The town of Jewell spells its name with a double “l” at the end. In early publications it is sometimes referred to as Jewell Junction.
Here is evidence of an earlier theater in Jewell, which might or might not have become the Strand: the October 14, 1916, issue of Motography mentions the Isis Theatre, which had just been purchased by George Peterson, manager of the Grand Theatre at Story City. An item in the December 9 issue of the same publication said that Peterson had bought a lot where he intended to erect a new building for the Isis.
The Strand was almost certainly located on the two block stretch of Main Street between Carmichael Street and Edwards Street that contains virtually all of Jewell’s old business district. Of all the buildings on the street, the one that looks most like it might have been a theater at one time is the one at 712 Main, which houses the Axis Lanes bowling alley. This building housed a bowling alley by the 1960s, and though later long abandoned it was renovated and reopened a few years ago. The building looks to date from the 1910s, which is when the Strand would have been built if it was originally the Isis Theatre.
Linkrot re-re-repair: The July 8, 1963, Boxoffice page with photos of the recently remodeled Belcourt Theatre is now at this link on the magazine’s web site.
The furniture showroom is apparently gone. Here is the web site of the Area Stage Company, the live theater group founded in 1989 which moved into the Riviera Theatre in 2008. They still call the venue the Riviera Theatre and still use the theater’s original address.
I’m wondering if we have conflated two different theaters on this page. A 1955 photo of the Horstman Theatre appears on this web page and shows a building that is still standing, though missing its top floor, and it is next door to the address 105 W. Yoakum Avenue, which is occupied by a cafe called Sandy’s Toddle Inn. The Horstman Theatre’s address must have been 107 W. Yoakum.
The caption of the photo says that this house was called the Chaffee Pullman Theatre when it was bought by Charles Horstman in 1921. He renamed it the Horstman Theatre in 1931. These dates are also noted in the 2009 obituary of Bernice Montgomery, Charles Horstman’s daughter. The caption also says the Horstman Theatre operated into the early 1960s.
The description of the Empress Theatre I found and cited in my previous comment described a three-story building, and the Pullman/Horstman was in a two story building. We also got the address 105 Yoakum somewhere, although that isn’t the current address of the building the Horstman was in. I’m thinking it’s possible that the Empress/Paramount and Pullman/Horstman might have been two different theaters that were next door to each other, at 105 and 107 Yoakum.
The site prefers the terms vertical or upright in the description when you submit a new theater, but I doubt if there is a moderator who is going to go through all the comments on the site and give demerits to anyone who has used the term blade in them.
kkdeda: Thanks for providing us with the correct spelling of the name McGhie. With that information I’ve been able to find quite a few references to the McGhie (or McGhie’s) Theatre, including one that reveals that it was designed by Carl Boller. As the project was designed in 1904, it was one of Boller’s earliest theater projects. This item is from the July 2 issue of The Columbus Weekly Advocate:
“Carl Boler [sic], the theater architect of St. Joseph, Mo., was here Monday with completed plans for McGhie’s new opera house, which were entirely acceptable to Mr. McGhie, and Mr. Boler will now go ahead with the specifications, so that contractors may bid on the work. Mr. McGhie has 125 seats for sale yet for the opening night, which must be sold to insure the immediate beginning of the work. A first-class opera house would be a good thing for the town and the town must in a small degree help Mr. McGhie to assure its success.”
The Weekly Advocate of December 1, 1904, reported that the formal opening of McGhie’s New Theatre had been a great success. It didn’t give the exact date of the late November event.
George K. Jorgensen (the most common spelling of his surname in the trade publications) was mentioned in quite a few items in the trades of the 1910s. He had control of several theaters. This item is from the May 25, 1912, issue of The Moving Picture News:
“Confirmation of recent rumors of a consolidation among the moving picture shows in Galveston came Monday, April 22d, with an announcement of Geo. K. Jorgensen, proprietor of the Crystal Vaudeville, Crystal-Majestic Vaudeville and Crystal moving picture shows here, as well as the Crystal theatres in other cities. The announcement of Mr. Jorgensen was co-incident with the dispatch announcing that at Austin there had been granted the charter of the Galveston Theatre Company of Galveston with a capital stock of $15,000. The incorporators of the new corporation are G. K. Jorgensen, I. A. Walker and A. L. Scudder.
“The moving picture shows taken in by the new corporation, Mr. Jorgensen announced, are the Casino, the Vaudette and the Leader, which have been purchased from the interests represented by E. H. Hulsey. The earnest money has been paid down and the deal is to be formally closed at once.”
