This web page has vintage photos of the Capitol Theatre and of its predecessor, the Gem, as well as the Gaiety Theatre on Queen Street.
It isn’t possible to tell with absolute certainty from the old photo which corner of the intersection the Capitol was on, but given the slight but noticeable slope of the foundation, it was most likely the northeast corner. From that location the vertical sign would have been visible from the main part of the business district, as well, so that’s where I have set the street view.
This web page with many nostalgic recollections of the Plaza Cinemas (among other things) says that the expansion to four screens was part of extensive renovations that were undertaken in 1982-83. The building has been converted to retail space.
They appear to have had live events, all local in nature, a couple of times a year in recent years, some being pictured on their Facebook page, but the page has no listing of upcoming events. I would imagine the Masons hold their non-public meetings in the building, too, so it’s in use but not very usefully to anybody else.
A couple of photos on the Facebook page show the theater’s proscenium, another has part of the auditorium side wall in the background, and a third shows a bit of the back wall. It’s nice looking if fairly plain interior, and looks to be in good condition.
Rather bizarrely, their Facebook page has a link to a web site for a different Scottish Rite Auditorium in Collingswood, New Jersey.
The Atlantic was operating as a Chinese language movie house at least as late as 1983, when this photo was taken. It was pretty shabby by then. I’ve never seen a photo from the period when it was a regular movie house, or from the 1970s when it was running porn movies.
A Dreamland Theatre at Morgan City is mentioned in the January 15, 1910, issue of Moving Picture World. However, this was either a mistake made by the magazine, or the name was subsequently changed, as the July 2 issue carried a brief item dateline Morgan City saying “Dreamworld, a picture house, is being remodeled.”
Closer inspection of the vintage photo now leads me to believe that the Rex was actually in what is now the one-story section of the Ace hardware store. The storefront next door to the east, occupied by Range Sports, is at 206 Chestnut, so the Rex was probably at 208 Chestnut. The facebrick showing on the parapet is a pretty close match for that on the main section of the hardware store, so it was probably built around the same time. Unless the old building merely got anew facade, the Rex was probably demolished.
Comparing the vintage photo uploaded by David Zornig with current Google street view, it can be seen that the Rex Theatre (or at least its entrance) was on the easternmost of the two lots now occupied by the brick, two-story section of Grande Ace Hardware, which is at 212-214 Chestnut. The address of the Rex was thus probably 212 Chestnut Street. The Ace building is of a plain style characteristic of the early or mid-1930s, so the Rex was likely demolished not long after it closed.
Looking at the back of the Paramount in the street view from 3rd Street, it’s possible to see that a corner of the parapet wall of the auditorium has collapsed. Checking the Internet, I found that part of the roof collapsed almost five years ago, and the interior damage to the auditorium is shown in this photo from the January 3, 2013, issue of the Clarksdale Press Register.
The caption says that a local developer was acquiring the building and intended to have it open by the end of the year, but I can’t find anything more recent about the project so I would assume it remains unaccomplished. But neither is there anything about a demolition of the building, so I’d assume it’s still standing, if only barely.
Judging from street and satellite views, the Paramount has a large stage house— no wider than the auditorium, but surprisingly deep. It could be a good venue for live events. However, Clarksdale is not a large or prosperous city. The 2010 census gave it a population of 17,962, and the estimate of the population in 2016 was only 16,272.
A shrinking city with a straitened economy is unlikely to be able to manage the restoration of a large theater on its own, let alone support its use with solely local custom. In the absence of an outside angel coming to the rescue, with both funds and a plan to mount shows that would attract patrons from far and wide, the future does not look bright for the Paramount.
The Greater Refuge Temple Church, current occupants of this theater and adjacent, newer buildings, has a number of music videos on display at YouTube, but if they depict the interior of the theater it has been altered beyond recognition. I think, however, that the big room appearing in the videos might be in a newer part of the large complex that has grown from the theater. The theater’s exterior is quite recognizable, in any case, and very well maintained, if somewhat exotically painted.
In 1926, the Linden Theatre was one of three houses being operated by Vassiliadis Brothers, the other being the Clinton-Strand, and the Central Park, which they had just taken over according to the February 20 issue of Motion Picture News.
