The NRHP registration form for the Central fire station in Sebring notes that its architect, William J. Heim, also designed two indoor movie theaters in Sebring, the Florida being one of them (the other was the Circle.) He also designed the Sevon Drive-In in between Sebring and nearby Avon Park.
Susan Priest MacDonald and Randall M. MacDonald’s book Sebring has a 1948 photo of the Florida Theatre, and in the left background is the gabled roof of the side of the police station at Ridgewood Drive and Pine Street (Google Books preview). The caption says that the Florida was on the west side Ridgewood near Lime Street, which is the next street north of Pine. I think that the theater was on the lot next door to the small building that now houses Sebring Furniture, which is at 325 N. Ridgewood. The store to its south is at 321, so figuring about a four number jump per lot the theater was probably at approximately 329 N. Ridgewood.
The NRHP registration form for the Central Fire Station in Sebring notes that its architect, William J. Heim, also designed the Sevon Drive In, as well as the indoor Florida and Circle Theatres in Sebring.
This photo depicts the first Esquire Theatre, originally the Aztec, which was destroyed by a fire in 1969 and replaced by the second Esquire. This is its CT page.
I believe that the third Dream Theatre was still open in 1966, when it was either gutted or destroyed by a fire. The 18 April issue of the Greencastle Daily Banner reported that the theater had been gutted by a fire that started about 5:00 PM the previous day, while The Terre Haute Star said that the theater had been destroyed and its marquee had fallen into the street after filling with water.
Page 109 of Indiana’s Ohio River Scenic Byway, by Leslie Townsend, has a photo of the Dream Theatre with the 1950 movie Comanche Territory advertised on the marquee (Google Books preview.)
This item from the May 24, 1919, issue of The Moving Picture World could have been about the house that later became the Sioux:
“Tom Hammond, of Anthon, Ia., has built a brand new theatre, equipped up to the minute in every respect with Power’s equipment, and will open at once.”
An F. C. Lyon, operating a house in Anthon called the Jewel Theatre was listed in the October 12, 1929, issue of Exhibitors Herald World. The January 11, 1936, issue of Motion Picture Herald published a letter from W. Anderson, operating the Sioux Theatre, Anthon, Iowa.
The 1914-1915 edition of The American Motion Picture Directory listed the Opera House at Anthon, Iowa, as a movie theater. Given how small Anthon was it’s likely that the Opera House closed when Tom Hammond’s new theater opened. It’s also likely that Anthon never supported two theaters at once, so unless something happened to its original building, it seems likely that the 1919 house was the theater that later operated as the Jewel and as the Sioux.
This item is from the September 10, 1947, issue of Variety:
“The Star, a 250-seater, Anthon, Ia., has been purchased by Walter D. Rasmussen, Council Bluffs, Ia., from Tom Sandberg, who opened the house in Feb., 1946.”
W. D. Rasmussen of the Star Theatre, Anthon, Iowa, was listed in the July 10, 1948, issue of Motion Picture Herald as having joined the magazine’s team of exhibitors who would contribute capsule movie reviews for the magazine’s “What the Picture Did for Me” feature. Several of his reviews appeared in the magazine later that year. Around the same time, the July 3 issue of Showmen’s Trade Review said that “W. D. Rassmussen has finished a new marquee on the Star, Anthon, Ia.”
The Star Theatre advertised in the 1953 yearbook of Climbing Hill High School in Moville, Iowa. The proprietor at that time was named Cy Schulte, and the theater boasted a “modern cry room.” A new CinemaScope installation at the Star was mentioned in the 1955 Anthon High School yearbook.
A list of theaters reopened during the first quarter of 1958 was published in the April 7 issue of Boxoffice that year, and Cy Schulte’s Star at Anthon was among them.
Though no theater name was given, a line from the April 16, 1962, issue of Boxoffice probably refers to the Star, which by that time was most likely the only movie house in this very small town: “Cherokee and Anthon, Iowa, were flooded but the theatres were safe.”
While it’s possible that the Star that Tom Sandberg opened in 1946 was an older theater reopened with a new name, the fact that it had a cry room suggests that it was either new construction or an extensive remodeling. Cry rooms were not unknown even as early as the 1920s, but they did not become common in small town theaters until the post-war period.
