This 2012 weblog article about the King Theatre says that it was opened in 1930 by Milton and Sara Mansfield, who had operated the Strand and Rivola Theatres since their arrival in Belle Plaine in 1927. The Strand was closed when the King opened, and the Rivola was closed the following year. The King Theatre has been operated by members of the Mansfield family since opening.
Manager George Hake of the Lyric Theatre, Belmond, Iowa, had a capsule review of the movie Over the Hill published in the December 30, 1922, issue of Exhibitors Herald.
The history page of the official web site says the Capitol now has 370 seats. The performing arts center met its projected opening date of June 1, 2012. Plans for the project were by Metzger Johnson Architects of Burlington, Iowa, and Galesburg, Illinois, though as of this year the firm is now part of Klingner Architectural Group.
W.C. Quimby took over the Palace in 1923, as noted in this item from the September 15 issue of Exhibitors Herald:
“W. C. Quimby Taking Over Ft. Wayne House
(Special to Exhibitors Herald)
“FORT WAYNE, IND., Sept. 5.— Negotiations for the transfer of the Palace theatre in this city, one of the most beautiful playhouses in the middle west, are nearing completion, it has been learned, and new owners are expected to take control soon. W. C. Quimby, owner of three houses in Fort Wayne, it has become known, is buying fifty per cent of the stock of the holding company, and is leasing the remainder for a period of twenty years.
“The deal is said to involve a consideration of $500,000. The theatre has been the leading vaudeville house in Fort Wayne for many years and is at present playing stock. The future policy of the playhouse has not been determined.”
Clyde Quimby had some sort of deal with RKO. The 1933 Fort Wayne directory lists this house as the RKO Palace Theatre.
The December 2, 1911, issue of The Billboard said: “The elegant new Burns Theatre at Colorado Springs will soon be finished and it is reported there will be a large delegation of Denver people who will attend the opening performance.”
Lindamay: This photo gallery of Elmira theaters from stargazette.com includes a shot of the entrance of the Regent in 1958 (thumbnail #6.) That’s the only photo from the 1950s I’ve been able to find.
The July 30, 1910, issue of The Film Index had this item about the Majestic Theatre:
“The Majestic Motion Picture Place, of Pottsville, Pa., which is conceded to be one of the most modern in the country, opened July 9. Besides having the best pictures obtainable, the management has installed an $850 Matchless Cunningham Player.”
The current operators of the Majestic could install a new Matchless Cunningham Piano, too, but I don’t think there’s a player model anymore.
Like the Winter Garden Theatre, the Mozart Theatre was designed by the local architectural firm of Freeburg & Fidler. George C. Freeburg and A. Howard Fidler formed their partnership in 1910, when Freeburg had been practicing for about four years and Fidler for less than a year.
Neither had extensive training in architecture. Freeburg had worked as a carpenter, mason, and painter before apprenticing in the offices of local architects, and Fidler had taken a course in architecture at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, a preparatory school, and also took a correspondence course. Nevertheless, their firm soon became one of the most successful in the region, with Freeburg being the principal designer and Fidler acting primarily as a supervising architect.
Unfortunately, the partnership ended with the premature death of Freeburg in November, 1916, at the age of thirty. Fidler then formed the firm of Phillips, Fidler & Beck with the established Warren, New York, architect Edward A. Phillips and the recent Cornell graduate Ellis W. Beck.
Freeburg & Fidler designed two theater projects for Dunkirk, New York, in 1915, but I haven’t been able to discover which theaters they were, or if they were ever completed. The successor firm of Phillips, Fidler & Beck designed a theater for a site at Main and Portage Streets in Westfield, New York, in 1917, but I’ve been unable to find out anything about it. It might have been a predecessor of the Grand Theatre, built at that intersection in 1941.
The July 3, 1910, issue of The Film Index said that the Empire Theatre of New London, Connecticut, would close for two weeks for repairs. It didn’t reveal the nature of the repairs.
