SethG
commented about
Theateron
Oct 29, 2026 at 11:53 am
It looks like a small shop that was hastily converted. There are no months on the St. Louis volumes. I guess we’re lucky the surveyor came when they did.
Are you saying that this was not the Bijou, but the Grand? ‘Here’ means Toledo, presumably, since this is on the east side of the square, where the operation moved to.
Volume 10 covers the Hill. For whatever reason, the volumes were generated out of order, and Vol. 10 is from 1903, when there were just a few scattered wooden houses on this block. The 1938 to 1950 reissues of this volume are not available online.
This theater is not listed in the 1914-15 AMPD. I can’t figure out which of the many volumes of the St. Louis Sanborns covers the Hill, so I can’t say what was there in 1909. It is still listed in the 1932 Yearbook with 682 seats (which seems huge for such a small building), but does not appear in the 1935 volume.
That’s the same theater. It looks like the Locust frontage contained offices, so the entrance was on the side. Whatever replaced this is long gone, and this is part of hundreds of acres of surface parking downtown.
I’ve added a map view. I don’t know why the photos weren’t displaying.
The sign closest to the corner does say that the program is changed frequently, but I guess that might apply to these penny arcade viewers as well. I’ll leave the listing up for now, but we can consider deleting it.
This also houses the Columbia Foundation for the Arts, but seems to still also be a residence with an art gallery. The ‘About’ section claims that this was built around 1900, closed in 1957 to become a racquetball court, and burned in the late ‘70s. I don’t think most of that is accurate.
The picture cannot be the theater. This building is located on a corner, which 3037 is not. The photo shows the theater which was located at 3301-3303, which the 1909 Sanborn shows held the Grand Leader No. 3. 3045 did exist, but does not exist any longer. At least through 1909, Cardinal Ave did not go north of Olive. The 1909 map shows 3045 as the west side of a 3 story duplex, which was likely replaced by the Lincoln.
This whole area, especially north of Olive, changed a lot after about 1910. All of the old houses were replaced by mostly automotive related buildings on Locust, streets were realigned, and all the houses on Olive were replaced by businesses. Unfortunately, St. Louis was not mapped again until 1951, long after all these changes took place, and indeed after the area had started to decline.
The building on the corner, which is clearly automotive related, appears to date from the 1920s, and uses 3041-3043. Since the Lincoln is listed through the 1929 Yearbook, it’s likely that 3037 was indeed the Lincoln.
This listing is a complete mess. Based on the 2019 comment, it looks like this was either the Carolina Duke Drive-In, or possibly the Valley Drive-In. In either case, it appears to have been destroyed by a hurricane in 1954, although if it was the Duke, it was apparently already closed. Can someone confirm, so I can rewrite this listing?
SethG
commented about
Airdomeon
Oct 20, 2026 at 7:36 am
The 1909 map is from April, so the chronology works.
Cleaned up the fluff from this entry. The preview opening and the actual opening are the same day. Christmas is always the 25th. Is the preview date wrong, or was it just an early opening that day for the VIPs?
I’ve cleaned up the entry. Can anyone give a date for the name change to ‘Your Own Thing’ as shown in the 1969 photo? Was it still a theater at that point?
Updated the listing. This does not appear in the 1914-15 AMPD, which lists several other theaters further west on Olive. It does indeed appear on the 1909 Sanborn.
There’s no way that dinky little store could have been an actual theater. It’s possible that it was indeed inside the church. The 2008 streetview shows it as Eagle Real Estate, so it had stopped being a church sometime before that.
It gets a bit more complicated, because the 1900 map shows the Ritz building as an opera house. The 1909 map doesn’t show that. We definitely should put the Ritz in a separate listing.
Since University City is incorporated, and apparently in St. Louis County vs the city, can anyone local explain why this is listed under St. Louis? Google shows all the addresses in the area as St. Louis, except for a few buildings right around city hall, which show University City. It looks like the city border on the east is Skinker, well past the theater.
It looks like a small shop that was hastily converted. There are no months on the St. Louis volumes. I guess we’re lucky the surveyor came when they did.
The ad clearly shows that this was indeed in King Plaza. Did it become, or was it replaced by, the King?
Thanks. I just wanted to correct it correctly!
