This page about the Arcadia Theatre from The Cinema Data Project says that it was located on the second and third floors of the building and opened in the late 19th century. The original theater space has been converted into offices.
This web page has information about the Albert Theatre with pictures of both the original four-story house built in 1905 and opened in January, 1906, and destroyed by fire in November that same year, and its three-story replacement opened in March, 1910, and gutted by a second fire that November. The house opened for the third time in January, 1911. The two lower floors of the facade are the same in both photos, so something of the original theater survived the 1906 fire.
A newsletter published by the New Hampshire Division of Travel & Tourism Development in 2012 had this item:
“Albert Theatre, Berlin- 20,000 square feet is going to be redesigned as an entertainment center providing actives for families and children of all ages. Entertainment such as 18-hole indoor mini-golf, bumper cars, climbing wall, laser tag and much more will be available starting fall of 2012.”
This article from the August 20, 2012, issue of the Union Leader has a few photos. I haven’t found any indication that the conversion of the building into an entertainment center that was then underway has been completed.
The article says that the theater was converted into a retail store for the W. T. Grant Co. in 1957. The building appears to have been gutted and reconfigured at that time, removing all trace of its theatrical history. While the exterior has been restored to something very near its original appearance, returning the building to use as a theater would require building an entirely new theater within the shell, which seems very unlikely to ever happen.
This page from The Cinema Data Project indicates that the Albert Theatre was a Paramount-Publix house (Maine and New Hampshire Theatres Co.) from 1928 to 1956, which probably means until closing.
“Drive” Google Street View south and turn right on Park Street for an excellent view of the south side and the back of the building. That upstairs structure is certainly old. I suspect that the Halcyon might have had its stage in the boxy structure at the Main Street end of the building and at least part of the auditorium under the gabled roof seen from Park Street.
The ground floor has been expanded at some point, probably more than once. This vintage photo from the Penobscot Maritime Museum shows that the Halcyon once had a three-story classical revival front set back from Main Street. At the time the photo was taken there was an automobile agency on the ground floor. The modern ground floor is considerably wider and extends all the way to the street. The gabled section of the building has also been widened, with the gable extended downward on the south side and a combination of flat and shed roof along the north side.
The Cinema Data Project provides this web page about the Halcyon Theatre. It gives the opening year as 1912. The Halcyon was an upstairs theater with a large stage and dressing rooms. The page says that “[i]n 1991 the Halcyon is upstairs in the Prescott Farms Supermarket building. Pressed tin or decorated ceiling still visible, slanted floor still there.”
Looking at the building from the side in Google street view, a large upper floor without windows can be seen. I can’t think of any reason why a modern building would have such a structure put on it, so this must be the original building, with the long-closed Halcyon Theatre still marooned atop it.
There’s slightly different information on this page from The Cinema Data Project. The page says that the opening date of the Jax Theatre was September 1, 1938, with Love Finds Andy Hardy. The house closed in the fall of 1957 but reopened on April 27, 1958. The Jax closed for the last time in December, 1973. The last movie shown was Godspell.
Another house built by John B.“Jack” Eames, the Jax Jr. Cinema, is still in operation at Littleton, New Hampshire.
This article from television station WTVY says that the Olive Theatre was opened in 1928, and was named for Olive Dunn. After the house closed in housed a variety of businesses, the last being a furniture store. In the 190s it was donated to the Arts Council which restored it for use as a live theater.
The Alameda Theatre was located in the 800 block of W. Zavala Street. The building was still standing when Google’s camera car last passed by, but the theater and everything else on its block looked abandoned.
There are quite a few references to the Joy Theatre at San Antonio in various issues of The Billboard from the early 1940s, mostly concerning vaudeville or burlesque acts, but at least one mentioning a stock company. The Joy apparently featured live entertainment as well as movies in its early years.
There was also live entertainment in later years. The Joy might have closed in 1957, but might have reopened fairly soon after that, probably as a Spanish language house. Latina Performance: Traversing the Stage, by Alicia Arrizón, in a chapter about Mexican American comedienne Beatriz Escalona, who went by the stage name La Chata, says that Escalona performed at the Joy Theatre in 1976 when the house was presenting Mexican vaudeville on weekends.