A history of Little Falls says that “[i]n 1910 W. H. Linton operated the ‘Hippodrome Theatre’ in the I.O.O.F. Hall on William Street.”
A comment from 2011 on a “Topix” page about Little Falls mentions the Odd Fellows Hall having been across the street from the fire station. The fire station is on the ground floor of the City Hall at Main and William Streets, and across William Street is only a modern, but aging, retail building (which looks to be from the 1970s) and its parking lot, so the Hippodrome has been demolished.
This item about a Ridgefield Theatre in Washington is from the June 14, 1919, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Ridgfield Theatre Opens.
“Steve LeRouge held a grand opening for the Ridgfield Theatre, Wash., May 24. This is the fourth theatre on the LeRouge circuit and seats 300. W. A. Stone, of the Service Film Company, installed two new Motiographs in the theatre.”
I’ve come across references from the 1920s of a Steve Le Rouge who was manager of a camp at Battle Ground Lake, about 18 miles north of Vancouver, Washington, which is very near Ridgefield, so it’s probably the same Steve LeRouge who ran the theater. The Liberty’s building has a stair-step parapet, and the brick of the walls is imprecise, both of which are characteristic of buildings from the 1910s but not usually of those from 1946, so I have to wonder if perhaps Liberty was just a new name for the old theater that opened in 1919.
The Franklin Theatre was extensively remodeled in 1919, as noted in this item from the June 14 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Franklin Will Be Improved.
“David Morris, of the Franklin Theatre, Third and Fitzwater streets, will make several improvements to his theatre during the summer months. One of the main features will be the remodeling of the front of the building and installing a new and handsome box-office. On the interior he will remove the balcony and increase his seating capacity and standing room space. Improved ventilation will be arranged for in addition to a new lighting system. When completed, the theatre will be one of the handsomest in the city.”
Here’s the article announcing the intention of the Smoot Amusement Company to build the Lincoln Theatre, from The Moving Picture World of June 7, 1919:
“Smoots Add Third Theatre to Chain in Parkersburg
“THE SMOOT AMUSEMENT COMPANY, now controlling the Camden and Auditorium Theatres in Parkersburg, West Virginia, will add another house to its string in the same city. The addition is the Lincoln, a new house which will go up on the corner of Market and Eighth streets on the site of the Sycamore Place.
“The owners of the Smoot Amusement Company are Fayette C. Smoot, Charles S. Smoot and Frank J. Hassett. The concern is one of the livest organizations not only in the city but also in the surrounding district. The Parkersburg News, in its story on the new theatre, says: ‘The News wishes to take this occasion to commend the promoters of this new enterprise for their go-ahead policy and their confidence in Parkersburg’s future. It takes nerve and resource to take such steps, and fortunately for Parkersburg these men are equipped with these qualities. They do things.’
“The new Lincoln will seat 1,000 and will cost $90,000. It will embrace every modern item in construction, decoration and equipment and will provide an artistic asset to the city. Fred W. Elliott of Columbus, Ohio, is the architect, while the contract for the structure has been awarded to R. L. Brown, a local builder.”
Records of a court case involving Julius Gordon’s Jefferson Amusement Company in the 1950s said that the Port Theatre in Port Arthur opened on June 6, 1940. It was most likely designed by Leon C. Kyburz, as at this time he was working as Jefferson’s in-house architect, designing all their projects.
Judging from Google street view the entire block of Ninth Avenue on which the theater was located has been redeveloped with a modern project. The theater has been demolished.
This web page has a photo of the steel framework of the Lynn Theatre under construction, dated 1939. The text also notes that the house was designed by architect L. C. Kyburz.
Two more construction photos can be seen here, and here. The Lynn was built for East Texas Theatres, a subsidiary of the Jefferson Amusement Company, 50% of which was in turn owned by Paramount Pictures. L. C. Kyburz was for many years Jefferson’s in-house architect.
An oral history from long-time Lufkin resident Bettie Kennedy says that the Lynn Theatre was located in the 100 block of what is now called Frank Avenue, across the street from the older Texan Theatre. The Texan’s building is still standing, but the Lynn was demolished to make way for a jail.
