The May 23, 1936, issue of The Film Daily said that Browarsky Bros. had ordered the seats for their new Beaver Avenue Theatre in Pittsburgh from A. & S. Steinberg. They planned to open the house in the fall.
This item is from the July 6, 1935, issue of Motion Picture Herald:
“Consolidated Opens New Oklahoma House
“Consolidated Theatres, Inc., subsidiary of the Griffith Amusement Company, recently opened the new Washita theatre, at Chickasha, Okla., containing the most modern equipment throughout, including air conditioning apparatus. George Limerick is manager of the house, which was constructed virtually within the old walls of the Sugg theatre, one of the oldest theatres in southwestern Oklahoma.”
In 1944, the Midwest was one of four Chickasha houses being operated by Griffith Southwest Theatres.The others were the Washita, Rialto, and Ritz, as noted in the April 15 issue of Showmen’s Trade Review.
Although I haven’t been able to pin it down for certain, there is a possibility that Midwest was a new name for an earlier house called variously the Kozy or Cozy, which vanished from the listings some time before the Midwest appeared.
This brief item from the May 1, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News indicates that the Chickasha Theatre had opened earlier that year:
“Mrs. Phil Isley of the Midwest Film Exchange has purchased a half interest in her father-in-law’s theatre at Chickasha, having bought Mr. Grace’s interest in it. Although the Chickasha Theatre has been running only a month or so, the business has been so favorable that more seats are to be added soon.”
An earlier item in another trade journal had noted the Isley and Grace had bought a building in Chickasha and were remodeling it into a modern movie theater. The Isley family were significant figures in the theater business in Oklahoma, Texas and California for several decades.
Phil and Flora Isley’s daughter, Phylis, enjoyed considerable success as a movie star under her screen name, Jennifer Jones.
Water Winter Wonderland’s page for the Plaza Theatre says that it was also known as the Palms and the Downtown Arts. An item mentioning the Palms in Boxoffice in June, 1959, is cited.
JAYJay: Above the theater name near the top of this page click on “Illinois”; When the subsequent page opens, go just below the map and click on “Demolished”.
The web site Chicagology includes the Coronado on its list of nickelodeons. It gives the seating capacity as 850, and says that Louis H. Frank was the owner.
The March 11, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World included the Coronado on a list of seventeen Chicago houses threatened with closure by the city due to their violations of an ordinance prohibiting the operation of theaters within 200 feet of any school, church, or hospital.
An advertisement for the American Theatre Curtain & Supply Co. of St. Louis in the July 6, 1912 issue of The Moving Picture World listed the Murrette Theatre at Richmond, Indiana, as one of the houses in which the company had recently installed a “Radium Gold Fibre Screen.” One of the other theaters advertised included the notation “New House,” which suggests that the others, including the Murrette, were theaters opened prior to 1912 that were being retrofitted with new screens.
An ad for the same company in a later issue of the magazine included this encomium from the owner of the house:
“Omar G. Murray of the Murrette Theatre, Richmond, Indiana, who stands way up in theatre circles in that big state, recently said in a few well chosen words, ‘The best screen in all the world.’ He knows and is proud to do us the honor.”
The K of P Theatre opened on March 25, 1908, according to Indiana Memory. The site has a couple of interior photos, here and here. The house was designed by noted theater architect James M. Wood.
dredmon: The photo was taken from the stage end of the building, so the stone building in the background was not behind the theater but across the street from it. The stone building, First Federal Savings Bank of Frankfort, is still standing at the northeast corner of West Main and Lewis Streets.
A few photos of the Snodgrass Theatre building, along with some information about its history and scans of a couple of ads, appear on this web page.
Although the second floor windows of the building were squared off through most of its history, the most recent photo of it shows that they have now been capped by faux arches in a Victorian style. The ground floor looks to have been converted for use as an office of some sort.
The Snodgrass Theatre was built by E.C. Snodgrass, and replaced an earlier and smaller house called the White City Theatre which he had operated at a different location in Scottsboro.
