The Lyric Theatre was originally operated by Louis Mitchell, who had earlier operated the Amuzu Theatre. A brief article about Mitchell (including a photo that I would presume is of him) and a large ad for the Lyric can both be found on page 8 of the March 19, 1936, issue of The Elkin Tribune (PDF here.) By the late 1940s the Lyric and the State Theatre, which Mitchell began building in late 1940, had been taken over by rival theater operator W. B. Reeves.
This item from the October 30, 1940, issue of The Elkin Tribune must be about the State Theatre:
“MITCHELL IS TO BUILD THEATRE
“Work Begun on Large, Modern Structure on Church Street
“IS TO SEAT ABOUT 900
“Construction work here was given another boost Monday with the announcement by Louis Mitchell, proprietor of the Lyric theatre, that construction has already begun upon a new and modern theatre upon the lot on Church street located just to the rear of Turner Drug Co. Mr. Mitchell Stated that the new theatre would seat, when completed, approximately 900 persons, and that it would be thoroughly modern and up-to-date in every way. He stated that the building is being erected by O. L. Brown, local contractor. Size of the building will be approximately 50x90 feet, it was said.”
The same article also noted that Dr. W. B. Reeves, operator of the Elk Theatre, expected to soon begin construction of a new theater on West Main Street. This was the house that opened in 1941 as the Reeves Theatre. By the late 1940s, Reeves would also have taken over operation of Mitchell’s Lyric and State Theatres.
The NRHP nomination form for the Downtown Elkin Historic District (PDF here) has a paragraph about the Reeves Theatre. It says that Dr. W. B. Reeves built the 300-seat Elk Theatre in 1937, and built the 700-seat Reeves Theatre in 1941 after realizing that the town could support a larger house. It doesn’t say that the Elk Theatre was on the same site as the Reeves, but doesn’t say it wasn’t. It’s possible that part of the original theater was incorporated into the new house.
This article from the July 2, 2012, issue of The Winston-Salem Journal says that the Reeves Theatre had been entirely gutted in preparation for a renovation as a performing arts space. Even the balcony had been removed. The Elk Twin had closed in 1994, after a storm damaged the roof.
A video and a collection of 19 photos accompany the article. Most of the photos show the abandoned building before it was gutted, but a few are after. One after photo shows that the original art modern facade has also been stripped off of the building, leaving bare brick, though the marquee is still intact.
An article about flooding at Rosiclare in the January 30, 1950, issue of the Harrisburg, Illinois Daily Register said that seats, carpet, concession stand, and other equipment in the Capitol Theatre had been moved into the balcony to protect it from the rising water of the Ohio River.
There’s a small photo of the Capitol Theatre on this web page. The text says that the Capitol was owned by a Walter Dimick. That makes it likely that the Capitol was the house being built for Dimick at Rosiclare in 1919, as noted in this item from the July 5 issue of The American Contractor:
“Theater & Store Bldg.: $15,000. 48xl07. Rosiclare, Ill. Archts. Geo. H. Kennerly & Steigmeyer, 505 Benoist bldg., St. Louis. Owner W. B. Dimick, Rosiclaie. Owner taking bids.”
The Capitol in the photo does resemble the description of the theater in the trade journal, and its architectural style is characteristic of the late 1910s-early 1920s. Mr. Dimick already operated a theater called the Gem in Rosiclare, which I found mentioned in items from 1918. I don’t know if it remained in operation after the new house opened.
The site of the Capitol Theatre is now occupied by a small park with a large gazebo that might be used for public events.
The June 8, 1951, issue of the The Monroe News-Star said that the TEM Theatre would open that day. Tom E. McElroy had bought the Capitol Theatre from the Paramount interests and closed it for a week to repaint and remodel.
The Rainbow Theatre’s building looks to date from the 1910s, perhaps earlier. This web page has a photo of the Rainbow displaying a poster for King Vidor’s first feature film, The Turn in the Road, which was released in 1919. The theater had its original arched sign at this time.
There are also three photos of downtown Mahnomen that include fairly close views of the theater. The most recent appears to be the once captioned “Downtown 1,” in which the 1955 Humphrey Bogart movie The Desperate Hour is featured on the Rainbow Theatre’s marquee.
I found a Mr. Charles Vondra mentioned as the owner of the Rainbow Theatre in 1929. Judge Charles Vondra, of Mahnomen, Minnesota, appeared in a group photo of exhibitors that was published in the June 23, 1951, issue of Boxoffice, so he must have run this theater for quite some time.
