The Royal Theatre (in case it was in fact this house) was mentioned in both the October 7 and October 14, 1922 issues of Moving Picture World. The operator of the house was named Frank Davidson. The Royal was mentioned again in the October 11, 1924 Exhibitors Herald. The item says it was operated by an F. S. Davilon, probably a typo for Davidson. The November 19, 1927 issue of MPW said that “…the Royal Theatre, Cherryvale, Kans., has been re-opened by S. A. and Frank Davidson….”
The Royal had also been mentioned in an ad for Typhoon Cooling Systems in the February 26, 1921 issue of Motion Picture News, and an H. L. Davidson of Cherryvale (another relative or maybe another typo?) was mentioned in the March 12 issue of the same journal.
The Royal was listed in the 1928 FDY with 290 seats, but was gone in 1929. It returned in 1930, with the cryptic notation “Royal (250) unnamed” The Royal was listed again in 1931 with 250 seats, and in 1932 it was listed without notation while the Liberty was listed as closed. In 1933, Cherryvale shows only the 300-seat Lee Theatre. The Lee is the town’s only house until 1938, when a 300-seat State Theatre appears as well. The State is gone in 1940, and I haven’t checked later.
Incidentally, an Opera House, playing legitimate attractions only, was listed at Cherryvale in the 1921 Cahn-Leighton guide. It had 450 seats.
The Cowpens Theatre was mentioned in the September 25, 1954 issue of Boxoffice. It was mentioned again in the September 14, 1957 issue. Oddly, no Cowpens Theatre is listed in FDYs through 1950, but there is a 300 seat house called the Gem Theatre from 1943 on. Possibly an aka? If so, it might have been a very old theater.
Cowpens is listed in the FDY back to 1926, with a 300-seat Pastime theatre. By 1929 there is a 350-seat Peerless Theatre. In 1931 there is a 350-seat Rialto, listed as closed. Those three could all be the same house, but after that it gets a bit confusing. By 1936 there is only a 250-seat Lincoln, which I can’t imagine white southerners attending. In 1937 there is the Lincoln, listed as closed, and a 750-seat house called the Grand. In 1938 only the Grand is listed, and by 1940 Cowpens has vanished from the FDY until the Gem appears by 1943.
A Bushkill Park Theatre was definitely open by 1914, as it was listed in the AMPD, though the address given there is 1126 N. Hampton Street. There is no Hampton Street in Easton today, though there is a Northampton Street, where 1126 is a Victorian building with a restaurant downstairs and apparently an apartment upstairs, and it bears no resemblance to the Bushkill Park Theatre that appears in a vintage postcard from 1907. In that photo, though, the theater is called The Comus.
The American Contractor of September 13, 1913 had this item about a new theater being built in Sturgis. The timing suggests it was the replacement for the house lost to fire earlier in 1913, namely the Princess: “Sturgis, Ky.-Moving Picture Theater: 2 sty. 25x125. Sturgis. Archt. T. J. Nolan, 340 Courier-Journal bldg., Louisville. Owner E. H. Long, Sturgis. Plans in progress.”
This item is from the January 4, 1914 issue of Moving Picture World and is about the recent opening of the new theater in Sturgis, with a familiar name: “The Princess theater, recently opened in Sturgis, Ky., is one of the most up-to-date in Western Kentucky, with every possible precaution against fire, including a steel operating booth, four wide aisles and ample exits, the doors being provided with patent clasps which make opening easy in case of an alarm. The house is new throughout, having been built for the purpose of serving as a motion picture theater.”
It is tough to reconcile the description of the new Princess (“four wide aisles”) with the reality of a building only 25 feet wide, but I think we can write that off as characteristic sloppiness by MPW. Most likely the Princess had a single center aisle, as did most houses of its size during that period, but maybe it had four wide exit doors.
This item is from the October 2, 1909 issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror: “The New Star Moving Picture Theatre at Hannibal, Mo., is drawing crowded houses; pictures excellent; orchestra fine, Sept. 19-25, and the Nickelodeon continues to attract its share of business.”
