An item about the renovation of the Majestic Theatre in Freeport appeared in the December 27, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“L. W. Guiteau, manager of the Majestic Theater, Freeport, Ill., has spent a large amount of money upon improvements to his house. The seating capacity has been increased to over 500, a new and bigger screen has been installed; upon which a picture 12 by 16 feet will be projected. A number of other improvements were made including new seats and wiring.”
The December 27, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World described the recently opened Play House this way:
“CAPACITY BUSINESS AT PLAY HOUSE.
“Ever since the Play House, Ridgewood, N. J., opened on November 22, the management has been playing to capacity business. The structure, which is of concrete construction, measures 52 feet by 154 feet, and has 800 seats on the parquet floor and 200 in the balcony. The seats were bought of the Andrews Seating Company, and the stage scenery and curtain were furnished by the Lee Lash Studios. The interior decorative scheme is ivory, gold and brown ornamental plaster. In the operating room there are two Simplex machines and a Hallberg economizer; the projection machines are fitted with Gundlach-Manhattan lenses. The length of the throw is 127 feet. The indirect lighting system is used throughout the house. The ventilation system can supply thirty cubic feet of air per minute. The screen is located at the back of the stage and is framed in black. The admission prices are 10 and 15 cents, except when specials are run when the price is raised to 15 and 20 cents. The General Film Service is used with features from the Famous Players Company. A piano is the only musical instrument in the house. The lobby is of tile and marble. William W. Young is the resident manager. The theater is owned by the Ridgewood Play House Company, of which Walter W. Wilsey is president; Thomas Nicholas, of Nutley, vice-president, and A. N. Van Liew, of Newark, Secretary and treasurer. The board of directors consists of Howard Peck, of South Orange, and Albert W. Fish, Bloomfield.”
The 1927 FDY lists the Rialto Theatre as one of four houses in Cedar Rapids that were operated by Paramount-Publix affiliate A. H. Blank. The others were the Isis, the Palace, and the Strand.
The 1927 FDY lists the Palace Theatre as one of four houses in Cedar Rapids that were operated by Paramount-Publix affiliate A. H. Blank. The others were the Isis, the Rialto, and the Strand.
The Strand was the project that was the subject of this item from the January 9, 1915, issue of Construction News:
“Cedar Rapids, Iowa—2 Stores (Rent) & Theater, O. O., $85,000, 3rd Av. Archt., W. J. Brown, American Trust Bldg., Cedar Rapids, plans in progress. Owner, Mike Ford, Paving Contractor, 208 2nd Av., Cedar Rapids. Brk. & terra cotta, 2 stys. & bas., 60x140. Storage & scenery. Seat. cap., 1,500. Owner will take bids about Jan. 15, 1915.”
The World Theatre was mentioned as one of his works in the obituary of William Jay Brown in the Feb. 5, 1970, edition of The Cedar Rapids Gazette.
The 1927 FDY lists the Strand Theatre as one of four Cedar Rapids houses operated by Paramount-Publix affiliate A. H. Blank. The other three were the Isis, the Rialto, and the Palace.
It has only just occurred to me that the Bill Moore of Fairfax, Oklahoma, who supervised the rebuilding of the Luna Theatre for architect Gates Corgan in 1936 was probably the William J. Moore who became the partner of Corgan’s son Jack in the firm of Corgan & Moore.
The Colonial Theatre was in operation by 1903. Shakespeare on the Stage, a 1915 book by William Winter, cites a May 11, 1903, matinée of a production of The Taming of the Shrew at the house. The 1909-1910 edition of the Cahn guide listed the Colonial as a ground floor house with 1,050 seats. The 1912 guide has Taylor’s Colonial Theatre with 1,078 seats including 440 on the orchestra floor, 238 in the balcony, and 400 in a gallery. The rebuilding in 1924 was probably quite drastic to accommodate the 1,359 seats it had later.
The September 9, 1940, issue of the Peekskill Highland Democrat said that the Colonial Theatre, which had been built “…nearly a half century ago….” was soon to be demolished. The house had been bought from the Singers by Paramount, who also acquired the recently-remodeled Peekskill Theatre. A fire had damaged the Colonial and the seats had been removed from the balcony as a result.
I don’t know if the Colonial was one of those theaters that the FDY continued listing after it was gone or not, but it certainly could have been.
The 1940 article can be found in column four near the bottom of this single-page PDF.
