual white letters on red circular backgrounds. The theater is still open today, but instead of movies, features live musical acts.
Contributed by
Don lewis
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Recent comments (view all 13 comments)
A closer look at the STATE’S unique and colorful sign.
www.flickr.com/photos/lastpictureshow/394738336
This is another photo of the State Theater.
Here is a more recent photo of the State Theater.
This is a 2008 photo.
^^^^^^^^^^
A 1959 Clovis High School graduate recalls bits about lots of Clovis theatres on this page:
http://www.rednett.com/Bits.html
Search for the two paragraphs beginning
“I remember all the theaters and drive-ins"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
THE SUNSHINE THEATRE, CLOVIS, NEW MEXICO
I’m going to write my few memories of the Sunshine Theatre in Clovis and post them on the pages for the Lyceum, the Mesa, and the State, in hopes that they’ll inspire someone knowledgeable to make a Sunshine page.
The Sunshine was next door to the Thrifty Drug. I worked at Thrifty, and when I was in back unloading deliveries, I clearly heard the movie playing next door.
The Sunshine was narrow-fronted and inconspicuous. I don’t remember it having a projecting marquee or a “title tower,” and none shows in a 1950s postcard of Clovis' Main Street in which Thrifty Drug is conspicuous.
The Sunshine got mostly Paramount, RKO, Columbia, Universal, and United Artists movies, while the State got the M.G.M., Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers, and Walt Disney pictures.
Therefore, in my mind, the State is always showing a Gene Kelly, Betty Grable, or Doris Day/Gordon MacRae Technicolor musical while the Sunshine is playing a black-and-white Ma and Pa Kettle or Francis the Talking Mule or Martin and Lewis comedy. A great exception to this (very inaccurate) rule-of-memory is when I recall seeing the great color spectacle, “The Greatest Show on Earth” over and over again at the Sunshine.
Once the Sunshine showed a “roadshow” movie, “The Lawton Story,” a “family movie” about the annual religious pageant in Lawton, Oklahoma. I supect some touring company just rented the Sunshine on a “four-walls” basis for this presentation, for the ticket-sellers and ushers and a man who tried to sell the audience a poster and a souvenir booklet were all strangers.
Here is another 2008 photo.
I apologize if my longer comparative description of the atmosphere of the different theatres in Clovis in the 1950s was considered “off-topic, obscene, spam, or personal attacks.” It was certainly not intended to be so. I wonder if anyone saved it and would be willing to e-mail it to me at
Boxoffice of March, 1988, said that Commonwealth Theatres had closed its State Theatre in Clovis the previous December 18, the same day the circuit’s new North Plains four-plex was opened.
A 1944 Boxoffice item said that E. R. Hardwick, long-time operator of the State, had entered the theater business in 1909 as an usher, and had been in charge of theaters in Clovis since 1913. He became an affiliate of Griffith Theatres in 1933.
Does anyone remember an early 1950’s restaurant called The Aristocrat? My parents, Stan and Jo Curkee, ran it. Some women’s clubs held luncheons there. I’d really apreciate any photos of it. , rbrtptrck