I’m wondering if the White Light Theatre was the proposed opera house noted in this item from the June 4, 1910 issue of The American Contractor: “Ligonier, Ind. - Architect E. Hill Turnock, Elkhart, Ind., is preparing plans for an opera house, at Ligonier.”
An ad for the White Light Theatre appeared in the May 7, 1914 issue of the Ligonier banner which referred to it as “Ligonier’s pretty new playhouse,” but of course it might have operated under a different name earlier.
The Andrews Theatre must have been promptly rebuilt following the 1923 fire, as it is advertised in the Salamanca Inquirer in February, 1924, and is listed in FDY’s throughout the late 1920s and into the 1930s. In 1932 it was listed with 785 seats and in 1933 with 807, reflecting the 1931-32 rebuilding.
The reopening of the house had been noted in the February 25, 1932 issue of The New York State Exhibitor, but it was likely opened in early January. A December 31, 1931 issue of the Inquirer was headed “Remodeling of Andrews Theatre Nearly Complete” and noted that the house was expected to open within a few days. The article said that the house had been closed for several months, so the changes were extensive, but it was clearly not entirely new construction.
According to the February 27, 1926 issue of Moving Picture World, the Strand Theatre at Salamanca had been destroyed by a fire on the night of February 11. Owners Schine Theatrical Corporation planned to build a new, 1,500-seat theater on the site. Local manager W. L. Trass speculated that Schine’s other Salamanca house, the Andrews Theatre, would be closed when the new Strand was opened as it no longer met the State’s new building code.
Neither project was carried out, and by 1928 the 794-seat Andrews was the only house listed at Salamanca in the FDY. The Strand was listed in 1927, but that was clearly an oversight. The last show was run in February, 1926. The Andrews Theatre was rebuilt in 1932, but had apparently remained open until rebuilding began as it was listed continuously in the FDY.
The original Tonka Theatre built in 1940 was destroyed by a fire in January, 1945. In April, the owners got permission to rebuild from the wartime government agency controlling construction, and the rebuilt theater reopened in July. In the 1960s the Tonka was remodeled and renamed Excelsior Theatre. New owners renamed it Dock Cinema in 1972, and in 1975 it became the Dock Cinema 1-2 when the balcony was converted to a second screen. In 1989, the balcony was split to create a third screen, and the house became the Dock Cinema 1-2-3.
On August 17, 2026, the Excelsior city council voted 4-1 to allow partial demolition of the Dock Cinema building as part of a mixed use project on an adjacent parcel. Slightly less than 30% of the building will be demolished. The developer says a theater will be included in the surviving part of the structure as part of the overall project, but final plans have yet to be submitted.
Have we got the addresses of the Pastime and Palmetto reversed? The Capitol building is south of this block, and when you look south the odd numbers are on the right (west) side of the street and the even numbers are on the left (east) side, yet in the vintage photo, which looks south toward the Capitol, we see the vertical sign of the Pastime on the right, so shouldn’t it have an odd number, instead of 1438? And since the future Palmetto was on the opposite side of the street from the Pastime, shouldn’t it have an even number, instead of 1417? Something is screwy and it’s confusing the hell out of me.
The March 31, 1917 issue of The Dramatic Mirror had a brief item about Keith vaudeville coming to the Pastime Theater, which had until then been a movie house: “COLUMBIA. S. C. (Special). - The Pastime Theater owned by Rawls Brothers, who are also managers, which has been successfully operating here for the past two years as one of the leading moving picture theaters, began Feb. 19 with Keith’s vaudeville. This is a new venture, as Columbia has never before had a high class vaudeville house. There has been a constant growing demand for this class of entertainment and there is every reason to believe that the Messers Rawls will have a great success.”
This house undoubtedly opened as the Pastime Theatre, a movie house, in 1915, and became the Pastime Vaudeville Theatre in 1917 when it became Columbia’s first two-a-day vaudeville house. I’m not sure about the later history, but I think we’ve got some errors and some stuff missing. I’m still digging.