The September 4, 1936, issue of The Film Daily had this item in its Detroit column: “Russell Chapman, manager of the Madison for United Detroit Theaters, is to manage the new Varsity Theater opening this week.”
The Cinema Data Project lists this house under the name Town Hall, with Community as an aka. I found the Community Theatre mentioned in The Film Daily of September 18, 1936. The Bluehill Moving Picture Co. (no address) in Blue Hill was listed in the Maine section of the New England Business Directory of 1922.
Local resident Bette Norris recalls a later period in the Folly Theatre’s history: “during the early 50’s the movie theatre was re-opened by two gentlemen from Massachusetts for just a few years. They put in “soft” theatre seats! Children’s tickets were 25 cents and adults were 44 cents.”
From the comments on this page, which is a Google cache as I can’t get the original page itself to render.
As two different theaters they definitely deserve two separate pages then. The picture shows the Fine Arts II ending its days as the Fine Arts Cinema. Was the original theater’s entrance where the Afghan Restaurant is in the ACI photo? If so, that was a very narrow entrance indeed.
Ah, so the entrance was never moved, but the former Western Auto store was converted into a second screen in 1970. Since the Fine Arts II continued in operation for some time after the Fine Arts I closed, and its building is still standing while the original theater has been demolished, we should probably have different pages for each theater. I don’t think there’s a way for Cinema Treasures to list a theater as partly demolished and partly still standing.
When the Fine Arts II opened did the two theaters share an entrance and a single box office, or did each operate as a stand-alone theater under the same ownership?
So it is most likely when the theater was renovated as the Fine Arts that the entrance was moved to the former Western Auto store location. The Cinema Data Project page indicates that the house was showing adult movies in 1990, and was an “Arts Center in 1999.” If that’s correct then the demolition of the old auditorium must have taken place in this century, perhaps within the last few years. There must be quite a few people around who still remember it.
This theater’s name is a bit of a puzzle. Both the September 18, 1946, issue of the Jacksonville Daily Journal of Jacksonville, Illinois, and an issue of The Film Daily from October that year ran announcements about the opening of the new Rodeo Theatre, owned by W. J. Rodell. Showmen’s Trade Review also used the name Rodeo Theatre. However, an article about the fire in the November 18, 1956, issue of The Jacksonville Journal Courier does indeed use the name Rodee Theatre. The 1950 FDY also uses Rodee. Yet another source uses the name Rhodee.
The Cinema Data Project page for the Casco Theatre, aka Capitol and Fine Arts, gives the address as 627 ½ Congress Street, and says it was next door to the Baxter Public Library, though another line says that the theater’s entrance was “…between Eastern Cosmetic Stores and Western Auto.”
A building immediately adjacent to the library and currently occupied by a live music venue called Geno’s Rock Club, which uses the address 625 Congress, has a front in the style that Western Auto used for its retail outlets in the 1950s. Next to that is a vacant lot, and then an old apartment building with a storefront on the ground floor. Geno’s doesn’t fit the description of the theater, so I suspect that the Fine Arts has in fact been demolished. The auditorium was probably at the rear of the vacant lot and the lot Geno’s is on, where there is now parking.
Comparing the vintage photo Don Lewis uploaded with modern Google street view I’m now convinced that the Court Theatre had to have been at 304 Wharf Street. The tree partly seen west of the theater in the old photo would have been in the front yard of the old house that is still standing on that lot.
The building housing Annabelle’s probably is the theater building, or what is left of it. A new and much lower front has been put on it, and I think it might have been extended at the rear to reach Commercial Street, and the entire roof probably dates from the conversion of the building to retail use.
I now also have to second-guess my assumption that the Court might have been a reverse theater. That very tall front most likely housed a stadium seating section, and the main floor seating was probably elevated a few feet feet above street level, with the cross aisle reached by ramps or stairs up from the lobby. Converting the building for retail use would have required major reconstruction, but the existing sidewalls look old enough to have dated from the 1940s, and might be all that remains of the Court Theatre.
The Boothbay Harbor Comprehensive Plan includes a list of highlights in the town’s history which says that the Strand Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1982. I haven’t found an opening year for the Strand, but it’s listed in the 1932 FDY.
The Court Theatre was located on Wharf Street, a bit west of Poplar Street. I suspect, though I’m not absolutely certain, that the theater was in the (now much-altered) building that houses Annabell’s Emporium and Cafe, at 304 Wharf. I also wonder if the Court might have been a reverse theater, as the lots on that side of the block slope up toward the rear.
