An item in Boxoffice of October 2, 1948 mentioned George Hart as the manager of the Grand theatre in Knoxville, while another item in the same issue said that E. W. Kerr had recently been a guest of his manager George D. Hart while in Knoxville inspecting his theaters, so the Grand must have been run by Kerr Theatres at least as early as that year.
This item from Motion Picture News of May 8, 1926, says that the house that would become the Dickinson theatre was to be in an entirely new building in 1926, not just a remodeling of the old Novelty Theatre: “A new theatre will be constructed on the site of the present Novelty Theatre, Eighth Avenue and Quincy Street, Topeka, Kans., it is rumored, although the name of the prospective builder, or builders, has not been disclosed.”
Whether the house was entirely new in 1926 or not, this web page from the University of Kansas indicates that the Novelty originally opened in 1906 as the Aurora theater and was renamed the Novelty in 1909. The house was showing movies by 1914, and was listed in the American Motion Picture Directory that year. The new or remodeled house of 1926 operated as the Novelty until 1944, when it became the Dickinson.
A brief note of praise for the trade journal Motion Picture News, from “Ray Tuller, Mgr. and Owner, Palace theatre, Afton, Iowa” appeared in the magazine’s issue of July 3, 1920. That is the earliest, and almost only, mention of Afton I’ve been able to find in the trade journals.
I don’t know if the theater in this item from Motion Picture Herald of October 3, 1931 was an entirely new house or simply new to Mr. Wellemeyer. “B. A. WELLEMEYER has named his new theatre in Afton, Iowa, the Aftonia.”
Much later news from Afton is found in this item from Boxoffice January 22, 1962: “Closes Afton, Iowa, Paris
“AFTON, IOWA — After operating the Paris Theatre for nearly 17 years, L. J. Kessler has closed the theatre and sold the building to an oil company. The final screen program at the Paris was shown December 18, the equipment then being dismantled and removed from the building.”
The name Community Theatre was in use at New Market by early 1928, when a capsule movie review by the Community’s manager E. W. Lawrence appeared in the January 21 issue of Movie Age.
This item appeared in the January 6, 1932 issue of Motion Picture Herald: “J. F. MILLER has purchased the Community Theatre, New Market, Iowa, from Ed Lawrence. Miller hails from Knoxville.”
A D. B. Pace of the Isis Theatre in New Market was submitting reviews to Exhibitors Herald in September, 1926.
From The Show World, October 22, 1910: “L. P. Priessman, president of the Comet Amusement Company of Creston, Iowa, which operates houses at Red Oak, Alba and Creston, will open a new theater at Creston, November 7. All of the Comet houses are booked by the W. V. M. A..”
As the house at 211 W. Adams was in operation by 1907, the 1910 project must have been another theater, but I’ve been unable to determine which one. Perhaps it was the unidentified predecessor to the Uptown, just down the block from the Comet.
This fire-prone theater also burned in 1909, the December 11 issue of The Show World reporting $40,000 dollars damage to the Temple Grand Opera House at Creston the previous day. Only $13,000 was covered by insurance. Spontaneous combustion of boiler coal stored in the basement was blamed for the fire.
Could this theater, casually mentioned in the July 3, 1961 issue of Boxoffice, have something to do with the Hardin building?: “Wilbur Young of the Hardin Theatre at Bedford, Iowa, is spending his spare afternoons fishing….” A September 24, 1955 Boxoffice item had said that Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Young, operators of the Rialto Theatre at Bedford for several years, had leased the new Hardin Theatre, under construction there, and hoped to have it open by mid-October. If the Hardin building was built in front of the Rialto’s burnt-out carcass then that carcass probably housed the new theater.
An announcement of the opening of the new Hardin finally appeared in Boxoffice of November 19, but the exact date of the event was not mentioned. The Hardin was apparently still in operation in 1977, when it was mentioned in the August 5 issue of the Bedford Times-Press.
The Clark Theatre was mentioned in Exhibitors Herald of October 2, 1920, and the earliest mention of the Rialto I’ve found is in Motion Picture News November 7, 1925.
The building that was remodeled to house the Meigs Theatre was the Pomeroy Presbyterian church. Multiple sources say the theater was on East Main Street, but none say exactly where. Old photos show the front of the building was approached by a rather impressive stairway, and so the front had to have been set back some distance from Main Street.
One thing I find quite bizarre is that the Film Daily Year Books don’t list the Meigs until 1946, and then they list it with only 250 seats. There was definitely something screwy going on with that.