Since our photo is upside down, here is a whole page of photos of the Irvington Theatre, from the excellent Maryland movie theater web site, Kilduff’s. Unfortunately, all are from the time after the house was converted into a church. I’ve been unable to find any photos from the period when it was still a theater.
Trade journals from as early as 1923 note A. H. Abrams as owner of the Mozart Theatre. The November 11, 1921, issue of Variety filed this item:
“A. H. Abrams, well-known Canton,
Ohio, theatre owner, announces erection of his new motion picture theatre in Tuscarawas street E will be started soon after the first of the year. This house will offer motion pictures exclusively and will be modern in every respect.
“Abrams also announces that he expects to get his new legitimate theatre under way sometime during 1922. This house when completed will play Shubert vaudeville, the franchise already having been secured, according to Abrams.”
I’ve found nothing to confirm that Abrams built his legitimate (or vaudeville) theater, so the Mozart must have been the film house scheduled for construction on Tuscarawas Street.
Norm: When a theater has had multiple names, the old names, when known, are listed in the “Previous Names” field on the right hand side of the page, and should come up in a search for any previous name.
Re-reading the item, it seems likely that the Daily Press was only reporting on the award the operators had received from the County’s Economic Development Commission, and the reopening had indeed taken place some months earlier.
Schoolcraft County’s first drive-in formally opened on June 9, 1953, according to the following day’s report in The Escanaba Daily Press. Owner J. L. LeDuc also operated the Cedar and Oak Theatres in Manistique. His intention was to leave the Cedar Theatre closed during the summer months while the US-2 Drive-In was in operation. The new drive-in could accommodate 350 cars.
The house must have closed again after its 2015 reopening, and was then reopened again in April of this year. Here is a brief item about the reopening from the Daily Press web site, dated April 16, 2016.
After examining Google street view I believe Seth is correct about the location of the Cedar Theatre. The building’s current occupant, Community Home Medical, Inc., a medical supply retailer, appears to have thrown the theater building together with an adjacent storefront, and uses the latter’s address, which is 215 S. Cedar. The theater’s front, at 213 S. Cedar, has been closed up and used only for display windows.
This item from the Cheboygan Democrat of November 21, 1903, pertains to the closure of the Star Opera House and the intention of the Hancock brothers to replace it with a new theater:
“Manistique’s ‘opera house’ has been sold to the Booth Packing Co., for a fish warehouse, and the place is without a public hall for theatrical entertainments. However, the manager of the old place will have a new opera house ready for Jan. 1, if the people will help him by buying tickets for a grand opening at that time.”
In an article by W. S. Crowe in the June 6, 1951, issue of The Escanaba Daily Press, Crowe says that he and John Hancock built the Manistique Opera House in 1903, so perhaps they did manage to meet their goal of opening the new theater on January 1, 1904. The rather austere facade in the vintage photos suggests that the building was designed by its builder rather than by a professional architect, and it was probably built quickly and at minimal expense, and likely had a fairly plain, utilitarian interior.
Exterior and interior photos of this house can be seen on page 119 of the book Manistique, by M. Vonciel LeDuc (Google Books preview.) The caption says that Benjamin Gero bought the theater in 1904 (apparently incorrect) and changed the name from Hancock Brothers Opera House to Manistique Opera House. It also says that the house was located next door to the town’s earlier Star Opera House.
Editions of the Cahn Guide from around 1910 list it by the name New Opera House, say that it was built in 1904, and that was a ground-floor theater with 800 seats. The guides list Hancock Bros. as the managers. The 1904 construction date makes it more likely that the newspaper article I cited in my previous comment was correct, and Gero took over the house and renamed it Manistique Opera House in 1908, rather than 1904. Both the article and the photo caption in the book say that he renamed it the Gero Theatre in 1916, when it was converted to a full-time cinema.
This PDF from the San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society has two photos, one depicting the Teatro Azteca dated 1988, and a much older but undated photo showing the same building when it housed a theater called the Columbus.