This item from the November 25, 1922, issue of The American Contractor must be about the Strand Theatre:
“Theatre (M. P.), Store (2) & Offices: $80,000. 2 sty. 50x135. Clinton st., nr. Karkew [sic] st. Archt Lewis & Hill, 889 Main st. Owner Vassiliadis Bros., 254 Main st. Brk. & archt'l t. c. Drawing plans. Archt. will take bids on gen. contr. & sep. contrs. abt. Dec. 15.”
“Karkew” is an obvious typo for Krakow, the cross street near the theater. The Vassiliadis brothers were noted as owner-operators of the Clinton-Strand Theatre in the February 20, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News.
The architectural firm of Lewis & Hill designed several theaters in Buffalo and the surrounding region, but this is the only one I’ve yet been able to identify. Robert A. Hill was active as an architect at least as late as 1938. I haven’t been able to find Lewis’s first name.
According to this web page there are three photos of the Masonic Temple Opera House in the Public Archives and Records Office of Prince Edward Island, but they do not appear to be available online.
The page says the cornerstone was laid on 24 May, 1892. The page also says the theater was built in 1891. I’m not familiar with the custom of laying a cornerstone after a building has been built, but perhaps that is the way it’s done in Canada, or perhaps Canadian web sites are as inclined to be mistaken as American web sites are.
The page also says that the architects were Phillips and Chappell, of Charlottetown. Lemuel J. Phillips and Charles Benjamin Chappell were in partnership as Phillips & Chappell from 1890 to 1895, though Chappell had worked in Phillips’s office since 1884. After the firm was dissolved Phillips appears to have left the profession, while Chappell went on to become Charlottetown’s most prolific architect until his death in 1931. It is likely that he was the lead architect for the Opera House.
I’ve been unable to find any exterior photos of the Prince Edward Theatre, but this interior photo dates from 1894.
The Magic City Theatre most likely opened in 1913, or perhaps very late 1912. For many years the house was operated by Mrs. R. Blanchard, and the October 12, 1912, issue of Moving Picture News said that R. Blanchard would erect a $4,000 theater at Bogalusa.
Bogalusa’s historic downtown runs along South Columbia Street from roughly 2nd Street to 7th Street. The theater was most likely on that stretch. I don’t see any buildings that resemble the theater standing today, but it might have been remodeled beyond recognition.
Either this theater or one of the same name was still operating in Bogalusa in 1929, as revealed by this item from the February 1 issue of The Film Daily:
“Columbia, Miss. — W. L. Crull, Jr., for several years manager of the Columbia, has been transferred to the Magic City at Bogalusa. Lyall Shiell succeeds him here.”
The line in the theater description that says “[i]t was the first movie theater built in a shopping center in San Diego….” is mistaken. The Linda Theatre was opened in the Linda Vista Shopping Center way back in the 1940s.
And this is interesting too: looking at Google street view of the theater I noticed a hand-made sign reading “David Sukonick Concert Hall.” Sukonick Concert Hall has its own Facebook page, but there haven’t been any posts since February this year, and none earlier than January 11, 2015, and there are only three posts altogether, all of them posted by people appearing at the venue, so whoever actually runs the place obviously hasn’t yet claimed the page. I don’t think we should change the name of the theater’s page based on this scantly information, though.
The only David Sukonick I can find on the Internet is a professional dancer who now designs and builds floors for dance studios through a company called Bolo Productions. Maybe he has something to do with this theater, and maybe he doesn’t. The web site isn’t telling, as far as I can discover.
Also also interesting (to me, at least, though not theater-related) is this interview with David Sukonick at Danse Track, though it might be boring for people who aren’t interested in dance (or construction.)
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this or not (and not that this really matters either), but someone has tagged the Variety Theatre building on Google satellite view with the name Vaud and the Villains, which the Internet tells me is a traveling orchestra and cabaret show (here is their web site.) Aside from the troupe having performed two shows at the Fais Do-Do in 2016, I can’t find any connection between them and the theater. Might they be using it for a rehearsal hall?
Boxoffice of July 6, 1964, ran a two-page spread about the Eric Theatre in Fairless Hills (link which might or might not last, Boxoffice being an unreliable online presence.) The 1,400-seat house featured a 28x60-foot curved screen and a box office located in an enclosed storm lobby.
The project was designed by the King of Prussia-based architectural firm Brugger & Freeman (John T. Brugger, Jr. and David Dean Freeman) who also designed the King Theatre in King of Prussia, opened a few months earlier than the Eric.