The Texan Theatre building appears to be still standing on Frank Avenue, its front covered in weathered, vertical wood siding of the sort that was fashionable for a while in the 1970s. Across the street from the Texas building is a jail, and a mural on the wall facing the street includes a view of the Texas Theatre as it once looked. The jail itself is built partly on the site of another Lufkin movie house, the Lynn Theatre.
A history of Marek Brothers, one of the construction companies that worked on the Windsor Theatre, notes that the house was designed by Beaumont, Texas architect L. C. Kyburz. Kyburz had been designing theaters for the Jefferson Amusement Company since at least the late 1930s.
The December 23, 1940, issue of The Orange Leader said that the Bengal Theatre would open on Christmas Day. The Bengal was operated by Julius Gordon’s Jefferson Amusement Company, which also operated the Strand and the Gem. According to a lawsuit in 1952, Jefferson had taken over the house in 1937 when it was called the American Theatre. The remodeling project had been designed by L. C. Kyburz, Jefferson’s in-house architect.
Julius Gordon’s Jefferson Amusement Company (50% of which was owned by Paramount Pictures through their subsidiary the Saenger Amusement company) had the Strand Theatre extensively remodeled in 1942, as was noted in a special section of the May 12 issue of The Orange Leader (online here.) The reopening was to take place on May 13. The architect for the project was L. C. Kyburz.
RangerRobert: The address of the upstairs is 3909 Washington, and it still contains office suites. Google the address to see listings for some of the tenants.
A notice that J. A. Getchell and B. F. Elbert had leased the Bijou Theatre, a vaudeville house, from Fred Buchanan and would remodel and reopen it as a movie house called the Nickeldom appeared in the May 1, 1906, issue of The Des Moines Register.
A reminiscence by Mr. Adrian D. Sharpe in the September-October issue of Bandwagon, the journal of the Circus Historical Society, recalls that in Des Moines, in October, 1905, he met “…Mr. Buchanan, who operated the Bijou Theatre, a small store room picture house playing some vaudeville….”
The Lost Cinemas of Greater Des Moines web site (kencmcintyre’s link of July 9, 2007) says that the house was renamed the Unique Theatre in 1908.
A while back an E-bay seller offered a postcard that was an invitation to the Whitney Point High School Alumni Banquet, held at the Opera House on June 23, 1905. I don’t know when the building that later housed the Point Theatre was built, but if it was the same one that was there in 1905 then, to accommodate banquets, the Opera House must have been one of those multi-purpose halls with a flat floor. It might later have been remodeled with a raked floor when it became a full-time movie house.
Palm Theatre was an earlier name for the Rialto itself. The Palm was listed at 405 E. Erie Street in The American Motion Picture Directory published in 1915. The Palm opened on February 6, 1911, according to the February 10 issue of The Des Moines Register.
The NRHP registration form for the Central fire station in Sebring notes that its architect, William J. Heim, also designed two indoor movie theaters in Sebring, the Florida being one of them (the other was the Circle.) He also designed the Sevon Drive-In in between Sebring and nearby Avon Park.
Susan Priest MacDonald and Randall M. MacDonald’s book Sebring has a 1948 photo of the Florida Theatre, and in the left background is the gabled roof of the side of the police station at Ridgewood Drive and Pine Street (Google Books preview). The caption says that the Florida was on the west side Ridgewood near Lime Street, which is the next street north of Pine. I think that the theater was on the lot next door to the small building that now houses Sebring Furniture, which is at 325 N. Ridgewood. The store to its south is at 321, so figuring about a four number jump per lot the theater was probably at approximately 329 N. Ridgewood.
The NRHP registration form for the Central Fire Station in Sebring notes that its architect, William J. Heim, also designed the Sevon Drive In, as well as the indoor Florida and Circle Theatres in Sebring.
Here is a link to the Boulder Art Cinema web site.
Several photos of this house over the years can be seen on this page of the Downtown Enid History web site.
This photo depicts the first Esquire Theatre, originally the Aztec, which was destroyed by a fire in 1969 and replaced by the second Esquire. This is its CT page.
