Linkrot repair: The links in my comment of November 9, 2009, are dead. The Boxoffice articles I referred to about the remodeling of the Trans-Lux Broadway into the Trans Lux West are now here:
December 19, 1966 (I mistakenly said it was from 1965 in my earlier comment.)
April 24, 1967. This is a brief item saying construction had begun and that the opening was planned for May 22.
The remodeling project was designed by Drew Eberson, who had also designed the Trans-Lux East Theatre a few years earlier.
In the current Google street view, the building described in the NRHP form and shown on the Sanborn map has “For Sale” signs in the windows. Judging from the Sanborn map, the theater’s address was probably the 108 N. Maple given in the NRHP form, with the bakery at 106.
According to a brief article about the Riviera Theatre in a document published by the Rochester Theatre Organ Society (PDF here) the house opened on Saturday, September 25, 1926. The Riviera had a 3/11 Marr & Colton organ.
Linkrot repair: The August 5, 1950, Boxoffice article about Rochester’s Little Theatre that Gerald DeLuca linked to some years ago has been moved to this link. The article is at the top of the left column.
The Nadeau Theatre, 1917 Nadeau Street, was listed in the moving picture theatres section of the 1926 city directory. As it is not listed in the 1925 directory (the address wasn’t even in use that year) it is probably safe to assume that it opened sometime in 1925, possibly in a newly-constructed building.
Renovation is again underway at the Reeves Theatre, and the venue could be opened by summer of 2016, according to this illustrated articleposted by the Elkin Tribune on July 17, 2015.
This brief item from October 24, 1940, issue of The Elkin Tribune makes it sound as though the Reeves Theatre was not to be built on the same site as the Elk Theatre:
“Of considerable interest was the announcement Monday by Dr. W. B. Reeves, who owns and operates the Elk Theatre, that he is planning to build a new and modern theatre on West Main street next to the Duke Power Company, having purchased that property, and the W. M. Allen property upon which is situated the building housing the law offices of Mr. Allen and Hoke Henderson, and the Elkin-Jonesville Building & Loan Association. This building, it is understood, will be torn down to make room for the new theatre, work on which will start sometime in the near future.”
I’ve been unable to discover if the Reeves Theatre was indeed built at the location announced in this article. If the Elk Theatre was in a different location than the Reeves I don’t know what became of it. I’ve found no references to it after 1940, so if it was a different house it must have closed when the Reeves Theatre opened.
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.
Linkrot repair: The links in my comment of November 9, 2009, are dead. The Boxoffice articles I referred to about the remodeling of the Trans-Lux Broadway into the Trans Lux West are now here:
December 19, 1966 (I mistakenly said it was from 1965 in my earlier comment.)
April 24, 1967. This is a brief item saying construction had begun and that the opening was planned for May 22.
The remodeling project was designed by Drew Eberson, who had also designed the Trans-Lux East Theatre a few years earlier.
Street View is set one door too far east. There is now a toy store where the entrance to the Lititz Theatre used to be.
In the current Google street view, the building described in the NRHP form and shown on the Sanborn map has “For Sale” signs in the windows. Judging from the Sanborn map, the theater’s address was probably the 108 N. Maple given in the NRHP form, with the bakery at 106.
According to a brief article about the Riviera Theatre in a document published by the Rochester Theatre Organ Society (PDF here) the house opened on Saturday, September 25, 1926. The Riviera had a 3/11 Marr & Colton organ.
Linkrot repair: The August 5, 1950, Boxoffice article about Rochester’s Little Theatre that Gerald DeLuca linked to some years ago has been moved to this link. The article is at the top of the left column.
The Nadeau Theatre, 1917 Nadeau Street, was listed in the moving picture theatres section of the 1926 city directory. As it is not listed in the 1925 directory (the address wasn’t even in use that year) it is probably safe to assume that it opened sometime in 1925, possibly in a newly-constructed building.
This early movie house was operated by Louis Mitchell, who later opened the Lyric Theatre and the State Theatre.
Renovation is again underway at the Reeves Theatre, and the venue could be opened by summer of 2016, according to this illustrated articleposted by the Elkin Tribune on July 17, 2015.
This brief item from October 24, 1940, issue of The Elkin Tribune makes it sound as though the Reeves Theatre was not to be built on the same site as the Elk Theatre:
I’ve been unable to discover if the Reeves Theatre was indeed built at the location announced in this article. If the Elk Theatre was in a different location than the Reeves I don’t know what became of it. I’ve found no references to it after 1940, so if it was a different house it must have closed when the Reeves Theatre opened.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.