Samuel Shapiro had operated both indoor and outdoor theaters in Pennsylvania and New Jersey for some time, but had only recently formed the Sameric Company and was rapidly expanding his operations. The King Theatre was the first in his new chain, and the Fairless Hills house was the first location to have the name Eric Theatre.
lushwoodland: I don’t doubt that the original King Theatre was in a different building than the Queen Four, but the King could not have been a Jerry Lewis Cinema when it first opened. Mike Rivest has uploaded to this theater’s photo page the King Theatre’s grand opening ad from June 26, 1963, and the ad displays the company name, Sameric.
There is also the fact that the entry for King of Prussia architect David Dean Freeman in the 1970 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory lists the King Theatre as one of his projects (it is listed as a 1965 project, so that is either a typo- these are not unknown in books as enormous as the AIA directories- or Freeman merely designed some alterations for the theater two years after it opened.)
Network Cinema Corporation and Jerry Lewis didn’t even form their partnership to create Jerry Lewis Cinemas until 1969. I don’t know when the King of Prussia Jerry Lewis Cinema opened, but I doubt it was any earlier than 1970. Most of the company’s houses were opened in the early 1970s, some of them as single-screens, more of them as twins, and a few as triplexes.
Presumably, it was when the Jerry Lewis operation failed later in the 1970s (the company was gone by the end of the decade) that Sameric took over the King of Prussia location and began operating it, renamed the Queen, as an adjunct to the King Theatre. What happened after that I don’t know. I wasn’t there and I haven’t found any articles about it on the Internet.
But I can guess, based mainly on the theater’s nomenclature (lack of solid information has never stopped me from making guesses, as I’m sure everyone at Cinema Treasures knows.) At some point Sameric took over the Jerry Lewis location and renamed it the Queen (it would not have made sense for them to renamed the Jerry Lewis the King and rename the King the Queen. Moving the signage alone would have been costly, and there was nothing to gain from it.) The King was twinned, either before or after the Jerry Lewis was taken over, and at some point two additional screens were added to the Queen twin, and the entire operation went by the name King and Queen Six until the twinned King was closed, after which the former Jerry Lewis location with its two-screen addition operated as the Queen Four. This is the only explanation that really makes sense to me.
The January 3, 1953, issue of Motion Picture Herald mentions both the Rose Theatre and the Welsh Theatre in this item:
“M. F. Welsh, who recently purchased the
Rose in Franklinton, La., from O. D. Myles, has put up a ‘closed’ sign, which leaves the town with one theatre, the Welsh, which has been operating for many years.”
Mentions of Franklinton are sparse in the trade journals. I found two in Boxoffice, one from December 27, 1952, saying that O. D. Myles had closed the Rose Theatre until further notice, and one in the February 2, 1957, issue mentioning a Hollywood Theatre in Franklinton, operated by an E. P. Dubuisson.
Here is an article about the pending demolition of the Colony Theatre, from The Times-Gazette of May 11, 2016. The building had deteriorated so badly that it was deemed unsalvageable, mostly as result of water damage from the long-unrepaired leaky roof.
The Colony opened in September, 1938. Chakeres Theatres deeded the property to the city in the 1990s, and the city turned it over to a non-profit organization. It was operated as a live performance venue, but with little success. In 2014, by which time deterioration of the structure was already well advanced, ownership reverted to the city.
The Times-Gazette has uploaded this short video to YouTube, showing a minute of the demolition of the theater’s auditorium.
The apparent source for the Grand Theatre’s description says that the house had operated “…for approximately 29 years, nine under Douglas' ownership” at the time of the 1963 fire. Presumably written many years after these events, the article appears to have been mistaken about the length of the theater’s tenure. The Ohio section of the “Theaters Under Construction” column of The Film Daily for April 9, 1938, had this item:
“Dunkirk — Grand, 275 seats, Main St. (4-6-38); Architect: W. Burke; Operator: W. M. Day.”
Being a remodeling job on an existing building, the project probably didn’t take too long and the Grand probably opened well before the end of 1938. A rather blurry photo at the bottom of the page I linked to shows what I think is probably the marquee of the Grand, dripping with icicles in the December air.
I’ve found a single reference to a theater called the Star that operated in Dunkirk earlier. It was listed as a member of the American Motion Picture League in the December 20, 1913, issue of Moving Picture World.