The fire that destroyed the Princess Theatre took place on March 24, 1922, and was caused by the explosion of film in the projection room. The uninsured house was a complete loss, according to the report on 1922 theater fires published in the May 16, 1923 issue of The Insurance Press. I checked FDYs from the 1920s and 1930s, and Shellman does not appear until 1940, when the book lists the New Theatre. By 1942 it was called the Rex, and by 1947 the Lee, then the Shell by 1950. I think these names were all akas for the same house. As the Princess had burned in 1922, this later theater must have been a different building.
Google Maps doesn’t show a street named Elm in Shellman, so I don’t know what the AI that provided the address was up to. An AI response to my search on the Shell Theatre said that it was in a former cotton warehouse on Calhoun Street. If that is correct (I wouldn’t bet on it) it was probably the tin-roofed building still standing at the corner of Calhoun and Peoples Street. That’s one block east of the corner of Peoples and Buford Street, which is where Apple maps is currently placing the pin icon for the Princess. Is Elm actually an aka for one of those streets? I have no idea.
Both the 1920 and 1930 Sanborn maps of Dawson show moving pictures being shown in a building at 121 E. Lee Street. No name for the theater is given in 1930, but in 1920 it was called the Palace Theatre. This location is the only movie house shown on either map, but the 1920 map does show an upstairs opera house labeled “Formerly Fargason Opera House” at 121-123 N. Main Street.
The 1914-1915 AMPD lists two movie houses at Dawson, neither at the Lee Street address. The Amuse-U Theatre is listed on Main Street and the Palace Theatre is listed at 204 N. Main Street, a building which in 1930 housed an auto repair business.
The March 31, 1917 issue of The Dramatic Mirror ran a notice about the opening of what was probably this house, slated for about May 1. The 600-seat theater presenting movies and stage productions would be managed by J. P. Greer, already operating the Palace Theatre. The name of the new theater had not been chosen, but that 1920 Sanborn suggests that the name Palace was simply moved from the Main Street house to this new location.
It was an AI “enhanced” and colorized version of the photo you uploaded, but the name of the theater had been hopelessly garbled. I believe the cars had been removed too, but don’t recall for sure. Like much AI, it didn’t look quite real.
So the theater has been demolished? And I see that your uploaded photo does look like the building in the AI image John uploaded, though the AI totally screwed up the name. The description will have to be changed to note the theater’s fate, and then I’ll just delete my comments so we can start over with a clean page. Thanks for the corrections.
The 1926 FDY lists only a Grand Theatre with 250 seats at Swainsboro. In 1929 and 1931 it lists only a 250-seat house called the City Theatre. In 1934 a 250-seat Rex appears. In 1937, the 600-seat Dixie is listed for the first time, and the 250-seat New Rex is listed as closed. It’s listed as closed again in 1938. I don’t have a 1939 year book, but the Rex is gone from the FDY in 1940.I suspect that the Grand, City, Rex, and New Rex were all the same house.
The only theater listed at Rockmart in the 1926 and 1929 FDYs was a 240-seat house called the Palace. The earliest mention of the Palace I’ve found is from the September 9, 1915 issue of the Cedartown Standard. A 1923 Sanborn Map of Rock Mart (former spelling) shows “Moving Pictures” at 110 Marble Street. No later Sanborns are available.
The Joy was definitely existing by 1930, as the July 12 issue of Exhibitors Daily Review included it on a list of houses that had installed Western Electric sound systems. The 330-seat Joy first appears in the 1931 FDY, and the Palace is still listed as well, but with only 200 seats. Both are open and neither is listed as a silent house. Rockmart hadn’t even been listed in the 1930 FDY, so two houses open with sound was quite a turnaround.
The Tift Theatre opened on February 22, 1937, according to a “History of Tift County” by Ida Belle Williams, published in 1948 by the Tift County Historical Society.