Another interesting item appears in Motography of June 3, 1916:
“G.K. Jorgensen is building a new theater at Galveston, to be known as the New Crystal Palace. The new house will cost about $6,000.”
David Welling’s Cinema Houston: From Nickelodeon to Megaplex says that Jorgensen, who had previously toured fairs and carnivals with his own projector and collection of films, opened his first nickelodeon in a rented storefront at 410 Main Street in Houston on January 1, 1907. He sold the enterprise at a profit one month later and moved to Galveston where he opened the first Crystal Theatre with an investment of $180.
The new Avalon Theatre opened in 1955. The source for this and the information in the previous comment is a timeline of Ava’s history that was published in the 2009 Chamber of Commerce Community Guide (large PDF here.)
This house was never called the Wilson Theatre. The Wilson was located on the east side of the town square, opened in 1925, and was renamed the Avalon Theatre in 1939, after being rebuilt following a 1938 fire. I haven’t found the year of opening for the new Avalon Theatre, but it was probably when the old house on the square closed, which was 1954.
The Avalon Theatre closed in 1972, though it was reopened for a few months in 1986. In 1995 the Pettits sold the Avalon, and it reopened on March 31 as the Ava Live Theatre. By 1999 it was apparently showing movies again, though live music was also presented sometimes. I haven’t found in which year it was renamed the Ava Family Theatre.
A timeline of Ava’s history that was published in the 2009 Chamber of Commerce Community Guide (large PDF here) gives additional information about this theater. It suffered a major fire in 1938, and was rebuilt and reopened the following year and renamed the Avalon. It closed in 1954.
A timeline of Ava’s history that was published in the 2009 Chamber of Commerce Community Guide (large PDF here) says that the Star Theatre opened in 1943, but also says that it was located one half block north of the northeast corner of the town square. If that’s correct then it must have been on NE 2nd Street, not Washington Avenue. It was operated by the Pettits, who also had the Avalon Theatre.
An article in the May, 1997, issue of the Douglas County Historical Society Journal (PDF here) says that the Wilson Theatre, located on the east side of the square, opened in 1925 and was originally operated by Henry S. Wilson and L. H. Pettit. A 1935 Sanborn map shows the theater in the second building south of Washington Street, which is currently occupied by a furniture store on the ground floor and the Ava Martial Arts Academy upstairs. The theater had a balcony.
Here’s an item from the November 7, 1939, issue of The Portsmouth Herald:
“Blaze At Farmington, Me. Farmington, Me.. Nov. 17 (AP)-Despite a strong wind, firemen prevented the spread of a fire early today that left the Music Hall block in the center of Farmington virtually a brick shell. Loss was estimated by Fire Chief Victor Huart at $25,000. The slate-roofed building on Broadway contained a vacant theater over a chain grocery and Mrs. Erland Hardy’s restaurant.”
The History Press is part of the Arcadia Publishing Company, which publishes mostly books of vintage photos with a little bit of text to pad them out. In my experience, most of their books do have at least a few inaccuracies, and some of them have many, and there are probably many more errors that I didn’t even notice.
Between them the two divisions of the company publish about 900 books a year, and their primary focus is not history but nostalgia, for which there is huge market. I don’t think their books will ever provide the degree of historical accuracy that one would expect from, say, a University press, though some are clearly better researched than others. Still, the pictures are nice to have, so I’m glad the company is publishing them.
The Cinema Data Project lists three theaters for Lisbon, Maine, the Lisbon, the Empress, operating around 1922-1923, and the Nordica Central, open by 1921 and operated by Famous Players in 1928 and 1929. It’s possible that the Lisbon was one or the other of the two earlier houses remodeled and renamed.
Various sources indicate that an 800-seat house called the Pecos Theatre opened at Fort Stockton in 1941. Small photos of the Pecos in high school yearbook ads show a two-story building with a streamline modern front. An article in the January 22, 1942, issue of the El Paso Herald-Post said that the Pecos Theatre had been the most expensive building project in Fort Stockton in 1941, with a construction cost of $13,500. As that seems a bit small for an entirely new building of that size in 1941, I suspect that the 800-seat Pecos was in fact a rebuild of the 800-seat Grand in the old theater’s shell. The Pecos operated until it, too, was destroyed by a fire in early January, 1976.