The Portales Mainstreet Program provides this web page about the Yam Theatre. It opened in 1926 as the Portola Theatre. In 1929 it was renamed the Palace Theatre, but was soon closed due to the depression. In February, 1932 the house was reopened by the Griffith Amusement Company and the original name Portola Theatre was restored.
In 1936, Griffith had the house extensively remodeled and extended rear of the building by 20 feet to accommodate more seats. It was at this time that the house was renamed the Yam Theatre. The architect for the project was Gates Corgan, who had been designing the Griffith chain’s theater projects for at least a decade.
The June 10, 1933, issue of the Lubbock Morning Avalanch said that Gates Corgan, architect for the Griffith Amusement Company, would arrive in town the following day to oversee the remodeling of the building at 813 Broadway into a movie theater.
The Aztec Theatre is not on David and Noelle Soren’s list of known Boller Brothers theaters, though the
list does include Enid’s Billings Theatre, opened in 1921. A December 30, 1930, article about the La Nora Theatre in the Pampa Sunday News-Post of Pampa, Texas, mentioned the Aztec Theatre in Enid as one of the other theaters designed by Gates Corgan, architect of the La Nora. Corgan was both the architect and the contractor for Griffith Amusement company projects from the mid 1920s until 1939.
The Yucca Theatre was set to open on April 17, 1931, according to the previous day’s issue of the Roswell Daily Record. The house was built for Griffith Amusement Company. An article in the December 30, 1930, issue of the Pampa Sunday News Post about the opening of the La Nora Theatre in Pampa, Texas, said that the Griffith theater then under construction in Roswell had been designed by the La Nora’s architect, Gates Corgan.
An article in the October 2, 1936, issue of The Deming Headlight said that the Princess Theatre had been taken over by Griffith Theatres and would be closed for several weeks for extensive rebuilding. The floor would be rebuilt and a balcony added. The house was also to be renamed. The architect for the project was Gates Corgan, with Bill Moore of Fairfax, Oklahoma, acting as supervising architect.
In one of the several articles about the new La Nora Theatre that appeared in the Pampa Sunday News-Post of December 30, 1930, the day before the theater opened, was this information:
“Gates Corgan of Oklahoma City, architect for Griffith Amusement company, designed the new La Nora theatre and supervised construction details. He has designed many fine theatres, including the Aztec at Enid, the Bison at Shawnee, and the new Griffith movie palace at Roswell, under construction.”
The NRHP Registration Form for the Rig Theatre says that the house was built for the Griffith Amusement Company in 1928. Given that it was a Griffith house and built that year, it was almost certainly designed and built by Oklahoma City architect/contractor Gates Corgan, who handled over 100 projects for Griffith by 1939.
The NRHP form has a nice early exterior photo of the house. There is also a photo of the first band of Wink native Roy Orbison. There are plans to restore the Rig as a live performance venue in conjunction with the Roy Orbison museum.
Here is a photo of the former Oasis Theatre by Andrew Butler. The building now houses a real estate office and the office of the Winkler County Appraisal District. Internet says the building is at 107 E. Winkler Street.
The link to a nocturnal photo of the Empress Theatre in an earlier comment is dead, but it might have been the undated photo on this web page. Judging from the cars parked along Central Avenue I’d say the photo was taken within a couple of years of the theater’s opening.
Several interior photos of the Fort Theatre after its conversion to other uses can be found in the building’s NRHP Registration Form, currently available in the PDF format here. The house served as a bar and grill with live entertainment for a while before being converted into a dental office.
The Ohio Theatre was mentioned in the January 9, 1936, issue of The Film Daily:
“Youngstown, O— The Ohio, neighborhood theater, dark for several months, has been reopened with a subsequent run policy. House has been reconditioned.”
The December, 1906, issue of The Ohio Architect and Builder reported that John D. Sourwine of Terre Haute would advertise for bids on the new opera house he was building at Brazil. The house was expected to be ready to open by summer of 1907.
The Brazil Times published a letter from John Weddle in 2011 which can be read on this web page. It says that the Cooper Theatre replaced the Sourwine Theatre on the same site and opened in February, 1948. The Sourwine had been destroyed by fire in early 1947.
The Roxy Theatre was located in the Canfield WPA Memorial Building, 132 S Broad Street. The building also housed a library, an American Legion hall and a Masonic lodge, as well as facilities for youth groups. It is now privately owned and has been converted into offices.
Construction on the building began in December, 1936. It was designed in the Colonial Revival style by Youngstown architects Cook & Canfield (William H. Cook and W. Canfield.) The project was financed in part by local subscription and in part by funds from the Works Progress Administration.