The Key Theatre was one of the houses noted in the “Theaters Under Construction” column of The Film Daily of April 9, 1938:
“Middleboro — Key, 500 seats, 6 S. Main St. (4-17-38); Owners: Pat McGee and Roy Heffner; Builder: C. Brent; Architect: C. Brent; Cost: $21,000; Operator: Middleboro Amusement Co.”
I’ve been unable to find out anything about builder/architect C. Brent. Most likely it was a small, local firm.
This web page has vintage photos of the Capitol Theatre and of its predecessor, the Gem, as well as the Gaiety Theatre on Queen Street.
It isn’t possible to tell with absolute certainty from the old photo which corner of the intersection the Capitol was on, but given the slight but noticeable slope of the foundation, it was most likely the northeast corner. From that location the vertical sign would have been visible from the main part of the business district, as well, so that’s where I have set the street view.
This web page with many nostalgic recollections of the Plaza Cinemas (among other things) says that the expansion to four screens was part of extensive renovations that were undertaken in 1982-83. The building has been converted to retail space.
They appear to have had live events, all local in nature, a couple of times a year in recent years, some being pictured on their Facebook page, but the page has no listing of upcoming events. I would imagine the Masons hold their non-public meetings in the building, too, so it’s in use but not very usefully to anybody else.
A couple of photos on the Facebook page show the theater’s proscenium, another has part of the auditorium side wall in the background, and a third shows a bit of the back wall. It’s nice looking if fairly plain interior, and looks to be in good condition.
Rather bizarrely, their Facebook page has a link to a web site for a different Scottish Rite Auditorium in Collingswood, New Jersey.
The Atlantic was operating as a Chinese language movie house at least as late as 1983, when this photo was taken. It was pretty shabby by then. I’ve never seen a photo from the period when it was a regular movie house, or from the 1970s when it was running porn movies.
A Dreamland Theatre at Morgan City is mentioned in the January 15, 1910, issue of Moving Picture World. However, this was either a mistake made by the magazine, or the name was subsequently changed, as the July 2 issue carried a brief item dateline Morgan City saying “Dreamworld, a picture house, is being remodeled.”
The Shastona Theatre is now occupied by the local Elk’s lodge.
Closer inspection of the vintage photo now leads me to believe that the Rex was actually in what is now the one-story section of the Ace hardware store. The storefront next door to the east, occupied by Range Sports, is at 206 Chestnut, so the Rex was probably at 208 Chestnut. The facebrick showing on the parapet is a pretty close match for that on the main section of the hardware store, so it was probably built around the same time. Unless the old building merely got anew facade, the Rex was probably demolished.
Comparing the vintage photo uploaded by David Zornig with current Google street view, it can be seen that the Rex Theatre (or at least its entrance) was on the easternmost of the two lots now occupied by the brick, two-story section of Grande Ace Hardware, which is at 212-214 Chestnut. The address of the Rex was thus probably 212 Chestnut Street. The Ace building is of a plain style characteristic of the early or mid-1930s, so the Rex was likely demolished not long after it closed.
Looking at the back of the Paramount in the street view from 3rd Street, it’s possible to see that a corner of the parapet wall of the auditorium has collapsed. Checking the Internet, I found that part of the roof collapsed almost five years ago, and the interior damage to the auditorium is shown in this photo from the January 3, 2013, issue of the Clarksdale Press Register.
The caption says that a local developer was acquiring the building and intended to have it open by the end of the year, but I can’t find anything more recent about the project so I would assume it remains unaccomplished. But neither is there anything about a demolition of the building, so I’d assume it’s still standing, if only barely.
Judging from street and satellite views, the Paramount has a large stage house— no wider than the auditorium, but surprisingly deep. It could be a good venue for live events. However, Clarksdale is not a large or prosperous city. The 2010 census gave it a population of 17,962, and the estimate of the population in 2016 was only 16,272.
A shrinking city with a straitened economy is unlikely to be able to manage the restoration of a large theater on its own, let alone support its use with solely local custom. In the absence of an outside angel coming to the rescue, with both funds and a plan to mount shows that would attract patrons from far and wide, the future does not look bright for the Paramount.
The Greater Refuge Temple Church, current occupants of this theater and adjacent, newer buildings, has a number of music videos on display at YouTube, but if they depict the interior of the theater it has been altered beyond recognition. I think, however, that the big room appearing in the videos might be in a newer part of the large complex that has grown from the theater. The theater’s exterior is quite recognizable, in any case, and very well maintained, if somewhat exotically painted.