I believe that the third Dream Theatre was still open in 1966, when it was either gutted or destroyed by a fire. The 18 April issue of the Greencastle Daily Banner reported that the theater had been gutted by a fire that started about 5:00 PM the previous day, while The Terre Haute Star said that the theater had been destroyed and its marquee had fallen into the street after filling with water.
Page 109 of Indiana’s Ohio River Scenic Byway, by Leslie Townsend, has a photo of the Dream Theatre with the 1950 movie Comanche Territory advertised on the marquee (Google Books preview.)
This item from the May 24, 1919, issue of The Moving Picture World could have been about the house that later became the Sioux:
An F. C. Lyon, operating a house in Anthon called the Jewel Theatre was listed in the October 12, 1929, issue of Exhibitors Herald World. The January 11, 1936, issue of Motion Picture Herald published a letter from W. Anderson, operating the Sioux Theatre, Anthon, Iowa.The 1914-1915 edition of The American Motion Picture Directory listed the Opera House at Anthon, Iowa, as a movie theater. Given how small Anthon was it’s likely that the Opera House closed when Tom Hammond’s new theater opened. It’s also likely that Anthon never supported two theaters at once, so unless something happened to its original building, it seems likely that the 1919 house was the theater that later operated as the Jewel and as the Sioux.
This item is from the September 10, 1947, issue of Variety:
W. D. Rasmussen of the Star Theatre, Anthon, Iowa, was listed in the July 10, 1948, issue of Motion Picture Herald as having joined the magazine’s team of exhibitors who would contribute capsule movie reviews for the magazine’s “What the Picture Did for Me” feature. Several of his reviews appeared in the magazine later that year. Around the same time, the July 3 issue of Showmen’s Trade Review said that “W. D. Rassmussen has finished a new marquee on the Star, Anthon, Ia.”The Star Theatre advertised in the 1953 yearbook of Climbing Hill High School in Moville, Iowa. The proprietor at that time was named Cy Schulte, and the theater boasted a “modern cry room.” A new CinemaScope installation at the Star was mentioned in the 1955 Anthon High School yearbook.
A list of theaters reopened during the first quarter of 1958 was published in the April 7 issue of Boxoffice that year, and Cy Schulte’s Star at Anthon was among them.
Though no theater name was given, a line from the April 16, 1962, issue of Boxoffice probably refers to the Star, which by that time was most likely the only movie house in this very small town: “Cherokee and Anthon, Iowa, were flooded but the theatres were safe.”
While it’s possible that the Star that Tom Sandberg opened in 1946 was an older theater reopened with a new name, the fact that it had a cry room suggests that it was either new construction or an extensive remodeling. Cry rooms were not unknown even as early as the 1920s, but they did not become common in small town theaters until the post-war period.
A history of Little Falls says that “[i]n 1910 W. H. Linton operated the ‘Hippodrome Theatre’ in the I.O.O.F. Hall on William Street.”
A comment from 2011 on a “Topix” page about Little Falls mentions the Odd Fellows Hall having been across the street from the fire station. The fire station is on the ground floor of the City Hall at Main and William Streets, and across William Street is only a modern, but aging, retail building (which looks to be from the 1970s) and its parking lot, so the Hippodrome has been demolished.
This item about a Ridgefield Theatre in Washington is from the June 14, 1919, issue of The Moving Picture World:
I’ve come across references from the 1920s of a Steve Le Rouge who was manager of a camp at Battle Ground Lake, about 18 miles north of Vancouver, Washington, which is very near Ridgefield, so it’s probably the same Steve LeRouge who ran the theater. The Liberty’s building has a stair-step parapet, and the brick of the walls is imprecise, both of which are characteristic of buildings from the 1910s but not usually of those from 1946, so I have to wonder if perhaps Liberty was just a new name for the old theater that opened in 1919.The Franklin Theatre was extensively remodeled in 1919, as noted in this item from the June 14 issue of The Moving Picture World:
Here’s the article announcing the intention of the Smoot Amusement Company to build the Lincoln Theatre, from The Moving Picture World of June 7, 1919:
According to the May 13, 1965, issue of The La Marque Times, the Sharpstown Theatre was scheduled to open on May 27.