I attempted to do a Google Street View link, but the new Google Maps is terribly uncooperative. Here is a bird’s-eye view from Bing Maps.
The caption of this photo of the first airplane in Beeville says that it was owned by C. A. Pressey, and adds this: “Charley Pressey is also known for establishing the first moving picture theater in Beeville in 1906. The name of the business was Superba Family Theatre and the admission price was five cents.”
The Superba is also briefly mentioned in the NRHP registration form for Beeville’s Rialto Theatre, but no further information about it is included.
An extensive gallery of recent photos of the Webber Theatre, including glimpses of the attic and mechanical spaces, can be seen on the building’s LoopNet listing. The vacant theater and an adjacent empty lot are being offered at $2.7 million.
The Princess Theatre was on the ground floor of the Kiel & Warren Building, built in 1883, which originally housed on its second floor a theater listed in the 1889 Jeffery’s guide as the Del Norte Opera House, with 300 seats. The Princess Theatre was in operation by 1918. The upstairs opera house was converted into a dance hall. The building was demolished in the 1960s, according to its brief entry on this web page.
Signs above the entrance of this building read “The Opera House” and “Erected 1912.” It was apparently the second location of the Idaho Springs Opera House, as another theater of that name was in operation at least as early as 1886. This Waymarking page has a photo and text of the historic marker pertaining to the theater building and its former neighbor, a commercial block destroyed by fire in 1989 and since replaced by a small park. The earliest mention of the name Mines Theatre I’ve found dates from 1931, but the name might have been adopted earlier.
Completion of the Orpheum suffered considerable delay. A notice that construction of the theater had begun was published in the July 17, 1913, issue of Iron Trade Review, which said that the house was expected to open by December 15.
The February 2, 1940, issue of The Nebraska State Journal reported that a fire early the previous morning had done $50,000 damage to the Pace Theatre building in Gordon, leaving the town without a movie house. Only the four outside walls were left standing. The Pace Theatre had been operated under a lease by the Black Hills Amusement Company for theater owner J. W. Pace, who planed to rebuild.
A house called the Red Bud Theatre is mentioned in the theater trade journals at least as early as 1918. In the 1927 FDY it was listed with 200 seats, but in 1932 it was listed as closed, with 400 seats.
At least as early as 1911 Red Bud had a movie house called the Martin Airdome, operated by a J. H. Martin. A 1923 reference to a Martin Theatre in Red Bud names the new operator as a Sam Bradley, but makes no reference to it being an airdome, so it might have been enclosed at some point.
As Red Bud had at least two movie theaters in the 1920s, the fluctuation in the seating capacity of the Red Bud Theatre might have been the result of the name being moved from one house to the other.
The Lyric Theatre was originally operated by Louis Mitchell, who had earlier operated the Amuzu Theatre. A brief article about Mitchell (including a photo that I would presume is of him) and a large ad for the Lyric can both be found on page 8 of the March 19, 1936, issue of The Elkin Tribune (PDF here.) By the late 1940s the Lyric and the State Theatre, which Mitchell began building in late 1940, had been taken over by rival theater operator W. B. Reeves.
This item from the October 30, 1940, issue of The Elkin Tribune must be about the State Theatre:
The same article also noted that Dr. W. B. Reeves, operator of the Elk Theatre, expected to soon begin construction of a new theater on West Main Street. This was the house that opened in 1941 as the Reeves Theatre. By the late 1940s, Reeves would also have taken over operation of Mitchell’s Lyric and State Theatres.The NRHP nomination form for the Downtown Elkin Historic District (PDF here) has a paragraph about the Reeves Theatre. It says that Dr. W. B. Reeves built the 300-seat Elk Theatre in 1937, and built the 700-seat Reeves Theatre in 1941 after realizing that the town could support a larger house. It doesn’t say that the Elk Theatre was on the same site as the Reeves, but doesn’t say it wasn’t. It’s possible that part of the original theater was incorporated into the new house.
This article from the July 2, 2012, issue of The Winston-Salem Journal says that the Reeves Theatre had been entirely gutted in preparation for a renovation as a performing arts space. Even the balcony had been removed. The Elk Twin had closed in 1994, after a storm damaged the roof.
A video and a collection of 19 photos accompany the article. Most of the photos show the abandoned building before it was gutted, but a few are after. One after photo shows that the original art modern facade has also been stripped off of the building, leaving bare brick, though the marquee is still intact.
An article about flooding at Rosiclare in the January 30, 1950, issue of the Harrisburg, Illinois Daily Register said that seats, carpet, concession stand, and other equipment in the Capitol Theatre had been moved into the balcony to protect it from the rising water of the Ohio River.