I can imagine the Joy thriving for many years with Mexican movies and vaudeville, as did the Million Dollar Theatre in Los Angeles. Over on our National Theatre page, CT member kingfish left this comment which mentions vaudeville at the Joy Theatre, though no year is mentioned.
The photo CSWalczak linked to in the previous comment is gone, but I suspect that it might have been the photo referred to in a correction at the end of the MPW article I linked to three comments earlier, which said:
“[As the above description was published on page 1017 of the issue dated June 7, with a photograph of the Rex theater in Spokane, Wash., we are republishing it with a view of the right Rex theater]”
The March 29, 2014, issue of the Poteau Daily News said that the Victory Theatre was one of the buildings destroyed by a fire that swept much of the town’s business district in 1981.
This comment on a NitrateVille message board says that the Victory was the same house as the Comet Theatre, which I’ve found mentioned in the 1910s. The earliest mention of the Victory I’ve found so far is from 1924.
The name Comet Theatre dates back to 1911 or earlier in Poteau. That year the March 17 issue of the Mulhall Enterprise ran a brief item saying that a $15,000 theater was to be built in Poteau by Blair & Miller, operators of the Comet Theatre there. Either the old or the new building might have been the house that eventually became the Victory.
Scroll up on the NitrateVille page to see a ca.1916 photo of a theater that might have been the Comet/Victory.
Thanks for the comment, Dale. Information about the theaters in Coolidge has been pretty sparse so far. We don’t have a page for the Studio, but we do have a page for a Mauk Theatre that opened in the mid-1930s. We haven’t been able to find out very much about it.
My first comment on the Mauk’s page has a link to a photo of it. I have been wondering if the Mauk was the theater that later was renamed the Studio. Perhaps you could take a look at the photo and let us know if it was the Studio or not (assuming it hadn’t been remodeled and become unrecognizable before you saw it?)
I don’t believe the Sho-To-All Theatre building has been demolished. If you compare Idc’s 1914 photo with the building at the southwest corner of Main and 4th you can see a distinctive transom window still intact above a disused door on the Main Street side. The theater was next door to that building, and its building and two other buildings along Main Street have had their upper floors covered by a grille of some sort, but the old brick fronts and windows can be seen through the grille. That has to be the old theater building, though the only door in it currently has the address 109.
I suspect that the only original parts of the theater building still standing are the facade and the common wall shared with the narrow shop next door. Most of the wall along Chamberlain Street appears to be of concrete rather than the brick that would have been used in the original 1893 structure. That wall, and probably the back wall as well, must have been part of the 1970 post-fire rebuilding by J. C. Penney’s.
The original Strand, which burned in 1925, was created in 1916 by the combination of two smaller theaters, the Bijou and the Star, as described in this item from the May 20, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“PARKERSBURG. W. VA.— P. W. Barrett, manager of the Star and Bijou theaters, will combine structures and operate as one house; remove partitions; install steel beams and cross-beams resting on pilasters, etc. The stage will measure 38 by 100 feet; heating and ventilating systems; upholstered opera chairs; electric sign: marquis; indirect lighting system: projection machines ordered from Nicholas Powers Company, New York.”
I doubt that the stage was actually 38x100. More likely that was the size of the entire combined theater. The Bijou and the Star had both been in operation as movie theaters by 1912, the Star already being operated by P. W. Barrett.
According to an article in the September 28, 2014, issue of Roane County News, the Lyric Theatre was the same house that was later known as the Ritz, which operated at least as late as 1953. An artist who goes by the single name Susanne has a few paintings of Rockwood posted online, and this street scene dated around 1940 shows the Lyric. Her painting of the Ritz is a close view that doesn’t show the details of the upper part of the building or its surroundings, but it’s the same red brick front. The house had a different marquee as the Ritz.
This item from the “Picture Theaters Projected” column of The Moving Picture World, May 20, 1916, is probably about the remodeling project that became the Lyric:
“ROCKWOOD, TENN.— J. M. Colvin and Walter Howard are reported to remodel building for moving picture theater; construct stage; provide seating capacity of 500, etc. The alterations will cost $4,000.”
Colvin & Howard were mentioned as operators of the Lyric Theatre at Rockwood in the July 2, 1921, issue of Exhibitor’s Herald. Then, Motion Picture Herald of November 14, 1936, mentioned Mr. W. L. Howard, manager of “…the local theater….” in Rockwood. The Roan Theatre had apparently not yet been opened.
