Armo Skydome
3192 Morganford Road,
St. Louis,
MO
63116
3192 Morganford Road,
St. Louis,
MO
63116
1 person
favorited this theater
The Armo was an airdome that opened in 1937 located at Morganford Road and Wyoming Streets in South St. Louis. I believe it was one of the last operating airdomes in the city, closing from what I can find in 1952.
If my history is right, the site later became one of the Cooks Supermarkets, which is long gone also.
Contributed by
Chuck Van Bibber
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Recent comments (view all 19 comments)
James, I’m trying to get the original from my aunt. When I do so tomorrow, I’ll see what I can do.
James, are you from that neighborhood? Holy Family was the parish.
Hi,
I used to live at 4027 Conneticut in the 60’s. Born and raised in Soulard, 815 Geyer and before that 2002 A S. Broadway.
Jim
James, 1964 to 1968 I was on the St. Louis, Police dept. 3rd district. I rode your old area, Lafayette to lami, 12 to the river.
These names ring a bell. Roberts brothers, Chamber brothers, Mask brothers….rough crowd. Joe
D.Snow, the article that you mentioned appeared int he St. Louis Post Dispatch on June 7, 1936. The theatre was supposed to be a 1000 seat indoor theatre as a joint venture with the Wehrenberg Theatres and Louis Ansell.
D. Snow…Thanks for the info. I was with my aunt today who took the picture of the full front of the Armo Skydome. She told me ARMO was and abriveation of Arsenal & Morganford, thus, ARMO. She took the picture from across the street with her box camera. The photo is black & white. I went to Wallgreens and had it enlarged to 4x6.
I just tried to place the photo on this web-site, however they stated there were 3500 photos pending and they were working on a new system to accomodate everyone at a later date.
I lived down on Alfred Ave. and attended the ARMO. I remember the price as 10 cents, and if you gave them 6 RC bottle caps, you got a ticket for a free cup of RC Cola. The floor was pea gravel and I believe the seats were wood individual fold down type. Just before the movie started, an usher would walk up on stage and pull back large panels on both sides of the screen which protected the speakers from the weather. The building right next to the north was a bakery with an upstairs apartment. I remember that everytime I was at the ARMO, the woman who lived upstairs was out on her back porch sitting in a lawn chair watching the movie for free.The Cook
market building has been redone and is like a small strip mall and extends all the way over to what used to be Becktolds market, the bakery is gone. The last movie I saw there was “The Creature from
the Black Lagoon”. I was 6 years old, it scared me half to death.
It was on one of the movie channels last year when I was surfin
around, so i watched a few minutes, this time I almost laughed
myself half to death.
If you guyshaven’t been down on Morgenford lately, it’s coming back to life with restaurants, grocery stores, furniture stores and other shops, and the neighbor hood is generally coming back slowly, the homes being rehabbed,etc.
Mike46
Mike I agree with you that the neighborhood has gone through a lot of change. There are a lot of nice restaurants and bars there again. Is the Schwinn shop still there at Morganford and Arsenal?
My grandparents owned the Armo. They lived next to the Wehrenbergs at Lindbergh and Lincoln. My grandfather, Carl Holtzmann passed away in 1941. My grandmother ran it for a few years, before selling it. The family would love to have a copy of a photo, if anyone has one. I was unable to contact usscamp who said that he had one. Any help or additional info would be greatly appreciated.
Looks like I haven’t checked this site for quite some time.
my email is I still have the photo my aunt took.
It was from across the street in the winter time, you can see snow on the ground. If you email me we can make an arrangement to get you the photo. I will try again to get the photo on this site.
Did the Holtzmann’s live in the 4300 block of Fyler?
Joe
I still have the picture of the front of the ARMO Skydome. If someone smarter than I can scan the picture and replace the one above, I will send them a copy. You can email me at
Joe