The official web site link for this closed theater is of course dead and can be taken down. The Colusa Theatre in Williams mentioned in the previous comment by MichaelKilgore is a different house, and shared this theater’s name because both towns are in Colusa County. It is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures, though the drive-in there is.
It turns out that the Temple Theatre at Villisca is mentioned in the May, 1911 issue of Motography, being operated by a Dr. F. M. Childs. To my mind (such as it is) that increases the odds that the Temple was the house at 305 S. 4th. That by June, 1919, an F. M. Childs of the Cozy (sometimes Kozy) Theatre in Villisca was providing capsule movie reviews to Exhibitors Herald And Motography is equally tantalizing.
One fly in the ointment (or perhaps in the popcorn butter) is this item in the Iowa column of the November, 1911 issue of Motography: “A moving picture theater has been opened at Villisca under the management of J. M. Drury, formerly of Storm Lake.” We can’t ignore the possibility that Mr. Drury’s nameless house was the one that occupied the crude premises at 305. I’d like to think that the Temple inhabited quarters more appropriate to its name, such as a substantial Masonic or Pythian lodge building, but if none such were available we might be stuck with that used furniture emporium, as Dr. Childs might have been.
The town was mistakenly listed as Villisea in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, when the only house listed was called the Temple Theatre. This house doesn’t seem very temple-like, but theater owners have seldom been without a capacity for hyperbole. It might have survived until 1914, maybe even longer. The 1926 FDY lists a house called the Cozy theatre, though it’s seating capacity (200) is not given until the 1929 edition. 305 S. 4th would certainly have been cozy….
It occurs to me that movies shown in a used furniture store would likely have plenty of seats available, some probably quite comfy, and there might even be a piano available. It would be a good way to pick up some extra income with minimal additional investment. If the movie business prospered enough you could phase out the furniture sales, and if it didn’t you still had your income from selling furniture. It’s not as goofy a business plan as it might seem at first glance.
This house was triplexed by Video Independent Theatres in 1980, opening as the Video Three Theatre on November 20, according to documents in the Griffith Amusement Company Collection at the Oklahoma Historical Society.
At various times over its long history, the Vaska Theatre was operated by Video Independent Theatres, Martin Theatres, and Carmike cinemas. It is now independently operated.
Here is a notice from the September 15, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World: “Lawton, Okla.—The Temple, a new moving picture theater here, has been formally opened to the public.”
Wait, it looks like I made a mistake. The Historical Society’s museum is at 304 Antique City Drive, across the street from the other old theater building. A Zillow page for the property at 203 has photos of a vacant retail space on the ground floor and loft apartment(s) upstairs. It’s been thoroughly modernized, showing no trace of having housed either a theatre or a lodge hall.
The local historical society’s museum now occupies this building, with some of it viewable on this web site (the pages can be rather sluggish, so you’ll need patience while they load.) I couldn’t find any details about the building itself there, but it appears to have been owned by the IOOF for a long time, with the theater only leased by a series of operators, which may account for why the other theater prevailed over this one in the end.
A history of this house and the rival theater in the old Opera house building is told on this Rootsweb page, though I think it might have at least one inaccuracy (see my longer comment on the page for the other theater, which was longest known as the Lyric.) The house at 303 Central was opened in 1913 as the Happy Hour Theatre, and continued operating off and on under that name until 1929 or 1930. By 1932 it was known as the Walnut Theatre, then became the New Dreamland Theatre in 1935. In 1936 it became the Pep Theatre, and in 1937 The Strand Theatre. During this long period it was listed in the FDY with 300 seats.
The Strand suffered a major fire on July 22, 1940 and was rebuilt, but with only 250 seats, and reopened on January 10, 1941 as the Walnut Theatre, its final name. After struggling a bit in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it closed permanently on May 1, 1954. The building was soon purchased and remodeled by Amvets, who have occupied it since.
This Rootsweb page has a history of Walnut’s theaters, and says that the old Opera House had presented movies off and on as the Lyric Theatre from 1909 until 1930, at which time a new owner renamed the house the Ritz. The page says nothing more about the Ritz, but has a fairly detailed history of the rival house (at 303 Central/Antique City Drive) which also operated off and on under various names, from 1913 until closing as the Walnut Theatre on May 1, 1954.