There’s a small photo of the Capitol Theatre on this web page. The text says that the Capitol was owned by a Walter Dimick. That makes it likely that the Capitol was the house being built for Dimick at Rosiclare in 1919, as noted in this item from the July 5 issue of The American Contractor:
The Capitol in the photo does resemble the description of the theater in the trade journal, and its architectural style is characteristic of the late 1910s-early 1920s. Mr. Dimick already operated a theater called the Gem in Rosiclare, which I found mentioned in items from 1918. I don’t know if it remained in operation after the new house opened.The site of the Capitol Theatre is now occupied by a small park with a large gazebo that might be used for public events.
The June 8, 1951, issue of the The Monroe News-Star said that the TEM Theatre would open that day. Tom E. McElroy had bought the Capitol Theatre from the Paramount interests and closed it for a week to repaint and remodel.
The Rainbow Theatre’s building looks to date from the 1910s, perhaps earlier. This web page has a photo of the Rainbow displaying a poster for King Vidor’s first feature film, The Turn in the Road, which was released in 1919. The theater had its original arched sign at this time.
There are also three photos of downtown Mahnomen that include fairly close views of the theater. The most recent appears to be the once captioned “Downtown 1,” in which the 1955 Humphrey Bogart movie The Desperate Hour is featured on the Rainbow Theatre’s marquee.
I found a Mr. Charles Vondra mentioned as the owner of the Rainbow Theatre in 1929. Judge Charles Vondra, of Mahnomen, Minnesota, appeared in a group photo of exhibitors that was published in the June 23, 1951, issue of Boxoffice, so he must have run this theater for quite some time.
The September 4, 1936, issue of The Film Daily had this item in its Detroit column: “Russell Chapman, manager of the Madison for United Detroit Theaters, is to manage the new Varsity Theater opening this week.”
The September 3, 1936, issue of The Film Daily had this notice: “Newton’s new theater, the State, under the management of G. G. Mitchell, has opened.”
The Cinema Data Project lists this house under the name Town Hall, with Community as an aka. I found the Community Theatre mentioned in The Film Daily of September 18, 1936. The Bluehill Moving Picture Co. (no address) in Blue Hill was listed in the Maine section of the New England Business Directory of 1922.
Local resident Bette Norris recalls a later period in the Folly Theatre’s history: “during the early 50’s the movie theatre was re-opened by two gentlemen from Massachusetts for just a few years. They put in “soft” theatre seats! Children’s tickets were 25 cents and adults were 44 cents.”
From the comments on this page, which is a Google cache as I can’t get the original page itself to render.
As two different theaters they definitely deserve two separate pages then. The picture shows the Fine Arts II ending its days as the Fine Arts Cinema. Was the original theater’s entrance where the Afghan Restaurant is in the ACI photo? If so, that was a very narrow entrance indeed.
Ah, so the entrance was never moved, but the former Western Auto store was converted into a second screen in 1970. Since the Fine Arts II continued in operation for some time after the Fine Arts I closed, and its building is still standing while the original theater has been demolished, we should probably have different pages for each theater. I don’t think there’s a way for Cinema Treasures to list a theater as partly demolished and partly still standing.
When the Fine Arts II opened did the two theaters share an entrance and a single box office, or did each operate as a stand-alone theater under the same ownership?
So it is most likely when the theater was renovated as the Fine Arts that the entrance was moved to the former Western Auto store location. The Cinema Data Project page indicates that the house was showing adult movies in 1990, and was an “Arts Center in 1999.” If that’s correct then the demolition of the old auditorium must have taken place in this century, perhaps within the last few years. There must be quite a few people around who still remember it.
This theater’s name is a bit of a puzzle. Both the September 18, 1946, issue of the Jacksonville Daily Journal of Jacksonville, Illinois, and an issue of The Film Daily from October that year ran announcements about the opening of the new Rodeo Theatre, owned by W. J. Rodell. Showmen’s Trade Review also used the name Rodeo Theatre. However, an article about the fire in the November 18, 1956, issue of The Jacksonville Journal Courier does indeed use the name Rodee Theatre. The 1950 FDY also uses Rodee. Yet another source uses the name Rhodee.
The Cinema Data Project page for the Casco Theatre, aka Capitol and Fine Arts, gives the address as 627 ½ Congress Street, and says it was next door to the Baxter Public Library, though another line says that the theater’s entrance was “…between Eastern Cosmetic Stores and Western Auto.”