An ad in the December 20, 1945 issue of The Omega News from Omega, Georgia, offered Christmas Greetings from “Moody Theaters” in Omega, Roberta, Pavo, and Reynolds. A 1948 ad in the same journal no longer listed Roberta or Reynolds, but had added Moultrie and Valdosta.
In 1945, the Roberta was one of four houses operated by Ralph Moody. The small Moody Theatres chain placed a Christmas ad in the December 20 issue of The Omega News of Omega, Georgia, listing theaters at Omega, Pavo, Roberta and Reynolds.
The original promoter of this house, A. J. Paul, was still in control of the project in late 1930, when the December 21 issue of The Billboard ran this item: “GALION, O.- The Royal Theater, nearing completion, will be opened probably Christmas week by A. J. Paul with pictures.”
I haven’t been able to discover why the opening of this house was delayed by four months, why its name was changed from Royal to State, or what became of Mr. Paul.
This house had another name before becoming the Grand in 1929. An item datelined Erie in the December 21 issue of The Billboard that year said the Cameo Theatre had reopened as the Grand. It hadn’t been the Cameo for long, though, as it first appears in the FDY in 1929, indicating a likely 1928 opening. Of course it might have had an even earlier AKA, but if so I haven’t found it.
A weblog post by Ted Shidler dated April 14 this year includes a few photos of the State from January this year. There is still no restoration work being done on the theater, though it is still owned by the City of Anderson. It is just sitting vacant and deteriorating. One of the photos shows boards that appear to be propping up the back of the marquee, suggesting that it might be coming detached from the building’s façade, which would be a very bad thing.
The post has a 1950 Sanborn map image showing that the State’s next door neighbor is the 1927 Eagles lodge, another historic building. The lodge is very much active, and sports a bar with weekly music and live entertainment. It seems the Lodge and theater together might complement one another, but perhaps the operator of the Eagle’s venue would rather not have any competition nearby, and perhaps might prefer a new parking lot next door. It would be very sad if that was what has been thwarting the renovation of this splendid old theater, and promoting its destruction.
A 700-seat Grand Theatre was listed at 7026 Broadway, Cleveland, in the 1926 FDY.
The Royal Theatre (in case it was in fact this house) was mentioned in both the October 7 and October 14, 1922 issues of Moving Picture World. The operator of the house was named Frank Davidson. The Royal was mentioned again in the October 11, 1924 Exhibitors Herald. The item says it was operated by an F. S. Davilon, probably a typo for Davidson. The November 19, 1927 issue of MPW said that “…the Royal Theatre, Cherryvale, Kans., has been re-opened by S. A. and Frank Davidson….”
The Royal had also been mentioned in an ad for Typhoon Cooling Systems in the February 26, 1921 issue of Motion Picture News, and an H. L. Davidson of Cherryvale (another relative or maybe another typo?) was mentioned in the March 12 issue of the same journal.
The Royal was listed in the 1928 FDY with 290 seats, but was gone in 1929. It returned in 1930, with the cryptic notation “Royal (250) unnamed” The Royal was listed again in 1931 with 250 seats, and in 1932 it was listed without notation while the Liberty was listed as closed. In 1933, Cherryvale shows only the 300-seat Lee Theatre. The Lee is the town’s only house until 1938, when a 300-seat State Theatre appears as well. The State is gone in 1940, and I haven’t checked later.
Incidentally, an Opera House, playing legitimate attractions only, was listed at Cherryvale in the 1921 Cahn-Leighton guide. It had 450 seats.
The Cowpens Theatre was mentioned in the September 25, 1954 issue of Boxoffice. It was mentioned again in the September 14, 1957 issue. Oddly, no Cowpens Theatre is listed in FDYs through 1950, but there is a 300 seat house called the Gem Theatre from 1943 on. Possibly an aka? If so, it might have been a very old theater.
Cowpens is listed in the FDY back to 1926, with a 300-seat Pastime theatre. By 1929 there is a 350-seat Peerless Theatre. In 1931 there is a 350-seat Rialto, listed as closed. Those three could all be the same house, but after that it gets a bit confusing. By 1936 there is only a 250-seat Lincoln, which I can’t imagine white southerners attending. In 1937 there is the Lincoln, listed as closed, and a 750-seat house called the Grand. In 1938 only the Grand is listed, and by 1940 Cowpens has vanished from the FDY until the Gem appears by 1943.