Are you saying that this was not the Bijou, but the Grand? ‘Here’ means Toledo, presumably, since this is on the east side of the square, where the operation moved to.
Thanks! I’ve corrected the listing. We’ll need a listing for the Watson, with an address if you know it.
Volume 10 covers the Hill. For whatever reason, the volumes were generated out of order, and Vol. 10 is from 1903, when there were just a few scattered wooden houses on this block. The 1938 to 1950 reissues of this volume are not available online.
This theater is not listed in the 1914-15 AMPD. I can’t figure out which of the many volumes of the St. Louis Sanborns covers the Hill, so I can’t say what was there in 1909. It is still listed in the 1932 Yearbook with 682 seats (which seems huge for such a small building), but does not appear in the 1935 volume.
Sometime around 2022, this became a rather garish residence.
Thanks, that was a really terrible picture. I’ve deleted it.
That’s the same theater. It looks like the Locust frontage contained offices, so the entrance was on the side. Whatever replaced this is long gone, and this is part of hundreds of acres of surface parking downtown.
I’ve added a map view. I don’t know why the photos weren’t displaying.
This may have opened earlier. I’ve added a 1909 Sanborn view. The St. Louis maps don’t have a month, only a copyright year.
Thanks for that reasearch! We’ll call it the Olive for now.
The sign closest to the corner does say that the program is changed frequently, but I guess that might apply to these penny arcade viewers as well. I’ll leave the listing up for now, but we can consider deleting it.
This also houses the Columbia Foundation for the Arts, but seems to still also be a residence with an art gallery. The ‘About’ section claims that this was built around 1900, closed in 1957 to become a racquetball court, and burned in the late ‘70s. I don’t think most of that is accurate.
The picture cannot be the theater. This building is located on a corner, which 3037 is not. The photo shows the theater which was located at 3301-3303, which the 1909 Sanborn shows held the Grand Leader No. 3. 3045 did exist, but does not exist any longer. At least through 1909, Cardinal Ave did not go north of Olive. The 1909 map shows 3045 as the west side of a 3 story duplex, which was likely replaced by the Lincoln.
This whole area, especially north of Olive, changed a lot after about 1910. All of the old houses were replaced by mostly automotive related buildings on Locust, streets were realigned, and all the houses on Olive were replaced by businesses. Unfortunately, St. Louis was not mapped again until 1951, long after all these changes took place, and indeed after the area had started to decline.
The building on the corner, which is clearly automotive related, appears to date from the 1920s, and uses 3041-3043. Since the Lincoln is listed through the 1929 Yearbook, it’s likely that 3037 was indeed the Lincoln.
The 1926 Yearbook gives the address as 3045.
Latest streetview (Oct. 2025) shows it with a nasty house-flipper paint job, and steel shutters over the door and window. No sign of a function.
This listing is a complete mess. Based on the 2019 comment, it looks like this was either the Carolina Duke Drive-In, or possibly the Valley Drive-In. In either case, it appears to have been destroyed by a hurricane in 1954, although if it was the Duke, it was apparently already closed. Can someone confirm, so I can rewrite this listing?
The 1909 map is from April, so the chronology works.
Cleaned up the fluff from this entry. The preview opening and the actual opening are the same day. Christmas is always the 25th. Is the preview date wrong, or was it just an early opening that day for the VIPs?
I’ve cleaned up the entry. Can anyone give a date for the name change to ‘Your Own Thing’ as shown in the 1969 photo? Was it still a theater at that point?
Updated the listing. This does not appear in the 1914-15 AMPD, which lists several other theaters further west on Olive. It does indeed appear on the 1909 Sanborn.
There’s no way that dinky little store could have been an actual theater. It’s possible that it was indeed inside the church. The 2008 streetview shows it as Eagle Real Estate, so it had stopped being a church sometime before that.
It gets a bit more complicated, because the 1900 map shows the Ritz building as an opera house. The 1909 map doesn’t show that. We definitely should put the Ritz in a separate listing.
Since University City is incorporated, and apparently in St. Louis County vs the city, can anyone local explain why this is listed under St. Louis? Google shows all the addresses in the area as St. Louis, except for a few buildings right around city hall, which show University City. It looks like the city border on the east is Skinker, well past the theater.