A building immediately adjacent to the library and currently occupied by a live music venue called Geno’s Rock Club, which uses the address 625 Congress, has a front in the style that Western Auto used for its retail outlets in the 1950s. Next to that is a vacant lot, and then an old apartment building with a storefront on the ground floor. Geno’s doesn’t fit the description of the theater, so I suspect that the Fine Arts has in fact been demolished. The auditorium was probably at the rear of the vacant lot and the lot Geno’s is on, where there is now parking.
Comparing the vintage photo Don Lewis uploaded with modern Google street view I’m now convinced that the Court Theatre had to have been at 304 Wharf Street. The tree partly seen west of the theater in the old photo would have been in the front yard of the old house that is still standing on that lot.
The building housing Annabelle’s probably is the theater building, or what is left of it. A new and much lower front has been put on it, and I think it might have been extended at the rear to reach Commercial Street, and the entire roof probably dates from the conversion of the building to retail use.
I now also have to second-guess my assumption that the Court might have been a reverse theater. That very tall front most likely housed a stadium seating section, and the main floor seating was probably elevated a few feet feet above street level, with the cross aisle reached by ramps or stairs up from the lobby. Converting the building for retail use would have required major reconstruction, but the existing sidewalls look old enough to have dated from the 1940s, and might be all that remains of the Court Theatre.
The Boothbay Harbor Comprehensive Plan includes a list of highlights in the town’s history which says that the Strand Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1982. I haven’t found an opening year for the Strand, but it’s listed in the 1932 FDY.
The Court Theatre was located on Wharf Street, a bit west of Poplar Street. I suspect, though I’m not absolutely certain, that the theater was in the (now much-altered) building that houses Annabell’s Emporium and Cafe, at 304 Wharf. I also wonder if the Court might have been a reverse theater, as the lots on that side of the block slope up toward the rear.
I attempted to do a Google Street View link, but the new Google Maps is terribly uncooperative. Here is a bird’s-eye view from Bing Maps.
The caption of this photo of the first airplane in Beeville says that it was owned by C. A. Pressey, and adds this: “Charley Pressey is also known for establishing the first moving picture theater in Beeville in 1906. The name of the business was Superba Family Theatre and the admission price was five cents.”
The Superba is also briefly mentioned in the NRHP registration form for Beeville’s Rialto Theatre, but no further information about it is included.
An extensive gallery of recent photos of the Webber Theatre, including glimpses of the attic and mechanical spaces, can be seen on the building’s LoopNet listing. The vacant theater and an adjacent empty lot are being offered at $2.7 million.
The Princess Theatre was on the ground floor of the Kiel & Warren Building, built in 1883, which originally housed on its second floor a theater listed in the 1889 Jeffery’s guide as the Del Norte Opera House, with 300 seats. The Princess Theatre was in operation by 1918. The upstairs opera house was converted into a dance hall. The building was demolished in the 1960s, according to its brief entry on this web page.
Signs above the entrance of this building read “The Opera House” and “Erected 1912.” It was apparently the second location of the Idaho Springs Opera House, as another theater of that name was in operation at least as early as 1886. This Waymarking page has a photo and text of the historic marker pertaining to the theater building and its former neighbor, a commercial block destroyed by fire in 1989 and since replaced by a small park. The earliest mention of the name Mines Theatre I’ve found dates from 1931, but the name might have been adopted earlier.
Completion of the Orpheum suffered considerable delay. A notice that construction of the theater had begun was published in the July 17, 1913, issue of Iron Trade Review, which said that the house was expected to open by December 15.
The February 2, 1940, issue of The Nebraska State Journal reported that a fire early the previous morning had done $50,000 damage to the Pace Theatre building in Gordon, leaving the town without a movie house. Only the four outside walls were left standing. The Pace Theatre had been operated under a lease by the Black Hills Amusement Company for theater owner J. W. Pace, who planed to rebuild.
A house called the Red Bud Theatre is mentioned in the theater trade journals at least as early as 1918. In the 1927 FDY it was listed with 200 seats, but in 1932 it was listed as closed, with 400 seats.
At least as early as 1911 Red Bud had a movie house called the Martin Airdome, operated by a J. H. Martin. A 1923 reference to a Martin Theatre in Red Bud names the new operator as a Sam Bradley, but makes no reference to it being an airdome, so it might have been enclosed at some point.
As Red Bud had at least two movie theaters in the 1920s, the fluctuation in the seating capacity of the Red Bud Theatre might have been the result of the name being moved from one house to the other.