A Bushkill Park Theatre was definitely open by 1914, as it was listed in the AMPD, though the address given there is 1126 N. Hampton Street. There is no Hampton Street in Easton today, though there is a Northampton Street, where 1126 is a Victorian building with a restaurant downstairs and apparently an apartment upstairs, and it bears no resemblance to the Bushkill Park Theatre that appears in a vintage postcard from 1907. In that photo, though, the theater is called The Comus.
The American Contractor of September 13, 1913 had this item about a new theater being built in Sturgis. The timing suggests it was the replacement for the house lost to fire earlier in 1913, namely the Princess: “Sturgis, Ky.-Moving Picture Theater: 2 sty. 25x125. Sturgis. Archt. T. J. Nolan, 340 Courier-Journal bldg., Louisville. Owner E. H. Long, Sturgis. Plans in progress.”
This item is from the January 4, 1914 issue of Moving Picture World and is about the recent opening of the new theater in Sturgis, with a familiar name: “The Princess theater, recently opened in Sturgis, Ky., is one of the most up-to-date in Western Kentucky, with every possible precaution against fire, including a steel operating booth, four wide aisles and ample exits, the doors being provided with patent clasps which make opening easy in case of an alarm. The house is new throughout, having been built for the purpose of serving as a motion picture theater.”
It is tough to reconcile the description of the new Princess (“four wide aisles”) with the reality of a building only 25 feet wide, but I think we can write that off as characteristic sloppiness by MPW. Most likely the Princess had a single center aisle, as did most houses of its size during that period, but maybe it had four wide exit doors.
The official web site says that the Arcadia Theatre opened on May 5, 1921.
This item is from the October 2, 1909 issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror: “The New Star Moving Picture Theatre at Hannibal, Mo., is drawing crowded houses; pictures excellent; orchestra fine, Sept. 19-25, and the Nickelodeon continues to attract its share of business.”
I’m wondering if the White Light Theatre was the proposed opera house noted in this item from the June 4, 1910 issue of The American Contractor: “Ligonier, Ind. - Architect E. Hill Turnock, Elkhart, Ind., is preparing plans for an opera house, at Ligonier.”
An ad for the White Light Theatre appeared in the May 7, 1914 issue of the Ligonier banner which referred to it as “Ligonier’s pretty new playhouse,” but of course it might have operated under a different name earlier.
The Andrews Theatre must have been promptly rebuilt following the 1923 fire, as it is advertised in the Salamanca Inquirer in February, 1924, and is listed in FDY’s throughout the late 1920s and into the 1930s. In 1932 it was listed with 785 seats and in 1933 with 807, reflecting the 1931-32 rebuilding.
The reopening of the house had been noted in the February 25, 1932 issue of The New York State Exhibitor, but it was likely opened in early January. A December 31, 1931 issue of the Inquirer was headed “Remodeling of Andrews Theatre Nearly Complete” and noted that the house was expected to open within a few days. The article said that the house had been closed for several months, so the changes were extensive, but it was clearly not entirely new construction.
According to the February 27, 1926 issue of Moving Picture World, the Strand Theatre at Salamanca had been destroyed by a fire on the night of February 11. Owners Schine Theatrical Corporation planned to build a new, 1,500-seat theater on the site. Local manager W. L. Trass speculated that Schine’s other Salamanca house, the Andrews Theatre, would be closed when the new Strand was opened as it no longer met the State’s new building code.
Neither project was carried out, and by 1928 the 794-seat Andrews was the only house listed at Salamanca in the FDY. The Strand was listed in 1927, but that was clearly an oversight. The last show was run in February, 1926. The Andrews Theatre was rebuilt in 1932, but had apparently remained open until rebuilding began as it was listed continuously in the FDY.