The Rialto no longer has its stand-alone web site, but now has this Facebook page (which, oddly, still sports a link to the now-unrelated web page.) The Facebook page features some recent photographs of the ongoing restoration work. Earlier this year the Vitrolite on the facade was being repaired.
We list the Rex as demolished. Has that happened quite recently? Google has no nearby street view of this location, but there’s a good bird’s eye view at Bing Maps. The building looks like a theater, but there are gaping holes in its roof, so it might have been demolished since the view was recorded. If it hasn’t been demolished yet it probably soon will be.
A permit for a theater at Sunbury was issued in March, 1919, and noted in the Department Reports of Pennsylvania that year. No details about the project were given except that it was being built by the “Gen. Amusement Co.” (probably a company set up for the specific purpose of building the house) and designed by architect W. H. Lee. Given that he Rialto was built around 1920, it was probably this project.
A building permit for a moving picture theater at Clifton Heights was issued to a J. A. Simmons in 1920, but there is evidence that the Clifton Theatre was in operation prior to 1914. It is possible that the permit was for an expansion or rebuilding of the Clifton, or it might have been for a different theater that we do not have listed.
The pre-1920 existence of the Clifton Theatre is indicated by an article in Film Bulletin of November 13, 1934, about a church-led boycott of all movies that had been going on for five months, leading to the bankruptcy of several independent theater operators in the region:
“Perhaps the most pathetic situation is the case of Jim Dick, of the Clifton Theatre, Clifton Heights. For more than 20 years Dick had been supporting himself and family from earnings of the little Clifton Heights theatre. A bank crash took his savings but he continued to eke out a slender existence from the theatre. Along came the Ban cutting his receipts almost in half, causing him to lose his theatre and leaving him and a family of seven destitute.”
A general conflagration in the early morning hours of December 4, 1919, destroyed several buildings in Fayette City, including the original Bell Theatre, as reported in that day’s edition of Monongahela’s The Daily Republican. A list of building permits issued for theaters in Pennsylvania in 1920 included a house at Fayette City for Joseph Bell and William Amaismaier. J. C. Brenton was the architect for the rebuilding project.
This item is from the May 14, 1921, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“J. McBride has built a $40,000 theatre at Trafford City, Pa. Yes, indeed, and some house it is, too, right up to the minute as far as modern houses are concerned. Mr. McBride is also in the grocery business there.”
A brief biography of builder Robert Ambrose McCall published by the American Historical Society in 1922 said that he both designed and built the Triangle Theatre on Frankstown Avenue in Pittsburgh.
The October 25, 1931, issue of The Film Daily had this item about the Rex:
“Portage, Pa.— The old Pastime has been reopened by C. 0. Baird. It has been remodeled and newly equipped and its name changed to the Rex.”
The Pastime, which had been reported closed only a few weeks earlier, had this advertisement in the classified section of The Billboard of March 4, 1911:
“WANTED —ATTRACTIONS
“New Pastime Theatre, Portage, Pa. Seating 800, nice stage. Opens March 1, 1911. On main line P. R. B., between Altoona and Johnstown. Pa. Good show town. Write for open time, 1911-12. C. 0. BAIRD, Mgr., Portage. Pa.”
Department Reports of Pennsylvania, covering the year 1919, lists an unnamed theater at Renovo, plans for which were approved in March. The 1983 American Classic Images photo of the Rialto to which kencmcintyre linked in the previous comment shows a building very typical of the late 1910s and early 1920s, so there’s a possibility the 1919 report referred to this house.
The Rialto is listed in the 1931 FDY, along with a 400-seat house called the Strand (both houses are also listed, without seating capacities, in the 1926 Yearbook.) Renovo is quite small (population 3,906 in 1931) and is unlikely to have ever had more than two theaters of this size at once, so the 1919 project was probably one or the other. Whichever it was, it was designed by architect Guy H. Colony for owner Omar Fisher.
This web page has a few photos of the Opera House/Lake Theatre, with some reminiscences by local residents. The Opera House was built in 1890, and was a movie theater by the 1930s. It was listed as the 500-seat, second floor New Opera House in the 1897 Cahn guide, and as the Halvorson Opera House in the 1909-1910 guide.
A Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce page about the Lake Theatre says that the Opera House was damaged by a fire in the 1920s, and the building was reopened as the Lake Theatre in 1936. The house has been equipped for digital movies since 2012. A photo shows a very modern, curtain-wall, mostly stadium-seated auditorium, so I suspect that a rebuilding much more recent than 1936 has also taken place.
Clear Lake also once had a movie house called the Park Theatre, operating from at least 1930 into the 1950s, which we don’t have listed yet.
The Regent Theatre opened in 1915. This item is from the December, 1915, issue of the trade union journal The Motorman and Conductor:
“COMPLIMENTS OF THEATER MANAGER.
“Norwalk, Conn.—In November the members of Div. No. 476 were each presented with two attendance tickets to the picture play entitled "The Birth of a Nation.” The compliment was extended by the management of the Regent Theater of Norwalk.
“Our benefit drawing with a Hamilton watch as the prize resulted in drawing of the watch by Judge J. T. Hubbell of Norwalk. The Judge very kindly returned the watch to us under provision that it should be chanced off among our members. The result is that Motorman J. H. Wilmott Is now running the Short Line by it.
“On Dec. 13 we held a musical comedy benefit at the Regent Theater. It was a success.”
The theater is now being renovated by a non-profit organization, and is to eventually reopen as the Wall Street Theatre. This is their web site. Their history page says the Regent opened in September, 1915. There is an undated photo of its reopening as the Norwalk Theatre. The first movie shown under the new name was the 1939 production The Story of Alexander Graham Bell. The Norwalk Theatre closed in October, 1989, with the movie Kickboxer.
Here is a ca.1944 postcard photograph of the Wayne Theatre and the adjacent Greyhound bus station. From a 1951 view at Historic Aerials, I believe that the theater had to have been on the east side of Buckeye Street adjacent to the north side of the alley between Lincoln Highway and North Street.
The Greyhound office must have been in the small building now occupied by the dental office of Dr. Ronald Ostroski, which is at 133 N. Buckeye. The theater’s address was most likely 127, 129 or 131 N. Buckeye. The Wayne/Lyric II Theatre has been demolished.
A Gem Theatre was in operation at Trenton, Nebraska, at least as early as 1923. Manager E. J. Walters had three capsule movie reviews published in Exhibitors Herald in September that year.
Well, I don’t know how I missed John Rice’s page about the Point Theatre, which has the answers (and several good photos.) The Point Theatre was opened by Richard Tcherassy on February 14, 1913, and the building was designed by architect C. O. Clausen.
Robert Lippert renamed the house the V Theatre (for Victory,) and re-opened on August 4th, 1942. The remodeling for Lippert was designed by architect Vincent Raney. Post-war, the name Point Theatre was restored. The house opened and closed a few times after that, finally re-opening in the mid-1950s as the Ciné Theatre, a second-run, revival, and art house.
A thing I find remarkable is that the building’s Greek Revival pediment has survived all this time, little worse for wear. Plaster is unlikely to have held up so well, and there are no joints as one would expect in terra cotta, so it must be either wood (frequently used for exterior trim in the Bay Area even after more than half of San Francisco went up in flames in 1906) or cast iron.
A 1924 Exhibitors Trade Review item spelled Mr. Tcherassy’s name Tcherrasy, but it was mistaken. Internet search returns numerous hits referring to members of the Tcherassy family in northern California.
The Regent Theatre of 1916 remains a mystery. It is not listed on the Lost Movie Theatres of Richmond web site, nor is a house called the MacDonald that was operating in 1929. There are still bits of Richmond’s theater history waiting to be discovered.
This 2012 weblog article about the King Theatre says that it was opened in 1930 by Milton and Sara Mansfield, who had operated the Strand and Rivola Theatres since their arrival in Belle Plaine in 1927. The Strand was closed when the King opened, and the Rivola was closed the following year. The King Theatre has been operated by members of the Mansfield family since opening.