The March 8, 1919, issue of Exhibitor’s Trade Review had this item about the Wyoming Theatre:
“New Theatre in Mullens
“A splendid moving picture house and a new hotel, both named the Wyoming, have been opened in Mullens. W. Va., by Mr. Sizemore. The theatre charges 20 cents admission and is putting on some of the best features.”
The first name of architect A. F. Wysong was Alphonso. Wysong had offices in Princeton and Bluefield, and designed a number of significant buildings in the region, but so far the Wyoming is the only movie theater I’ve found among his works. He did design the Municipal Auditorium at Charleston, West Virginia, built in 1939 and now listed on the NRHP.
This item from the March 23, 1918, issue of The American Contractor could be about the Wyoming Theatre:
“Contract Awarded. Mullens, W. Va.—M. P. Theater & Garage: $25,000. Archt. A. F. Wysong, Princeton. W. Va. Owner Wyoming Realty & Impr. Co., care D. D. Moran, Mullens. Gen. contr. let to D. J. Phipps, Kirk a, Roanoke, Va.”
The NRHP Registration Form for the Mullens Historic District, of which the Wyoming Theatre is a contributing structure, says that the Wyoming was built in 1922, but Exhibitors Trade Review announced the opening of the house in the spring of 1919. Possibly something happened to the original theater and it was replaced in 1922, or maybe the Registration Form is simply mistaken.
More news about the Lyric Airdome, from the March 1, 1913, issue of amusement industry trade journal The New York Clipper:
“Neal S. ANDERSON has purchased the Grand Opera House and Lyric Airdome, at Carthage, Mo. This venture is independent of his interest in the Elite Theatre Co., owning one-half interest. He will continue as manager of Elite theatre (motion pictures), and have full charge of Grand and Airdome.”
As the Roxy probably was the same house as the earlier Delphus Theatre, I’ll put this item from The Nickelodeon of May, 1909, here:
“Carthage, Mo. — I. P. Williams of this city and C. O. Williams of Webb City, owners of the Delphos [sic] Theater here, will conduct a moving picture theater at the corner of Fourth and Lincoln.”
I believe Fourth and Lincoln was the location of the Grand Opera House, so the Williamses might have been leasing the Opera House for showing movies.
This earlier comment by jsheehy454 cites a 1914 death certificate mentioning the Hippodrome Theatre at Fourth and Lincoln, so I think Hippodrome might have been an aka for the Grand Opera House.
The 1913 Airdome built behind the Delphus Theatre was to be called the Delphus Hippodrome, according to the MPW item I cited in this comment. That item names one of the operators of the Delphus as J. P. Williams (the J was most likely a typo that should have been an I.) It looks like Williams might have used the name Hippodrome at two different theaters in Carthage.
I see that the ad for the Photoplay spells the co-owner’s name McDurmeit. As the standard spelling of that surname is McDermeit, I had thought that MPW might have made a typo, but a local ad with that spelling suggests that he did use a variant spelling of his name. Other sources do use McDermeit, though, including an item in the September 25, 1915, issue of The Billboard which said that Ben and Porter Blackford had bought the Photoplay Theatre in Carthage from James A. McDermeit.
The Lyric Airdome in Carthage was mentioned in an issue of Variety (an act, probably vaudevillian, called Kelly, Sam & Ida were appearing,) but I have only one page of the issue and there is no date on it. It was from the latter part of 1907, though, as another act on the list was appearing in Mexico City “…to Jan 4, 1908.” A couple of other acts on the list were scheduled at various places through dates as early as October, so the issue might have been from early that month or late September. In any case, the Lyric Airdome was in operation at least as early as the fall of 1907.
The description of this theater says it was a Cinerama twin, but the Holiday does not appear on Cinerama Theatres which lists only two Cinerama houses in Buffalo; the Teck Theatre (converted for Cinerama in 1955) and the United Artists Century Theatre, converted in 1967. An April 3, 1967, Boxoffice article about the conversion of the Century said that the opening of Grand Prix at the Century just before Easter would be the first Cinerama movie seen in Buffalo since How the West Was Won in the spring of 1963.