In 2007 the building was declared an historic site by the Ohio Historical Society, who placed a marker. The text of the marker can be read on this web page.
The May 3, 1946, issue of The Film Daily said that R. F. Smith was the architect for the New Poly Theatre being built by Tri-States Theaters at Forth Worth.
The only theater in Shawnee that is attributed to Boller Brothers on David and Noelle Soren’s list of known Boller Theaters is the Misson Theatre of 1927.
The May 1, 1946, issue of The Film Daily has a death notice for Shawnee architect Gates Corgan and attributes the design of the Bison Theatre to him:
“Gates Corgan Dead
“Shawnee, Olka. — Gates Corgan, 68, prominent Shawnee architect and contractor who from 1925 until his retirement two years ago was architect and contractor for the Griffith Amusement Co., died here. He built the Bison here in 1926 and built other theaters in Oklahoma and Mid-western states. He is the father of Jack Corgan of Dallas, well known Southwestern theater architect.”
Another item in the same magazine said that Gates Corgan had designed more than 100 houses for the Griffith Amusement Company.
An item about the renovation of the Majestic Theatre in Freeport appeared in the December 27, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World:
The December 27, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World described the recently opened Play House this way:
The 1927 FDY lists the Rialto Theatre as one of four houses in Cedar Rapids that were operated by Paramount-Publix affiliate A. H. Blank. The others were the Isis, the Palace, and the Strand.
The 1927 FDY lists the Palace Theatre as one of four houses in Cedar Rapids that were operated by Paramount-Publix affiliate A. H. Blank. The others were the Isis, the Rialto, and the Strand.
The Strand was the project that was the subject of this item from the January 9, 1915, issue of Construction News:
The World Theatre was mentioned as one of his works in the obituary of William Jay Brown in the Feb. 5, 1970, edition of The Cedar Rapids Gazette.The 1927 FDY lists the Strand Theatre as one of four Cedar Rapids houses operated by Paramount-Publix affiliate A. H. Blank. The other three were the Isis, the Rialto, and the Palace.
They’ll undoubtedly overcharge for the drinks, but if having a drink keeps teenagers from sitting next to me in a theater it might be worth it.
It has only just occurred to me that the Bill Moore of Fairfax, Oklahoma, who supervised the rebuilding of the Luna Theatre for architect Gates Corgan in 1936 was probably the William J. Moore who became the partner of Corgan’s son Jack in the firm of Corgan & Moore.
The Colonial Theatre was in operation by 1903. Shakespeare on the Stage, a 1915 book by William Winter, cites a May 11, 1903, matinée of a production of The Taming of the Shrew at the house. The 1909-1910 edition of the Cahn guide listed the Colonial as a ground floor house with 1,050 seats. The 1912 guide has Taylor’s Colonial Theatre with 1,078 seats including 440 on the orchestra floor, 238 in the balcony, and 400 in a gallery. The rebuilding in 1924 was probably quite drastic to accommodate the 1,359 seats it had later.
The September 9, 1940, issue of the Peekskill Highland Democrat said that the Colonial Theatre, which had been built “…nearly a half century ago….” was soon to be demolished. The house had been bought from the Singers by Paramount, who also acquired the recently-remodeled Peekskill Theatre. A fire had damaged the Colonial and the seats had been removed from the balcony as a result.
I don’t know if the Colonial was one of those theaters that the FDY continued listing after it was gone or not, but it certainly could have been.
The 1940 article can be found in column four near the bottom of this single-page PDF.
spectrumis correct. The photo depicts the Grand Theatre on Fifth Avenue, which we have listed under its later name Warner Theatre.
The November 8, 1947 ad in Boxoffice that I mistakenly dated to 1940 in my earlier comment can be seen at lower right on this page.
Gates Corgan was the architect of the Aggie Theatre. The house opened in mid-August, 1926.
The Portales Mainstreet Program provides this web page about the Yam Theatre. It opened in 1926 as the Portola Theatre. In 1929 it was renamed the Palace Theatre, but was soon closed due to the depression. In February, 1932 the house was reopened by the Griffith Amusement Company and the original name Portola Theatre was restored.
In 1936, Griffith had the house extensively remodeled and extended rear of the building by 20 feet to accommodate more seats. It was at this time that the house was renamed the Yam Theatre. The architect for the project was Gates Corgan, who had been designing the Griffith chain’s theater projects for at least a decade.