Manager George Hake of the Lyric Theatre, Belmond, Iowa, had a capsule review of the movie Over the Hill published in the December 30, 1922, issue of Exhibitors Herald.
The official web site isn’t working anymore. Another theater with nothing but a Facebook page.
The history page of the official web site says the Capitol now has 370 seats. The performing arts center met its projected opening date of June 1, 2012. Plans for the project were by Metzger Johnson Architects of Burlington, Iowa, and Galesburg, Illinois, though as of this year the firm is now part of Klingner Architectural Group.
I’m not a subscriber, either, but I see the photos. It might be an issue with your browser. Try this individual photo.
W.C. Quimby took over the Palace in 1923, as noted in this item from the September 15 issue of Exhibitors Herald:
Clyde Quimby had some sort of deal with RKO. The 1933 Fort Wayne directory lists this house as the RKO Palace Theatre.The December 2, 1911, issue of The Billboard said: “The elegant new Burns Theatre at Colorado Springs will soon be finished and it is reported there will be a large delegation of Denver people who will attend the opening performance.”
Lindamay: This photo gallery of Elmira theaters from stargazette.com includes a shot of the entrance of the Regent in 1958 (thumbnail #6.) That’s the only photo from the 1950s I’ve been able to find.
The July 30, 1910, issue of The Film Index had this item about the Majestic Theatre:
The current operators of the Majestic could install a new Matchless Cunningham Piano, too, but I don’t think there’s a player model anymore.Like the Winter Garden Theatre, the Mozart Theatre was designed by the local architectural firm of Freeburg & Fidler. George C. Freeburg and A. Howard Fidler formed their partnership in 1910, when Freeburg had been practicing for about four years and Fidler for less than a year.
Neither had extensive training in architecture. Freeburg had worked as a carpenter, mason, and painter before apprenticing in the offices of local architects, and Fidler had taken a course in architecture at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, a preparatory school, and also took a correspondence course. Nevertheless, their firm soon became one of the most successful in the region, with Freeburg being the principal designer and Fidler acting primarily as a supervising architect.
Unfortunately, the partnership ended with the premature death of Freeburg in November, 1916, at the age of thirty. Fidler then formed the firm of Phillips, Fidler & Beck with the established Warren, New York, architect Edward A. Phillips and the recent Cornell graduate Ellis W. Beck.
Freeburg & Fidler designed two theater projects for Dunkirk, New York, in 1915, but I haven’t been able to discover which theaters they were, or if they were ever completed. The successor firm of Phillips, Fidler & Beck designed a theater for a site at Main and Portage Streets in Westfield, New York, in 1917, but I’ve been unable to find out anything about it. It might have been a predecessor of the Grand Theatre, built at that intersection in 1941.
The July 3, 1910, issue of The Film Index said that the Empire Theatre of New London, Connecticut, would close for two weeks for repairs. It didn’t reveal the nature of the repairs.
The Rialto no longer has its stand-alone web site, but now has this Facebook page (which, oddly, still sports a link to the now-unrelated web page.) The Facebook page features some recent photographs of the ongoing restoration work. Earlier this year the Vitrolite on the facade was being repaired.
We list the Rex as demolished. Has that happened quite recently? Google has no nearby street view of this location, but there’s a good bird’s eye view at Bing Maps. The building looks like a theater, but there are gaping holes in its roof, so it might have been demolished since the view was recorded. If it hasn’t been demolished yet it probably soon will be.
A permit for a theater at Sunbury was issued in March, 1919, and noted in the Department Reports of Pennsylvania that year. No details about the project were given except that it was being built by the “Gen. Amusement Co.” (probably a company set up for the specific purpose of building the house) and designed by architect W. H. Lee. Given that he Rialto was built around 1920, it was probably this project.
A building permit for a moving picture theater at Clifton Heights was issued to a J. A. Simmons in 1920, but there is evidence that the Clifton Theatre was in operation prior to 1914. It is possible that the permit was for an expansion or rebuilding of the Clifton, or it might have been for a different theater that we do not have listed.