In 1926, the Linden Theatre was one of three houses being operated by Vassiliadis Brothers, the other being the Clinton-Strand, and the Central Park, which they had just taken over according to the February 20 issue of Motion Picture News.
This item from the November 25, 1922, issue of The American Contractor must be about the Strand Theatre:
“Karkew” is an obvious typo for Krakow, the cross street near the theater. The Vassiliadis brothers were noted as owner-operators of the Clinton-Strand Theatre in the February 20, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News.The architectural firm of Lewis & Hill designed several theaters in Buffalo and the surrounding region, but this is the only one I’ve yet been able to identify. Robert A. Hill was active as an architect at least as late as 1938. I haven’t been able to find Lewis’s first name.
According to this web page there are three photos of the Masonic Temple Opera House in the Public Archives and Records Office of Prince Edward Island, but they do not appear to be available online.
The page says the cornerstone was laid on 24 May, 1892. The page also says the theater was built in 1891. I’m not familiar with the custom of laying a cornerstone after a building has been built, but perhaps that is the way it’s done in Canada, or perhaps Canadian web sites are as inclined to be mistaken as American web sites are.
The page also says that the architects were Phillips and Chappell, of Charlottetown. Lemuel J. Phillips and Charles Benjamin Chappell were in partnership as Phillips & Chappell from 1890 to 1895, though Chappell had worked in Phillips’s office since 1884. After the firm was dissolved Phillips appears to have left the profession, while Chappell went on to become Charlottetown’s most prolific architect until his death in 1931. It is likely that he was the lead architect for the Opera House.
I’ve been unable to find any exterior photos of the Prince Edward Theatre, but this interior photo dates from 1894.
The Magic City Theatre most likely opened in 1913, or perhaps very late 1912. For many years the house was operated by Mrs. R. Blanchard, and the October 12, 1912, issue of Moving Picture News said that R. Blanchard would erect a $4,000 theater at Bogalusa.
Bogalusa’s historic downtown runs along South Columbia Street from roughly 2nd Street to 7th Street. The theater was most likely on that stretch. I don’t see any buildings that resemble the theater standing today, but it might have been remodeled beyond recognition.
Either this theater or one of the same name was still operating in Bogalusa in 1929, as revealed by this item from the February 1 issue of The Film Daily:
The line in the theater description that says “[i]t was the first movie theater built in a shopping center in San Diego….” is mistaken. The Linda Theatre was opened in the Linda Vista Shopping Center way back in the 1940s.
And this is interesting too: looking at Google street view of the theater I noticed a hand-made sign reading “David Sukonick Concert Hall.” Sukonick Concert Hall has its own Facebook page, but there haven’t been any posts since February this year, and none earlier than January 11, 2015, and there are only three posts altogether, all of them posted by people appearing at the venue, so whoever actually runs the place obviously hasn’t yet claimed the page. I don’t think we should change the name of the theater’s page based on this scantly information, though.
The only David Sukonick I can find on the Internet is a professional dancer who now designs and builds floors for dance studios through a company called Bolo Productions. Maybe he has something to do with this theater, and maybe he doesn’t. The web site isn’t telling, as far as I can discover.
Also also interesting (to me, at least, though not theater-related) is this interview with David Sukonick at Danse Track, though it might be boring for people who aren’t interested in dance (or construction.)
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this or not (and not that this really matters either), but someone has tagged the Variety Theatre building on Google satellite view with the name Vaud and the Villains, which the Internet tells me is a traveling orchestra and cabaret show (here is their web site.) Aside from the troupe having performed two shows at the Fais Do-Do in 2016, I can’t find any connection between them and the theater. Might they be using it for a rehearsal hall?
Boxoffice of July 6, 1964, ran a two-page spread about the Eric Theatre in Fairless Hills (link which might or might not last, Boxoffice being an unreliable online presence.) The 1,400-seat house featured a 28x60-foot curved screen and a box office located in an enclosed storm lobby.
The project was designed by the King of Prussia-based architectural firm Brugger & Freeman (John T. Brugger, Jr. and David Dean Freeman) who also designed the King Theatre in King of Prussia, opened a few months earlier than the Eric.