The original Tonka Theatre built in 1940 was destroyed by a fire in January, 1945. In April, the owners got permission to rebuild from the wartime government agency controlling construction, and the rebuilt theater reopened in July. In the 1960s the Tonka was remodeled and renamed Excelsior Theatre. New owners renamed it Dock Cinema in 1972, and in 1975 it became the Dock Cinema 1-2 when the balcony was converted to a second screen. In 1989, the balcony was split to create a third screen, and the house became the Dock Cinema 1-2-3.
On August 17, 2026, the Excelsior city council voted 4-1 to allow partial demolition of the Dock Cinema building as part of a mixed use project on an adjacent parcel. Slightly less than 30% of the building will be demolished. The developer says a theater will be included in the surviving part of the structure as part of the overall project, but final plans have yet to be submitted.
Have we got the addresses of the Pastime and Palmetto reversed? The Capitol building is south of this block, and when you look south the odd numbers are on the right (west) side of the street and the even numbers are on the left (east) side, yet in the vintage photo, which looks south toward the Capitol, we see the vertical sign of the Pastime on the right, so shouldn’t it have an odd number, instead of 1438? And since the future Palmetto was on the opposite side of the street from the Pastime, shouldn’t it have an even number, instead of 1417? Something is screwy and it’s confusing the hell out of me.
The March 31, 1917 issue of The Dramatic Mirror had a brief item about Keith vaudeville coming to the Pastime Theater, which had until then been a movie house: “COLUMBIA. S. C. (Special). - The Pastime Theater owned by Rawls Brothers, who are also managers, which has been successfully operating here for the past two years as one of the leading moving picture theaters, began Feb. 19 with Keith’s vaudeville. This is a new venture, as Columbia has never before had a high class vaudeville house. There has been a constant growing demand for this class of entertainment and there is every reason to believe that the Messers Rawls will have a great success.”
This house undoubtedly opened as the Pastime Theatre, a movie house, in 1915, and became the Pastime Vaudeville Theatre in 1917 when it became Columbia’s first two-a-day vaudeville house. I’m not sure about the later history, but I think we’ve got some errors and some stuff missing. I’m still digging.
The fire that destroyed the Princess Theatre took place on March 24, 1922, and was caused by the explosion of film in the projection room. The uninsured house was a complete loss, according to the report on 1922 theater fires published in the May 16, 1923 issue of The Insurance Press. I checked FDYs from the 1920s and 1930s, and Shellman does not appear until 1940, when the book lists the New Theatre. By 1942 it was called the Rex, and by 1947 the Lee, then the Shell by 1950. I think these names were all akas for the same house. As the Princess had burned in 1922, this later theater must have been a different building.
Google Maps doesn’t show a street named Elm in Shellman, so I don’t know what the AI that provided the address was up to. An AI response to my search on the Shell Theatre said that it was in a former cotton warehouse on Calhoun Street. If that is correct (I wouldn’t bet on it) it was probably the tin-roofed building still standing at the corner of Calhoun and Peoples Street. That’s one block east of the corner of Peoples and Buford Street, which is where Apple maps is currently placing the pin icon for the Princess. Is Elm actually an aka for one of those streets? I have no idea.
Both the 1920 and 1930 Sanborn maps of Dawson show moving pictures being shown in a building at 121 E. Lee Street. No name for the theater is given in 1930, but in 1920 it was called the Palace Theatre. This location is the only movie house shown on either map, but the 1920 map does show an upstairs opera house labeled “Formerly Fargason Opera House” at 121-123 N. Main Street.
The 1914-1915 AMPD lists two movie houses at Dawson, neither at the Lee Street address. The Amuse-U Theatre is listed on Main Street and the Palace Theatre is listed at 204 N. Main Street, a building which in 1930 housed an auto repair business.
The March 31, 1917 issue of The Dramatic Mirror ran a notice about the opening of what was probably this house, slated for about May 1. The 600-seat theater presenting movies and stage productions would be managed by J. P. Greer, already operating the Palace Theatre. The name of the new theater had not been chosen, but that 1920 Sanborn suggests that the name Palace was simply moved from the Main Street house to this new location.