As near as I can discover, the Columbus Theatre opened around 1922 or 1923, and originally served an Italian-American community. That population must not have been large enough to support the theater for long, though, as an item in The San Bernardino County Sun of May 15, 1930, about a real estate deal involving the building, referred to the Columbus as a Mexican movie theater.
The Columbus had its entrance in the first bay of the building, at the corner of 7th Street. I’ve been unable to discover when the house was remodeled and the entrance moved to the center bay, or when it was renamed the Azteca.
The May 23, 1936, issue of The Film Daily said that Browarsky Bros. had ordered the seats for their new Beaver Avenue Theatre in Pittsburgh from A. & S. Steinberg. They planned to open the house in the fall.
This item is from the July 6, 1935, issue of Motion Picture Herald:
In 1944, the Midwest was one of four Chickasha houses being operated by Griffith Southwest Theatres.The others were the Washita, Rialto, and Ritz, as noted in the April 15 issue of Showmen’s Trade Review.
Although I haven’t been able to pin it down for certain, there is a possibility that Midwest was a new name for an earlier house called variously the Kozy or Cozy, which vanished from the listings some time before the Midwest appeared.
This brief item from the May 1, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News indicates that the Chickasha Theatre had opened earlier that year:
An earlier item in another trade journal had noted the Isley and Grace had bought a building in Chickasha and were remodeling it into a modern movie theater. The Isley family were significant figures in the theater business in Oklahoma, Texas and California for several decades.Phil and Flora Isley’s daughter, Phylis, enjoyed considerable success as a movie star under her screen name, Jennifer Jones.
I now believe that the correct address of the Sugg Theatre was approximately the 110 S. Fourth Street that eferrell01 suggested.
Water Winter Wonderland’s page for the Plaza Theatre says that it was also known as the Palms and the Downtown Arts. An item mentioning the Palms in Boxoffice in June, 1959, is cited.
JAYJay: Above the theater name near the top of this page click on “Illinois”; When the subsequent page opens, go just below the map and click on “Demolished”.
Ken Roe: makrove and peterstrongs are both spammers. The accounts and all their comments should be expunged.
The web site Chicagology includes the Coronado on its list of nickelodeons. It gives the seating capacity as 850, and says that Louis H. Frank was the owner.
The March 11, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World included the Coronado on a list of seventeen Chicago houses threatened with closure by the city due to their violations of an ordinance prohibiting the operation of theaters within 200 feet of any school, church, or hospital.
An advertisement for the American Theatre Curtain & Supply Co. of St. Louis in the July 6, 1912 issue of The Moving Picture World listed the Murrette Theatre at Richmond, Indiana, as one of the houses in which the company had recently installed a “Radium Gold Fibre Screen.” One of the other theaters advertised included the notation “New House,” which suggests that the others, including the Murrette, were theaters opened prior to 1912 that were being retrofitted with new screens.
An ad for the same company in a later issue of the magazine included this encomium from the owner of the house:
The K of P Theatre opened on March 25, 1908, according to Indiana Memory. The site has a couple of interior photos, here and here. The house was designed by noted theater architect James M. Wood.
dredmon: The photo was taken from the stage end of the building, so the stone building in the background was not behind the theater but across the street from it. The stone building, First Federal Savings Bank of Frankfort, is still standing at the northeast corner of West Main and Lewis Streets.
A few photos of the Snodgrass Theatre building, along with some information about its history and scans of a couple of ads, appear on this web page.
Although the second floor windows of the building were squared off through most of its history, the most recent photo of it shows that they have now been capped by faux arches in a Victorian style. The ground floor looks to have been converted for use as an office of some sort.
The Snodgrass Theatre was built by E.C. Snodgrass, and replaced an earlier and smaller house called the White City Theatre which he had operated at a different location in Scottsboro.