This early notice which was probably about the project that became the Grand Theatre appeared in The Moving Picture World of March 11, 1916:
“Fort Stockton, Tex.—Edwin and Arthur Hoefs of Pecos have closed a deal with H. H. Butz and James Rooney for a 40-foot front lot in Fort Stockton, on which they will erect at once an up-to-date opera house.”
The project was also noted in the April 22 issue of Music Trade Review, though that publication described it more modestly (and more accurately) as a motion picture theater costing $6,000.
The Cincinnati architectural firm of Rapp, Zettel & Rapp operated from 1903 through 1912. The principals were George W. Rapp (not to be confused with Chicago architect George W. L. Rapp), his son Walter L. Rapp, and partner John Zettel. Among the firm’s projects was a 1909 factory for the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company at Tonawanda, New York. From 1913 to 1930, the firm became Rapp & Zettel, and from 1931 until Walter Rapp’s retirement in 1958, Rapp & Meacham.
An early notice about plans for the house that became the Ritz appeared in the May 1, 1926, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Valdosta, Ga. to Have Fine Theatre in Venetian Motif
“THEY don’t call it ‘the sleepy South’ A any more, and Valdosta, Georgia, is right up where the wide-awakes belong when it comes to progressiveness — and so is the E. J. Sparks Enterprises with offices in Jacksonville, Florida.
“The two got together this way : E. J. Sparks knows theatre opportunities, Valdosta likes entertainment backed up by a perfectly equipped entertainment place.
“So E. J. Sparks had plans drawn by Roy A. Benjamin, architect, of Jacksonville, Florida, for a Venetian style theatre to seat 1,200 people on the main floor, without balcony.
“The theatre will be located at the corner of Paterson and South Jackson Avenues, Valdosta, and will be one of the finest theatres on the Atlantic seaboard.”
There does not appear to be a Jackson Avenue in Valdosta today. Perhaps it was an earlier name for Valley Street. The architecture of the facade of the Ritz definitely drew its inspiration from Venice, though, as can be seen by the row of windows on the second floor, and the ornate cornice and parapet.
Three photos of the Ritz, including one interior shot and one taken at the time of its demolition can be seen on this page at Facebook.
A house called the Imperial Theatre was expected to open in Jacksonville on May 20, 1911, according to an article on this page of the issue of The Moving Picture World dated June 3 that year. As no address was given for the theater I don’t know that it was the same Imperial. It was smaller, seating only 700, and was designed by local architect James R. Walsh.
It’s possible that it was the same Imperial Theatre, and it was later expanded. The description of the front in the 1911 article doesn’t match the vintage photo of the facade we have, though, so any remodeling would have been quite extensive. The May 27, 1916, issue of Motography said that improvements would be made to the Imperial Theatre, but gave no details about the project. At least some alterations were carried out at that time, as the January 1, 1917, issue of American Gas Engineering Journal said that the Jacksonville Gas Company had installed a modern heating system in the new Imperial Theatre.
An article in the March 15, 1907, issue of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette said that the LaGrange Opera House had been closed and put up for sale. The article describes the house as “…a fairly good brick structure, at corner of Detroit and Michigan Streets….” which had been built about eighteen years earlier. The auditorium was on the ground floor and there was also a gallery, the total seating capacity being about 1,000. Another article later that year said the house was being renovated and that boxes would be added.
The other two buildings at that intersection, both quite old, don’t fit the theater’s description, and the fourth corner is part of the Courthouse square, so the Opera House was on the same site, and probably in the same building, that later became the Wigton Theatre.
The town of Jewell spells its name with a double “l” at the end. In early publications it is sometimes referred to as Jewell Junction.
Here is evidence of an earlier theater in Jewell, which might or might not have become the Strand: the October 14, 1916, issue of Motography mentions the Isis Theatre, which had just been purchased by George Peterson, manager of the Grand Theatre at Story City. An item in the December 9 issue of the same publication said that Peterson had bought a lot where he intended to erect a new building for the Isis.
The Strand was almost certainly located on the two block stretch of Main Street between Carmichael Street and Edwards Street that contains virtually all of Jewell’s old business district. Of all the buildings on the street, the one that looks most like it might have been a theater at one time is the one at 712 Main, which houses the Axis Lanes bowling alley. This building housed a bowling alley by the 1960s, and though later long abandoned it was renovated and reopened a few years ago. The building looks to date from the 1910s, which is when the Strand would have been built if it was originally the Isis Theatre.
Linkrot re-re-repair: The July 8, 1963, Boxoffice page with photos of the recently remodeled Belcourt Theatre is now at this link on the magazine’s web site.