However (I really hate these “howevers” that crop up too often) I’m not sure the history on the page is entirely accurate, as it contradicts certain information from the FDY. Most notably, the 1931 FDY lists both the Lyric and the Ritz, each with 300 seats, though the Lyric is listed as silent. Only the Ritz is listed in 1932, and in 1933 only the Walnut Theatre, which is what the history says the rival house (originally called the Happy Hour) was renamed in 1931, is listed.
This makes me wonder if it was the rival house that was renamed Ritz in 1930, and the Lyric simply closed as a silent house sometime in 1931. A pair of items from Film Daily itself don’t help to clear it up, but do suggest that the Lyric and Ritz were two different theaters. The June 14, 1930 issue said this: “Walnut, Iowa—The Lyric has been purchased by Mr. Max W. Shoemaker. O. C. Johnson was the former owner.” Then the June 19 issue had this item: “Walnut, Ia.—O. C. Johnson has sold the Ritz to Max W. Shoemaker of Sterling, Neb.” The history page doesn’t mention either O. C. Johnson or Max Shoemaker, but only says that “[t]he Lyric sold in February, 1930 to Royal Duke of Sioux City and the name changed to the Ritz Theatre.”
The FDY was not always reliable, but I’ve found local histories are often suspect as well, especially those written long after the events they record. In any case, if the Lyric did become the Ritz in 1930 it appears to have closed for good in 1931 anyway.
This web page has some historic photos of Avoca, though the slide show doesn’t work as advertised (you can’t pause it, at least not with my browser.) Below the slide show are thumbnails of the photos with captions, but only some of the thumbnails can be clicked and enlarged. The first photo is of the Harris Theatre, and the caption mentions a few names connected with the house.
This May, 2023 article from the web site of The Daily Nonpariel tells of the acquisition of the Legion Hall by the City of Avoca and plans for restoring and renovating the building as a community center under the auspices of the Avoca Main Street preservation group. The Legion will continue to oversee daily operations of the center. The page has a period photo of the theater promoting two 1942 releases on the marquee.
An item in Boxoffice of October 2, 1948 mentioned George Hart as the manager of the Grand theatre in Knoxville, while another item in the same issue said that E. W. Kerr had recently been a guest of his manager George D. Hart while in Knoxville inspecting his theaters, so the Grand must have been run by Kerr Theatres at least as early as that year.
This item from Motion Picture News of May 8, 1926, says that the house that would become the Dickinson theatre was to be in an entirely new building in 1926, not just a remodeling of the old Novelty Theatre: “A new theatre will be constructed on the site of the present Novelty Theatre, Eighth Avenue and Quincy Street, Topeka, Kans., it is rumored, although the name of the prospective builder, or builders, has not been disclosed.”
Whether the house was entirely new in 1926 or not, this web page from the University of Kansas indicates that the Novelty originally opened in 1906 as the Aurora theater and was renamed the Novelty in 1909. The house was showing movies by 1914, and was listed in the American Motion Picture Directory that year. The new or remodeled house of 1926 operated as the Novelty until 1944, when it became the Dickinson.
A brief note of praise for the trade journal Motion Picture News, from “Ray Tuller, Mgr. and Owner, Palace theatre, Afton, Iowa” appeared in the magazine’s issue of July 3, 1920. That is the earliest, and almost only, mention of Afton I’ve been able to find in the trade journals.
I don’t know if the theater in this item from Motion Picture Herald of October 3, 1931 was an entirely new house or simply new to Mr. Wellemeyer. “B. A. WELLEMEYER has named his new theatre in Afton, Iowa, the Aftonia.”
Much later news from Afton is found in this item from Boxoffice January 22, 1962: “Closes Afton, Iowa, Paris
“AFTON, IOWA — After operating the Paris Theatre for nearly 17 years, L. J. Kessler has closed the theatre and sold the building to an oil company. The final screen program at the Paris was shown December 18, the equipment then being dismantled and removed from the building.”
The July 12, 1931 Film Daily mentioned this house: “Mt. Ayr, Ia.— Will H. Eddy has purchased his second theater, the Princess here.”
The name Community Theatre was in use at New Market by early 1928, when a capsule movie review by the Community’s manager E. W. Lawrence appeared in the January 21 issue of Movie Age.
This item appeared in the January 6, 1932 issue of Motion Picture Herald: “J. F. MILLER has purchased the Community Theatre, New Market, Iowa, from Ed Lawrence. Miller hails from Knoxville.”
A D. B. Pace of the Isis Theatre in New Market was submitting reviews to Exhibitors Herald in September, 1926.