Holiday Theaters Inc., the original owners of this house, had owned the Aero Drive-In, on the site of which this theater was built. An article in the February 9, 1964, issue of the Buffalo Courier-Express said that Holiday Theaters had just broken ground on a restaurant on the site of the Aero Drive-In and planned to build a twin indoor theater on the site in the future. Holiday had just taken a lease on the Elmwood Theatre, which was their first indoor location. In addition to the Aero, the company operated the West Twin, East Twin, and Buffalo Drive-Ins in the Buffalo area, and the TePee Drive-In in Pickering, Ontario.
This house was advertised as the Royal Theatre, 18th and Main, in the “Moving Picture Theatres of Los Angeles” ad in the Los Angeles Times of March 13, 1914.
This page about the Arcadia Theatre from The Cinema Data Project says that it was located on the second and third floors of the building and opened in the late 19th century. The original theater space has been converted into offices.
This web page has information about the Albert Theatre with pictures of both the original four-story house built in 1905 and opened in January, 1906, and destroyed by fire in November that same year, and its three-story replacement opened in March, 1910, and gutted by a second fire that November. The house opened for the third time in January, 1911. The two lower floors of the facade are the same in both photos, so something of the original theater survived the 1906 fire.
A newsletter published by the New Hampshire Division of Travel & Tourism Development in 2012 had this item:
This article from the August 20, 2012, issue of the Union Leader has a few photos. I haven’t found any indication that the conversion of the building into an entertainment center that was then underway has been completed.The article says that the theater was converted into a retail store for the W. T. Grant Co. in 1957. The building appears to have been gutted and reconfigured at that time, removing all trace of its theatrical history. While the exterior has been restored to something very near its original appearance, returning the building to use as a theater would require building an entirely new theater within the shell, which seems very unlikely to ever happen.
This page from The Cinema Data Project indicates that the Albert Theatre was a Paramount-Publix house (Maine and New Hampshire Theatres Co.) from 1928 to 1956, which probably means until closing.
From the Library of Congress, here is a 2009 photo of the Arcadia Theatre by photographer Carol M. Highsmith.
The Arcadia Theatre had a two-manual, seven-rank Reuter organ, opus 288, installed in 1928.
“Drive” Google Street View south and turn right on Park Street for an excellent view of the south side and the back of the building. That upstairs structure is certainly old. I suspect that the Halcyon might have had its stage in the boxy structure at the Main Street end of the building and at least part of the auditorium under the gabled roof seen from Park Street.
The ground floor has been expanded at some point, probably more than once. This vintage photo from the Penobscot Maritime Museum shows that the Halcyon once had a three-story classical revival front set back from Main Street. At the time the photo was taken there was an automobile agency on the ground floor. The modern ground floor is considerably wider and extends all the way to the street. The gabled section of the building has also been widened, with the gable extended downward on the south side and a combination of flat and shed roof along the north side.
The Cinema Data Project provides this web page about the Halcyon Theatre. It gives the opening year as 1912. The Halcyon was an upstairs theater with a large stage and dressing rooms. The page says that “[i]n 1991 the Halcyon is upstairs in the Prescott Farms Supermarket building. Pressed tin or decorated ceiling still visible, slanted floor still there.”
Looking at the building from the side in Google street view, a large upper floor without windows can be seen. I can’t think of any reason why a modern building would have such a structure put on it, so this must be the original building, with the long-closed Halcyon Theatre still marooned atop it.
There’s slightly different information on this page from The Cinema Data Project. The page says that the opening date of the Jax Theatre was September 1, 1938, with Love Finds Andy Hardy. The house closed in the fall of 1957 but reopened on April 27, 1958. The Jax closed for the last time in December, 1973. The last movie shown was Godspell.
Another house built by John B.“Jack” Eames, the Jax Jr. Cinema, is still in operation at Littleton, New Hampshire.
This article from television station WTVY says that the Olive Theatre was opened in 1928, and was named for Olive Dunn. After the house closed in housed a variety of businesses, the last being a furniture store. In the 190s it was donated to the Arts Council which restored it for use as a live theater.
The Alameda Theatre was located in the 800 block of W. Zavala Street. The building was still standing when Google’s camera car last passed by, but the theater and everything else on its block looked abandoned.