The furniture showroom is apparently gone. Here is the web site of the Area Stage Company, the live theater group founded in 1989 which moved into the Riviera Theatre in 2008. They still call the venue the Riviera Theatre and still use the theater’s original address.
I’m wondering if we have conflated two different theaters on this page. A 1955 photo of the Horstman Theatre appears on this web page and shows a building that is still standing, though missing its top floor, and it is next door to the address 105 W. Yoakum Avenue, which is occupied by a cafe called Sandy’s Toddle Inn. The Horstman Theatre’s address must have been 107 W. Yoakum.
The caption of the photo says that this house was called the Chaffee Pullman Theatre when it was bought by Charles Horstman in 1921. He renamed it the Horstman Theatre in 1931. These dates are also noted in the 2009 obituary of Bernice Montgomery, Charles Horstman’s daughter. The caption also says the Horstman Theatre operated into the early 1960s.
The description of the Empress Theatre I found and cited in my previous comment described a three-story building, and the Pullman/Horstman was in a two story building. We also got the address 105 Yoakum somewhere, although that isn’t the current address of the building the Horstman was in. I’m thinking it’s possible that the Empress/Paramount and Pullman/Horstman might have been two different theaters that were next door to each other, at 105 and 107 Yoakum.
The site prefers the terms vertical or upright in the description when you submit a new theater, but I doubt if there is a moderator who is going to go through all the comments on the site and give demerits to anyone who has used the term blade in them.
Architect Beelman spelled his first name in the English style, without an “e” on the end: Claud.
kkdeda: Thanks for providing us with the correct spelling of the name McGhie. With that information I’ve been able to find quite a few references to the McGhie (or McGhie’s) Theatre, including one that reveals that it was designed by Carl Boller. As the project was designed in 1904, it was one of Boller’s earliest theater projects. This item is from the July 2 issue of The Columbus Weekly Advocate:
The Weekly Advocate of December 1, 1904, reported that the formal opening of McGhie’s New Theatre had been a great success. It didn’t give the exact date of the late November event.George K. Jorgensen (the most common spelling of his surname in the trade publications) was mentioned in quite a few items in the trades of the 1910s. He had control of several theaters. This item is from the May 25, 1912, issue of The Moving Picture News:
Another interesting item appears in Motography of June 3, 1916:David Welling’s Cinema Houston: From Nickelodeon to Megaplex says that Jorgensen, who had previously toured fairs and carnivals with his own projector and collection of films, opened his first nickelodeon in a rented storefront at 410 Main Street in Houston on January 1, 1907. He sold the enterprise at a profit one month later and moved to Galveston where he opened the first Crystal Theatre with an investment of $180.Thanks for the clarification, Anthoney.
The new Avalon Theatre opened in 1955. The source for this and the information in the previous comment is a timeline of Ava’s history that was published in the 2009 Chamber of Commerce Community Guide (large PDF here.)
This house was never called the Wilson Theatre. The Wilson was located on the east side of the town square, opened in 1925, and was renamed the Avalon Theatre in 1939, after being rebuilt following a 1938 fire. I haven’t found the year of opening for the new Avalon Theatre, but it was probably when the old house on the square closed, which was 1954.
The Avalon Theatre closed in 1972, though it was reopened for a few months in 1986. In 1995 the Pettits sold the Avalon, and it reopened on March 31 as the Ava Live Theatre. By 1999 it was apparently showing movies again, though live music was also presented sometimes. I haven’t found in which year it was renamed the Ava Family Theatre.
A timeline of Ava’s history that was published in the 2009 Chamber of Commerce Community Guide (large PDF here) gives additional information about this theater. It suffered a major fire in 1938, and was rebuilt and reopened the following year and renamed the Avalon. It closed in 1954.
A timeline of Ava’s history that was published in the 2009 Chamber of Commerce Community Guide (large PDF here) says that the Star Theatre opened in 1943, but also says that it was located one half block north of the northeast corner of the town square. If that’s correct then it must have been on NE 2nd Street, not Washington Avenue. It was operated by the Pettits, who also had the Avalon Theatre.
An article in the May, 1997, issue of the Douglas County Historical Society Journal (PDF here) says that the Wilson Theatre, located on the east side of the square, opened in 1925 and was originally operated by Henry S. Wilson and L. H. Pettit. A 1935 Sanborn map shows the theater in the second building south of Washington Street, which is currently occupied by a furniture store on the ground floor and the Ava Martial Arts Academy upstairs. The theater had a balcony.