From The Show World, October 22, 1910: “L. P. Priessman, president of the Comet Amusement Company of Creston, Iowa, which operates houses at Red Oak, Alba and Creston, will open a new theater at Creston, November 7. All of the Comet houses are booked by the W. V. M. A..”
As the house at 211 W. Adams was in operation by 1907, the 1910 project must have been another theater, but I’ve been unable to determine which one. Perhaps it was the unidentified predecessor to the Uptown, just down the block from the Comet.
This fire-prone theater also burned in 1909, the December 11 issue of The Show World reporting $40,000 dollars damage to the Temple Grand Opera House at Creston the previous day. Only $13,000 was covered by insurance. Spontaneous combustion of boiler coal stored in the basement was blamed for the fire.
The Hardin theatre was in operation at least as late as 1977, when it was mentioned in the August 5 issue of the Bedford Times-Press.
There are photos on Facebook and it was pretty much nothing but rubble after the fire.
Could this theater, casually mentioned in the July 3, 1961 issue of Boxoffice, have something to do with the Hardin building?: “Wilbur Young of the Hardin Theatre at Bedford, Iowa, is spending his spare afternoons fishing….” A September 24, 1955 Boxoffice item had said that Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Young, operators of the Rialto Theatre at Bedford for several years, had leased the new Hardin Theatre, under construction there, and hoped to have it open by mid-October. If the Hardin building was built in front of the Rialto’s burnt-out carcass then that carcass probably housed the new theater.
An announcement of the opening of the new Hardin finally appeared in Boxoffice of November 19, but the exact date of the event was not mentioned. The Hardin was apparently still in operation in 1977, when it was mentioned in the August 5 issue of the Bedford Times-Press.
The Clark Theatre was mentioned in Exhibitors Herald of October 2, 1920, and the earliest mention of the Rialto I’ve found is in Motion Picture News November 7, 1925.
The building that was remodeled to house the Meigs Theatre was the Pomeroy Presbyterian church. Multiple sources say the theater was on East Main Street, but none say exactly where. Old photos show the front of the building was approached by a rather impressive stairway, and so the front had to have been set back some distance from Main Street.
One thing I find quite bizarre is that the Film Daily Year Books don’t list the Meigs until 1946, and then they list it with only 250 seats. There was definitely something screwy going on with that.
The official web site link for this closed theater is of course dead and can be taken down. The Colusa Theatre in Williams mentioned in the previous comment by MichaelKilgore is a different house, and shared this theater’s name because both towns are in Colusa County. It is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures, though the drive-in there is.
It turns out that the Temple Theatre at Villisca is mentioned in the May, 1911 issue of Motography, being operated by a Dr. F. M. Childs. To my mind (such as it is) that increases the odds that the Temple was the house at 305 S. 4th. That by June, 1919, an F. M. Childs of the Cozy (sometimes Kozy) Theatre in Villisca was providing capsule movie reviews to Exhibitors Herald And Motography is equally tantalizing.
One fly in the ointment (or perhaps in the popcorn butter) is this item in the Iowa column of the November, 1911 issue of Motography: “A moving picture theater has been opened at Villisca under the management of J. M. Drury, formerly of Storm Lake.” We can’t ignore the possibility that Mr. Drury’s nameless house was the one that occupied the crude premises at 305. I’d like to think that the Temple inhabited quarters more appropriate to its name, such as a substantial Masonic or Pythian lodge building, but if none such were available we might be stuck with that used furniture emporium, as Dr. Childs might have been.
The town was mistakenly listed as Villisea in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, when the only house listed was called the Temple Theatre. This house doesn’t seem very temple-like, but theater owners have seldom been without a capacity for hyperbole. It might have survived until 1914, maybe even longer. The 1926 FDY lists a house called the Cozy theatre, though it’s seating capacity (200) is not given until the 1929 edition. 305 S. 4th would certainly have been cozy….
It occurs to me that movies shown in a used furniture store would likely have plenty of seats available, some probably quite comfy, and there might even be a piano available. It would be a good way to pick up some extra income with minimal additional investment. If the movie business prospered enough you could phase out the furniture sales, and if it didn’t you still had your income from selling furniture. It’s not as goofy a business plan as it might seem at first glance.
This house was triplexed by Video Independent Theatres in 1980, opening as the Video Three Theatre on November 20, according to documents in the Griffith Amusement Company Collection at the Oklahoma Historical Society.