Photo here (© Andrew Butler.) The building appears to have been used as a Spanish language church for a while, as the world “Templo” appears near the doors, but I can’t make out the rest of the words. The building is boarded up in Google street view, which is apparently more recent than Butler’s photo.
There are quite a few references to the Joy Theatre at San Antonio in various issues of The Billboard from the early 1940s, mostly concerning vaudeville or burlesque acts, but at least one mentioning a stock company. The Joy apparently featured live entertainment as well as movies in its early years.
There was also live entertainment in later years. The Joy might have closed in 1957, but might have reopened fairly soon after that, probably as a Spanish language house. Latina Performance: Traversing the Stage, by Alicia Arrizón, in a chapter about Mexican American comedienne Beatriz Escalona, who went by the stage name La Chata, says that Escalona performed at the Joy Theatre in 1976 when the house was presenting Mexican vaudeville on weekends.
I can imagine the Joy thriving for many years with Mexican movies and vaudeville, as did the Million Dollar Theatre in Los Angeles. Over on our National Theatre page, CT member kingfish left this comment which mentions vaudeville at the Joy Theatre, though no year is mentioned.
The photo CSWalczak linked to in the previous comment is gone, but I suspect that it might have been the photo referred to in a correction at the end of the MPW article I linked to three comments earlier, which said:
The March 29, 2014, issue of the Poteau Daily News said that the Victory Theatre was one of the buildings destroyed by a fire that swept much of the town’s business district in 1981.
This comment on a NitrateVille message board says that the Victory was the same house as the Comet Theatre, which I’ve found mentioned in the 1910s. The earliest mention of the Victory I’ve found so far is from 1924.
The name Comet Theatre dates back to 1911 or earlier in Poteau. That year the March 17 issue of the Mulhall Enterprise ran a brief item saying that a $15,000 theater was to be built in Poteau by Blair & Miller, operators of the Comet Theatre there. Either the old or the new building might have been the house that eventually became the Victory.
Scroll up on the NitrateVille page to see a ca.1916 photo of a theater that might have been the Comet/Victory.
Thanks for the comment, Dale. Information about the theaters in Coolidge has been pretty sparse so far. We don’t have a page for the Studio, but we do have a page for a Mauk Theatre that opened in the mid-1930s. We haven’t been able to find out very much about it.
My first comment on the Mauk’s page has a link to a photo of it. I have been wondering if the Mauk was the theater that later was renamed the Studio. Perhaps you could take a look at the photo and let us know if it was the Studio or not (assuming it hadn’t been remodeled and become unrecognizable before you saw it?)
I don’t believe the Sho-To-All Theatre building has been demolished. If you compare Idc’s 1914 photo with the building at the southwest corner of Main and 4th you can see a distinctive transom window still intact above a disused door on the Main Street side. The theater was next door to that building, and its building and two other buildings along Main Street have had their upper floors covered by a grille of some sort, but the old brick fronts and windows can be seen through the grille. That has to be the old theater building, though the only door in it currently has the address 109.
I suspect that the only original parts of the theater building still standing are the facade and the common wall shared with the narrow shop next door. Most of the wall along Chamberlain Street appears to be of concrete rather than the brick that would have been used in the original 1893 structure. That wall, and probably the back wall as well, must have been part of the 1970 post-fire rebuilding by J. C. Penney’s.
The original Strand, which burned in 1925, was created in 1916 by the combination of two smaller theaters, the Bijou and the Star, as described in this item from the May 20, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World:
I doubt that the stage was actually 38x100. More likely that was the size of the entire combined theater. The Bijou and the Star had both been in operation as movie theaters by 1912, the Star already being operated by P. W. Barrett.According to an article in the September 28, 2014, issue of Roane County News, the Lyric Theatre was the same house that was later known as the Ritz, which operated at least as late as 1953. An artist who goes by the single name Susanne has a few paintings of Rockwood posted online, and this street scene dated around 1940 shows the Lyric. Her painting of the Ritz is a close view that doesn’t show the details of the upper part of the building or its surroundings, but it’s the same red brick front. The house had a different marquee as the Ritz.