Samuel Shapiro had operated both indoor and outdoor theaters in Pennsylvania and New Jersey for some time, but had only recently formed the Sameric Company and was rapidly expanding his operations. The King Theatre was the first in his new chain, and the Fairless Hills house was the first location to have the name Eric Theatre.
lushwoodland: I don’t doubt that the original King Theatre was in a different building than the Queen Four, but the King could not have been a Jerry Lewis Cinema when it first opened. Mike Rivest has uploaded to this theater’s photo page the King Theatre’s grand opening ad from June 26, 1963, and the ad displays the company name, Sameric.
There is also the fact that the entry for King of Prussia architect David Dean Freeman in the 1970 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory lists the King Theatre as one of his projects (it is listed as a 1965 project, so that is either a typo- these are not unknown in books as enormous as the AIA directories- or Freeman merely designed some alterations for the theater two years after it opened.)
Network Cinema Corporation and Jerry Lewis didn’t even form their partnership to create Jerry Lewis Cinemas until 1969. I don’t know when the King of Prussia Jerry Lewis Cinema opened, but I doubt it was any earlier than 1970. Most of the company’s houses were opened in the early 1970s, some of them as single-screens, more of them as twins, and a few as triplexes.
Presumably, it was when the Jerry Lewis operation failed later in the 1970s (the company was gone by the end of the decade) that Sameric took over the King of Prussia location and began operating it, renamed the Queen, as an adjunct to the King Theatre. What happened after that I don’t know. I wasn’t there and I haven’t found any articles about it on the Internet.
But I can guess, based mainly on the theater’s nomenclature (lack of solid information has never stopped me from making guesses, as I’m sure everyone at Cinema Treasures knows.) At some point Sameric took over the Jerry Lewis location and renamed it the Queen (it would not have made sense for them to renamed the Jerry Lewis the King and rename the King the Queen. Moving the signage alone would have been costly, and there was nothing to gain from it.) The King was twinned, either before or after the Jerry Lewis was taken over, and at some point two additional screens were added to the Queen twin, and the entire operation went by the name King and Queen Six until the twinned King was closed, after which the former Jerry Lewis location with its two-screen addition operated as the Queen Four. This is the only explanation that really makes sense to me.
The January 3, 1953, issue of Motion Picture Herald mentions both the Rose Theatre and the Welsh Theatre in this item:
Mentions of Franklinton are sparse in the trade journals. I found two in Boxoffice, one from December 27, 1952, saying that O. D. Myles had closed the Rose Theatre until further notice, and one in the February 2, 1957, issue mentioning a Hollywood Theatre in Franklinton, operated by an E. P. Dubuisson.Here is an article about the pending demolition of the Colony Theatre, from The Times-Gazette of May 11, 2016. The building had deteriorated so badly that it was deemed unsalvageable, mostly as result of water damage from the long-unrepaired leaky roof.
The Colony opened in September, 1938. Chakeres Theatres deeded the property to the city in the 1990s, and the city turned it over to a non-profit organization. It was operated as a live performance venue, but with little success. In 2014, by which time deterioration of the structure was already well advanced, ownership reverted to the city.
The Times-Gazette has uploaded this short video to YouTube, showing a minute of the demolition of the theater’s auditorium.
The Rialto is being operated as an event space. Here is their web site.
The apparent source for the Grand Theatre’s description says that the house had operated “…for approximately 29 years, nine under Douglas' ownership” at the time of the 1963 fire. Presumably written many years after these events, the article appears to have been mistaken about the length of the theater’s tenure. The Ohio section of the “Theaters Under Construction” column of The Film Daily for April 9, 1938, had this item:
Being a remodeling job on an existing building, the project probably didn’t take too long and the Grand probably opened well before the end of 1938. A rather blurry photo at the bottom of the page I linked to shows what I think is probably the marquee of the Grand, dripping with icicles in the December air.I’ve found a single reference to a theater called the Star that operated in Dunkirk earlier. It was listed as a member of the American Motion Picture League in the December 20, 1913, issue of Moving Picture World.
The Key Theatre was one of the houses noted in the “Theaters Under Construction” column of The Film Daily of April 9, 1938:
I’ve been unable to find out anything about builder/architect C. Brent. Most likely it was a small, local firm.The “Theater Openings” column of The Film Daily for April 9, 1938, noted the opening of the Beacon, February 5:
R. C. Buck, Inc., was a design-build firm. I have no idea why a different builder was involved in this project.