The June 10, 1933, issue of the Lubbock Morning Avalanch said that Gates Corgan, architect for the Griffith Amusement Company, would arrive in town the following day to oversee the remodeling of the building at 813 Broadway into a movie theater.
The Aztec Theatre is not on David and Noelle Soren’s list of known Boller Brothers theaters, though the list does include Enid’s Billings Theatre, opened in 1921. A December 30, 1930, article about the La Nora Theatre in the Pampa Sunday News-Post of Pampa, Texas, mentioned the Aztec Theatre in Enid as one of the other theaters designed by Gates Corgan, architect of the La Nora. Corgan was both the architect and the contractor for Griffith Amusement company projects from the mid 1920s until 1939.
The Yucca Theatre was set to open on April 17, 1931, according to the previous day’s issue of the Roswell Daily Record. The house was built for Griffith Amusement Company. An article in the December 30, 1930, issue of the Pampa Sunday News Post about the opening of the La Nora Theatre in Pampa, Texas, said that the Griffith theater then under construction in Roswell had been designed by the La Nora’s architect, Gates Corgan.
An article in the October 2, 1936, issue of The Deming Headlight said that the Princess Theatre had been taken over by Griffith Theatres and would be closed for several weeks for extensive rebuilding. The floor would be rebuilt and a balcony added. The house was also to be renamed. The architect for the project was Gates Corgan, with Bill Moore of Fairfax, Oklahoma, acting as supervising architect.
In one of the several articles about the new La Nora Theatre that appeared in the Pampa Sunday News-Post of December 30, 1930, the day before the theater opened, was this information:
The NRHP Registration Form for the Rig Theatre says that the house was built for the Griffith Amusement Company in 1928. Given that it was a Griffith house and built that year, it was almost certainly designed and built by Oklahoma City architect/contractor Gates Corgan, who handled over 100 projects for Griffith by 1939.
The NRHP form has a nice early exterior photo of the house. There is also a photo of the first band of Wink native Roy Orbison. There are plans to restore the Rig as a live performance venue in conjunction with the Roy Orbison museum.
Here is a photo of the former Oasis Theatre by Andrew Butler. The building now houses a real estate office and the office of the Winkler County Appraisal District. Internet says the building is at 107 E. Winkler Street.
The link to a nocturnal photo of the Empress Theatre in an earlier comment is dead, but it might have been the undated photo on this web page. Judging from the cars parked along Central Avenue I’d say the photo was taken within a couple of years of the theater’s opening.
Several interior photos of the Fort Theatre after its conversion to other uses can be found in the building’s NRHP Registration Form, currently available in the PDF format here. The house served as a bar and grill with live entertainment for a while before being converted into a dental office.
The Ohio Theatre was mentioned in the January 9, 1936, issue of The Film Daily:
The December, 1906, issue of The Ohio Architect and Builder reported that John D. Sourwine of Terre Haute would advertise for bids on the new opera house he was building at Brazil. The house was expected to be ready to open by summer of 1907.
Here is an early postcard image of the Sourwine Opera House from Indiana Memory.
The Sourwine Theatre was destroyed by a fire in early 1947. The Cooper Theatre was built on its site.
The Brazil Times published a letter from John Weddle in 2011 which can be read on this web page. It says that the Cooper Theatre replaced the Sourwine Theatre on the same site and opened in February, 1948. The Sourwine had been destroyed by fire in early 1947.
The Roxy Theatre was located in the Canfield WPA Memorial Building, 132 S Broad Street. The building also housed a library, an American Legion hall and a Masonic lodge, as well as facilities for youth groups. It is now privately owned and has been converted into offices.
Construction on the building began in December, 1936. It was designed in the Colonial Revival style by Youngstown architects Cook & Canfield (William H. Cook and W. Canfield.) The project was financed in part by local subscription and in part by funds from the Works Progress Administration.
In 2007 the building was declared an historic site by the Ohio Historical Society, who placed a marker. The text of the marker can be read on this web page.
The May 3, 1946, issue of The Film Daily said that R. F. Smith was the architect for the New Poly Theatre being built by Tri-States Theaters at Forth Worth.
The only theater in Shawnee that is attributed to Boller Brothers on David and Noelle Soren’s list of known Boller Theaters is the Misson Theatre of 1927.
The May 1, 1946, issue of The Film Daily has a death notice for Shawnee architect Gates Corgan and attributes the design of the Bison Theatre to him:
Another item in the same magazine said that Gates Corgan had designed more than 100 houses for the Griffith Amusement Company.