At various times over its long history, the Vaska Theatre was operated by Video Independent Theatres, Martin Theatres, and Carmike cinemas. It is now independently operated.
Here is the official web site. The “About” section has a few interior photos of the auditoriums.
By 1965, the Lawton Theatre was operated by the Video Independent chain. August 4, 1976 was the last show at the house.
By 1963 the Diana Theatre was part of the Griffith/Video Independent Theatres chain.
Here is a notice from the September 15, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World: “Lawton, Okla.—The Temple, a new moving picture theater here, has been formally opened to the public.”
Wait, it looks like I made a mistake. The Historical Society’s museum is at 304 Antique City Drive, across the street from the other old theater building. A Zillow page for the property at 203 has photos of a vacant retail space on the ground floor and loft apartment(s) upstairs. It’s been thoroughly modernized, showing no trace of having housed either a theatre or a lodge hall.
The local historical society’s museum now occupies this building, with some of it viewable on this web site (the pages can be rather sluggish, so you’ll need patience while they load.) I couldn’t find any details about the building itself there, but it appears to have been owned by the IOOF for a long time, with the theater only leased by a series of operators, which may account for why the other theater prevailed over this one in the end.
A history of this house and the rival theater in the old Opera house building is told on this Rootsweb page, though I think it might have at least one inaccuracy (see my longer comment on the page for the other theater, which was longest known as the Lyric.) The house at 303 Central was opened in 1913 as the Happy Hour Theatre, and continued operating off and on under that name until 1929 or 1930. By 1932 it was known as the Walnut Theatre, then became the New Dreamland Theatre in 1935. In 1936 it became the Pep Theatre, and in 1937 The Strand Theatre. During this long period it was listed in the FDY with 300 seats.
The Strand suffered a major fire on July 22, 1940 and was rebuilt, but with only 250 seats, and reopened on January 10, 1941 as the Walnut Theatre, its final name. After struggling a bit in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it closed permanently on May 1, 1954. The building was soon purchased and remodeled by Amvets, who have occupied it since.
This Rootsweb page has a history of Walnut’s theaters, and says that the old Opera House had presented movies off and on as the Lyric Theatre from 1909 until 1930, at which time a new owner renamed the house the Ritz. The page says nothing more about the Ritz, but has a fairly detailed history of the rival house (at 303 Central/Antique City Drive) which also operated off and on under various names, from 1913 until closing as the Walnut Theatre on May 1, 1954.
However (I really hate these “howevers” that crop up too often) I’m not sure the history on the page is entirely accurate, as it contradicts certain information from the FDY. Most notably, the 1931 FDY lists both the Lyric and the Ritz, each with 300 seats, though the Lyric is listed as silent. Only the Ritz is listed in 1932, and in 1933 only the Walnut Theatre, which is what the history says the rival house (originally called the Happy Hour) was renamed in 1931, is listed.
This makes me wonder if it was the rival house that was renamed Ritz in 1930, and the Lyric simply closed as a silent house sometime in 1931. A pair of items from Film Daily itself don’t help to clear it up, but do suggest that the Lyric and Ritz were two different theaters. The June 14, 1930 issue said this: “Walnut, Iowa—The Lyric has been purchased by Mr. Max W. Shoemaker. O. C. Johnson was the former owner.” Then the June 19 issue had this item: “Walnut, Ia.—O. C. Johnson has sold the Ritz to Max W. Shoemaker of Sterling, Neb.” The history page doesn’t mention either O. C. Johnson or Max Shoemaker, but only says that “[t]he Lyric sold in February, 1930 to Royal Duke of Sioux City and the name changed to the Ritz Theatre.”
The FDY was not always reliable, but I’ve found local histories are often suspect as well, especially those written long after the events they record. In any case, if the Lyric did become the Ritz in 1930 it appears to have closed for good in 1931 anyway.
This web page has some historic photos of Avoca, though the slide show doesn’t work as advertised (you can’t pause it, at least not with my browser.) Below the slide show are thumbnails of the photos with captions, but only some of the thumbnails can be clicked and enlarged. The first photo is of the Harris Theatre, and the caption mentions a few names connected with the house.
This May, 2023 article from the web site of The Daily Nonpariel tells of the acquisition of the Legion Hall by the City of Avoca and plans for restoring and renovating the building as a community center under the auspices of the Avoca Main Street preservation group. The Legion will continue to oversee daily operations of the center. The page has a period photo of the theater promoting two 1942 releases on the marquee.