Here’s an item from the November 7, 1939, issue of The Portsmouth Herald:
Also, here’s some link rot re-repair:
Main floor lounge of the University Theatre as depicted on the cover of the July 2, 1949, issue of Boxoffice.
The illustrated article about the University in the “Modern Theatre” section of the same issue:
first page
second page
The History Press is part of the Arcadia Publishing Company, which publishes mostly books of vintage photos with a little bit of text to pad them out. In my experience, most of their books do have at least a few inaccuracies, and some of them have many, and there are probably many more errors that I didn’t even notice.
Between them the two divisions of the company publish about 900 books a year, and their primary focus is not history but nostalgia, for which there is huge market. I don’t think their books will ever provide the degree of historical accuracy that one would expect from, say, a University press, though some are clearly better researched than others. Still, the pictures are nice to have, so I’m glad the company is publishing them.
The Cinema Data Project lists three theaters for Lisbon, Maine, the Lisbon, the Empress, operating around 1922-1923, and the Nordica Central, open by 1921 and operated by Famous Players in 1928 and 1929. It’s possible that the Lisbon was one or the other of the two earlier houses remodeled and renamed.
Various sources indicate that an 800-seat house called the Pecos Theatre opened at Fort Stockton in 1941. Small photos of the Pecos in high school yearbook ads show a two-story building with a streamline modern front. An article in the January 22, 1942, issue of the El Paso Herald-Post said that the Pecos Theatre had been the most expensive building project in Fort Stockton in 1941, with a construction cost of $13,500. As that seems a bit small for an entirely new building of that size in 1941, I suspect that the 800-seat Pecos was in fact a rebuild of the 800-seat Grand in the old theater’s shell. The Pecos operated until it, too, was destroyed by a fire in early January, 1976.
This early notice which was probably about the project that became the Grand Theatre appeared in The Moving Picture World of March 11, 1916:
The project was also noted in the April 22 issue of Music Trade Review, though that publication described it more modestly (and more accurately) as a motion picture theater costing $6,000.The Cincinnati architectural firm of Rapp, Zettel & Rapp operated from 1903 through 1912. The principals were George W. Rapp (not to be confused with Chicago architect George W. L. Rapp), his son Walter L. Rapp, and partner John Zettel. Among the firm’s projects was a 1909 factory for the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company at Tonawanda, New York. From 1913 to 1930, the firm became Rapp & Zettel, and from 1931 until Walter Rapp’s retirement in 1958, Rapp & Meacham.
An early notice about plans for the house that became the Ritz appeared in the May 1, 1926, issue of The Moving Picture World:
There does not appear to be a Jackson Avenue in Valdosta today. Perhaps it was an earlier name for Valley Street. The architecture of the facade of the Ritz definitely drew its inspiration from Venice, though, as can be seen by the row of windows on the second floor, and the ornate cornice and parapet.Three photos of the Ritz, including one interior shot and one taken at the time of its demolition can be seen on this page at Facebook.
A house called the Imperial Theatre was expected to open in Jacksonville on May 20, 1911, according to an article on this page of the issue of The Moving Picture World dated June 3 that year. As no address was given for the theater I don’t know that it was the same Imperial. It was smaller, seating only 700, and was designed by local architect James R. Walsh.
It’s possible that it was the same Imperial Theatre, and it was later expanded. The description of the front in the 1911 article doesn’t match the vintage photo of the facade we have, though, so any remodeling would have been quite extensive. The May 27, 1916, issue of Motography said that improvements would be made to the Imperial Theatre, but gave no details about the project. At least some alterations were carried out at that time, as the January 1, 1917, issue of American Gas Engineering Journal said that the Jacksonville Gas Company had installed a modern heating system in the new Imperial Theatre.
The May 20, 1911, issue of Moving Picture World said that the Majestic Theatre, 329 Brady Street, Davenport, had recently opened.
An article in the March 15, 1907, issue of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette said that the LaGrange Opera House had been closed and put up for sale. The article describes the house as “…a fairly good brick structure, at corner of Detroit and Michigan Streets….” which had been built about eighteen years earlier. The auditorium was on the ground floor and there was also a gallery, the total seating capacity being about 1,000. Another article later that year said the house was being renovated and that boxes would be added.
The other two buildings at that intersection, both quite old, don’t fit the theater’s description, and the fourth corner is part of the Courthouse square, so the Opera House was on the same site, and probably in the same building, that later became the Wigton Theatre.