It was an AI “enhanced” and colorized version of the photo you uploaded, but the name of the theater had been hopelessly garbled. I believe the cars had been removed too, but don’t recall for sure. Like much AI, it didn’t look quite real.
So the theater has been demolished? And I see that your uploaded photo does look like the building in the AI image John uploaded, though the AI totally screwed up the name. The description will have to be changed to note the theater’s fate, and then I’ll just delete my comments so we can start over with a clean page. Thanks for the corrections.
The 1926 FDY lists only a Grand Theatre with 250 seats at Swainsboro. In 1929 and 1931 it lists only a 250-seat house called the City Theatre. In 1934 a 250-seat Rex appears. In 1937, the 600-seat Dixie is listed for the first time, and the 250-seat New Rex is listed as closed. It’s listed as closed again in 1938. I don’t have a 1939 year book, but the Rex is gone from the FDY in 1940.I suspect that the Grand, City, Rex, and New Rex were all the same house.
The only theater listed at Rockmart in the 1926 and 1929 FDYs was a 240-seat house called the Palace. The earliest mention of the Palace I’ve found is from the September 9, 1915 issue of the Cedartown Standard. A 1923 Sanborn Map of Rock Mart (former spelling) shows “Moving Pictures” at 110 Marble Street. No later Sanborns are available.
The Joy was definitely existing by 1930, as the July 12 issue of Exhibitors Daily Review included it on a list of houses that had installed Western Electric sound systems. The 330-seat Joy first appears in the 1931 FDY, and the Palace is still listed as well, but with only 200 seats. Both are open and neither is listed as a silent house. Rockmart hadn’t even been listed in the 1930 FDY, so two houses open with sound was quite a turnaround.
The Tift Theatre opened on February 22, 1937, according to a “History of Tift County” by Ida Belle Williams, published in 1948 by the Tift County Historical Society.
An ad in the December 20, 1945 issue of The Omega News from Omega, Georgia, offered Christmas Greetings from “Moody Theaters” in Omega, Roberta, Pavo, and Reynolds. A 1948 ad in the same journal no longer listed Roberta or Reynolds, but had added Moultrie and Valdosta.
In 1945, the Roberta was one of four houses operated by Ralph Moody. The small Moody Theatres chain placed a Christmas ad in the December 20 issue of The Omega News of Omega, Georgia, listing theaters at Omega, Pavo, Roberta and Reynolds.
The original promoter of this house, A. J. Paul, was still in control of the project in late 1930, when the December 21 issue of The Billboard ran this item: “GALION, O.- The Royal Theater, nearing completion, will be opened probably Christmas week by A. J. Paul with pictures.”
I haven’t been able to discover why the opening of this house was delayed by four months, why its name was changed from Royal to State, or what became of Mr. Paul.
This house had another name before becoming the Grand in 1929. An item datelined Erie in the December 21 issue of The Billboard that year said the Cameo Theatre had reopened as the Grand. It hadn’t been the Cameo for long, though, as it first appears in the FDY in 1929, indicating a likely 1928 opening. Of course it might have had an even earlier AKA, but if so I haven’t found it.
A weblog post by Ted Shidler dated April 14 this year includes a few photos of the State from January this year. There is still no restoration work being done on the theater, though it is still owned by the City of Anderson. It is just sitting vacant and deteriorating. One of the photos shows boards that appear to be propping up the back of the marquee, suggesting that it might be coming detached from the building’s façade, which would be a very bad thing.
The post has a 1950 Sanborn map image showing that the State’s next door neighbor is the 1927 Eagles lodge, another historic building. The lodge is very much active, and sports a bar with weekly music and live entertainment. It seems the Lodge and theater together might complement one another, but perhaps the operator of the Eagle’s venue would rather not have any competition nearby, and perhaps might prefer a new parking lot next door. It would be very sad if that was what has been thwarting the renovation of this splendid old theater, and promoting its destruction.