Since our photo is upside down, here is a whole page of photos of the Irvington Theatre, from the excellent Maryland movie theater web site, Kilduff’s. Unfortunately, all are from the time after the house was converted into a church. I’ve been unable to find any photos from the period when it was still a theater.
The recent opening of the Grand Theatre at Lancaster, Kentucky, was noted in the March 7, 1925, issue of The Moving Picture World.
Trade journals from as early as 1923 note A. H. Abrams as owner of the Mozart Theatre. The November 11, 1921, issue of Variety filed this item:
I’ve found nothing to confirm that Abrams built his legitimate (or vaudeville) theater, so the Mozart must have been the film house scheduled for construction on Tuscarawas Street.Jazz Age Chicago’s citywide theater list has the Burton in operation from 1913 to 1916, based on Chicago Tribune theater listings.
Norm: When a theater has had multiple names, the old names, when known, are listed in the “Previous Names” field on the right hand side of the page, and should come up in a search for any previous name.
Re-reading the item, it seems likely that the Daily Press was only reporting on the award the operators had received from the County’s Economic Development Commission, and the reopening had indeed taken place some months earlier.
Schoolcraft County’s first drive-in formally opened on June 9, 1953, according to the following day’s report in The Escanaba Daily Press. Owner J. L. LeDuc also operated the Cedar and Oak Theatres in Manistique. His intention was to leave the Cedar Theatre closed during the summer months while the US-2 Drive-In was in operation. The new drive-in could accommodate 350 cars.
The house must have closed again after its 2015 reopening, and was then reopened again in April of this year. Here is a brief item about the reopening from the Daily Press web site, dated April 16, 2016.
After examining Google street view I believe Seth is correct about the location of the Cedar Theatre. The building’s current occupant, Community Home Medical, Inc., a medical supply retailer, appears to have thrown the theater building together with an adjacent storefront, and uses the latter’s address, which is 215 S. Cedar. The theater’s front, at 213 S. Cedar, has been closed up and used only for display windows.
This item from the Cheboygan Democrat of November 21, 1903, pertains to the closure of the Star Opera House and the intention of the Hancock brothers to replace it with a new theater:
In an article by W. S. Crowe in the June 6, 1951, issue of The Escanaba Daily Press, Crowe says that he and John Hancock built the Manistique Opera House in 1903, so perhaps they did manage to meet their goal of opening the new theater on January 1, 1904. The rather austere facade in the vintage photos suggests that the building was designed by its builder rather than by a professional architect, and it was probably built quickly and at minimal expense, and likely had a fairly plain, utilitarian interior.Exterior and interior photos of this house can be seen on page 119 of the book Manistique, by M. Vonciel LeDuc (Google Books preview.) The caption says that Benjamin Gero bought the theater in 1904 (apparently incorrect) and changed the name from Hancock Brothers Opera House to Manistique Opera House. It also says that the house was located next door to the town’s earlier Star Opera House.
Editions of the Cahn Guide from around 1910 list it by the name New Opera House, say that it was built in 1904, and that was a ground-floor theater with 800 seats. The guides list Hancock Bros. as the managers. The 1904 construction date makes it more likely that the newspaper article I cited in my previous comment was correct, and Gero took over the house and renamed it Manistique Opera House in 1908, rather than 1904. Both the article and the photo caption in the book say that he renamed it the Gero Theatre in 1916, when it was converted to a full-time cinema.
This PDF from the San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society has two photos, one depicting the Teatro Azteca dated 1988, and a much older but undated photo showing the same building when it housed a theater called the Columbus.
As near as I can discover, the Columbus Theatre opened around 1922 or 1923, and originally served an Italian-American community. That population must not have been large enough to support the theater for long, though, as an item in The San Bernardino County Sun of May 15, 1930, about a real estate deal involving the building, referred to the Columbus as a Mexican movie theater.
The Columbus had its entrance in the first bay of the building, at the corner of 7th Street. I’ve been unable to discover when the house was remodeled and the entrance moved to the center bay, or when it was renamed the Azteca.