This item from the “Picture Theaters Projected” column of The Moving Picture World, May 20, 1916, is probably about the remodeling project that became the Lyric:
Colvin & Howard were mentioned as operators of the Lyric Theatre at Rockwood in the July 2, 1921, issue of Exhibitor’s Herald. Then, Motion Picture Herald of November 14, 1936, mentioned Mr. W. L. Howard, manager of “…the local theater….” in Rockwood. The Roan Theatre had apparently not yet been opened.The March 8, 1919, issue of Exhibitor’s Trade Review had this item about the Wyoming Theatre:
The first name of architect A. F. Wysong was Alphonso. Wysong had offices in Princeton and Bluefield, and designed a number of significant buildings in the region, but so far the Wyoming is the only movie theater I’ve found among his works. He did design the Municipal Auditorium at Charleston, West Virginia, built in 1939 and now listed on the NRHP.This item from the March 23, 1918, issue of The American Contractor could be about the Wyoming Theatre:
The NRHP Registration Form for the Mullens Historic District, of which the Wyoming Theatre is a contributing structure, says that the Wyoming was built in 1922, but Exhibitors Trade Review announced the opening of the house in the spring of 1919. Possibly something happened to the original theater and it was replaced in 1922, or maybe the Registration Form is simply mistaken.More news about the Lyric Airdome, from the March 1, 1913, issue of amusement industry trade journal The New York Clipper:
As the Roxy probably was the same house as the earlier Delphus Theatre, I’ll put this item from The Nickelodeon of May, 1909, here:
I believe Fourth and Lincoln was the location of the Grand Opera House, so the Williamses might have been leasing the Opera House for showing movies.This earlier comment by jsheehy454 cites a 1914 death certificate mentioning the Hippodrome Theatre at Fourth and Lincoln, so I think Hippodrome might have been an aka for the Grand Opera House.
The 1913 Airdome built behind the Delphus Theatre was to be called the Delphus Hippodrome, according to the MPW item I cited in this comment. That item names one of the operators of the Delphus as J. P. Williams (the J was most likely a typo that should have been an I.) It looks like Williams might have used the name Hippodrome at two different theaters in Carthage.
I see that the ad for the Photoplay spells the co-owner’s name McDurmeit. As the standard spelling of that surname is McDermeit, I had thought that MPW might have made a typo, but a local ad with that spelling suggests that he did use a variant spelling of his name. Other sources do use McDermeit, though, including an item in the September 25, 1915, issue of The Billboard which said that Ben and Porter Blackford had bought the Photoplay Theatre in Carthage from James A. McDermeit.
The Lyric Airdome in Carthage was mentioned in an issue of Variety (an act, probably vaudevillian, called Kelly, Sam & Ida were appearing,) but I have only one page of the issue and there is no date on it. It was from the latter part of 1907, though, as another act on the list was appearing in Mexico City “…to Jan 4, 1908.” A couple of other acts on the list were scheduled at various places through dates as early as October, so the issue might have been from early that month or late September. In any case, the Lyric Airdome was in operation at least as early as the fall of 1907.
There could have been another operator between Holiday and AMC, though. I haven’t been able to discover what became of Holiday Theatres Inc.
The description of this theater says it was a Cinerama twin, but the Holiday does not appear on Cinerama Theatres which lists only two Cinerama houses in Buffalo; the Teck Theatre (converted for Cinerama in 1955) and the United Artists Century Theatre, converted in 1967. An April 3, 1967, Boxoffice article about the conversion of the Century said that the opening of Grand Prix at the Century just before Easter would be the first Cinerama movie seen in Buffalo since How the West Was Won in the spring of 1963.
Holiday Theaters Inc., the original owners of this house, had owned the Aero Drive-In, on the site of which this theater was built. An article in the February 9, 1964, issue of the Buffalo Courier-Express said that Holiday Theaters had just broken ground on a restaurant on the site of the Aero Drive-In and planned to build a twin indoor theater on the site in the future. Holiday had just taken a lease on the Elmwood Theatre, which was their first indoor location. In addition to the Aero, the company operated the West Twin, East Twin, and Buffalo Drive-Ins in the Buffalo area, and the TePee Drive-In in Pickering, Ontario.
This house was advertised as the Royal Theatre, 18th and Main, in the “Moving Picture Theatres of Los Angeles” ad in the Los Angeles Times of March 13, 1914.