Records of a court case involving Julius Gordon’s Jefferson Amusement Company in the 1950s said that the Port Theatre in Port Arthur opened on June 6, 1940. It was most likely designed by Leon C. Kyburz, as at this time he was working as Jefferson’s in-house architect, designing all their projects.
Judging from Google street view the entire block of Ninth Avenue on which the theater was located has been redeveloped with a modern project. The theater has been demolished.
This web page has a photo of the steel framework of the Lynn Theatre under construction, dated 1939. The text also notes that the house was designed by architect L. C. Kyburz.
Two more construction photos can be seen here, and here. The Lynn was built for East Texas Theatres, a subsidiary of the Jefferson Amusement Company, 50% of which was in turn owned by Paramount Pictures. L. C. Kyburz was for many years Jefferson’s in-house architect.
An oral history from long-time Lufkin resident Bettie Kennedy says that the Lynn Theatre was located in the 100 block of what is now called Frank Avenue, across the street from the older Texan Theatre. The Texan’s building is still standing, but the Lynn was demolished to make way for a jail.
The Texan Theatre building appears to be still standing on Frank Avenue, its front covered in weathered, vertical wood siding of the sort that was fashionable for a while in the 1970s. Across the street from the Texas building is a jail, and a mural on the wall facing the street includes a view of the Texas Theatre as it once looked. The jail itself is built partly on the site of another Lufkin movie house, the Lynn Theatre.
A history of Marek Brothers, one of the construction companies that worked on the Windsor Theatre, notes that the house was designed by Beaumont, Texas architect L. C. Kyburz. Kyburz had been designing theaters for the Jefferson Amusement Company since at least the late 1930s.
The December 23, 1940, issue of The Orange Leader said that the Bengal Theatre would open on Christmas Day. The Bengal was operated by Julius Gordon’s Jefferson Amusement Company, which also operated the Strand and the Gem. According to a lawsuit in 1952, Jefferson had taken over the house in 1937 when it was called the American Theatre. The remodeling project had been designed by L. C. Kyburz, Jefferson’s in-house architect.
Julius Gordon’s Jefferson Amusement Company (50% of which was owned by Paramount Pictures through their subsidiary the Saenger Amusement company) had the Strand Theatre extensively remodeled in 1942, as was noted in a special section of the May 12 issue of The Orange Leader (online here.) The reopening was to take place on May 13. The architect for the project was L. C. Kyburz.
Here are a couple of relevant posts (with illustrations) from the web site Historic Joplin:
The New Club Theater
The Club Theater
RangerRobert: The address of the upstairs is 3909 Washington, and it still contains office suites. Google the address to see listings for some of the tenants.
A notice that J. A. Getchell and B. F. Elbert had leased the Bijou Theatre, a vaudeville house, from Fred Buchanan and would remodel and reopen it as a movie house called the Nickeldom appeared in the May 1, 1906, issue of The Des Moines Register.
A reminiscence by Mr. Adrian D. Sharpe in the September-October issue of Bandwagon, the journal of the Circus Historical Society, recalls that in Des Moines, in October, 1905, he met “…Mr. Buchanan, who operated the Bijou Theatre, a small store room picture house playing some vaudeville….”
The Lost Cinemas of Greater Des Moines web site (kencmcintyre’s link of July 9, 2007) says that the house was renamed the Unique Theatre in 1908.
A while back an E-bay seller offered a postcard that was an invitation to the Whitney Point High School Alumni Banquet, held at the Opera House on June 23, 1905. I don’t know when the building that later housed the Point Theatre was built, but if it was the same one that was there in 1905 then, to accommodate banquets, the Opera House must have been one of those multi-purpose halls with a flat floor. It might later have been remodeled with a raked floor when it became a full-time movie house.
Palm Theatre was an earlier name for the Rialto itself. The Palm was listed at 405 E. Erie Street in The American Motion Picture Directory published in 1915. The Palm opened on February 6, 1911, according to the February 10 issue of The Des Moines Register.
kencmcintyre’s link is dead, and I don’t recall what was on it, but it might have been to this page of the City of Urbana’s web site.