The pre-1920 existence of the Clifton Theatre is indicated by an article in Film Bulletin of November 13, 1934, about a church-led boycott of all movies that had been going on for five months, leading to the bankruptcy of several independent theater operators in the region:
A general conflagration in the early morning hours of December 4, 1919, destroyed several buildings in Fayette City, including the original Bell Theatre, as reported in that day’s edition of Monongahela’s The Daily Republican. A list of building permits issued for theaters in Pennsylvania in 1920 included a house at Fayette City for Joseph Bell and William Amaismaier. J. C. Brenton was the architect for the rebuilding project.
This item is from the May 14, 1921, issue of The Moving Picture World:
A brief biography of builder Robert Ambrose McCall published by the American Historical Society in 1922 said that he both designed and built the Triangle Theatre on Frankstown Avenue in Pittsburgh.
The October 25, 1931, issue of The Film Daily had this item about the Rex:
The Pastime, which had been reported closed only a few weeks earlier, had this advertisement in the classified section of The Billboard of March 4, 1911:Department Reports of Pennsylvania, covering the year 1919, lists an unnamed theater at Renovo, plans for which were approved in March. The 1983 American Classic Images photo of the Rialto to which kencmcintyre linked in the previous comment shows a building very typical of the late 1910s and early 1920s, so there’s a possibility the 1919 report referred to this house.
The Rialto is listed in the 1931 FDY, along with a 400-seat house called the Strand (both houses are also listed, without seating capacities, in the 1926 Yearbook.) Renovo is quite small (population 3,906 in 1931) and is unlikely to have ever had more than two theaters of this size at once, so the 1919 project was probably one or the other. Whichever it was, it was designed by architect Guy H. Colony for owner Omar Fisher.
This web page has a few photos of the Opera House/Lake Theatre, with some reminiscences by local residents. The Opera House was built in 1890, and was a movie theater by the 1930s. It was listed as the 500-seat, second floor New Opera House in the 1897 Cahn guide, and as the Halvorson Opera House in the 1909-1910 guide.
A Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce page about the Lake Theatre says that the Opera House was damaged by a fire in the 1920s, and the building was reopened as the Lake Theatre in 1936. The house has been equipped for digital movies since 2012. A photo shows a very modern, curtain-wall, mostly stadium-seated auditorium, so I suspect that a rebuilding much more recent than 1936 has also taken place.
Clear Lake also once had a movie house called the Park Theatre, operating from at least 1930 into the 1950s, which we don’t have listed yet.
The Regent Theatre opened in 1915. This item is from the December, 1915, issue of the trade union journal The Motorman and Conductor:
The theater is now being renovated by a non-profit organization, and is to eventually reopen as the Wall Street Theatre. This is their web site. Their history page says the Regent opened in September, 1915. There is an undated photo of its reopening as the Norwalk Theatre. The first movie shown under the new name was the 1939 production The Story of Alexander Graham Bell. The Norwalk Theatre closed in October, 1989, with the movie Kickboxer.Here is a ca.1944 postcard photograph of the Wayne Theatre and the adjacent Greyhound bus station. From a 1951 view at Historic Aerials, I believe that the theater had to have been on the east side of Buckeye Street adjacent to the north side of the alley between Lincoln Highway and North Street.
The Greyhound office must have been in the small building now occupied by the dental office of Dr. Ronald Ostroski, which is at 133 N. Buckeye. The theater’s address was most likely 127, 129 or 131 N. Buckeye. The Wayne/Lyric II Theatre has been demolished.
A Gem Theatre was in operation at Trenton, Nebraska, at least as early as 1923. Manager E. J. Walters had three capsule movie reviews published in Exhibitors Herald in September that year.
Well, I don’t know how I missed John Rice’s page about the Point Theatre, which has the answers (and several good photos.) The Point Theatre was opened by Richard Tcherassy on February 14, 1913, and the building was designed by architect C. O. Clausen.
Robert Lippert renamed the house the V Theatre (for Victory,) and re-opened on August 4th, 1942. The remodeling for Lippert was designed by architect Vincent Raney. Post-war, the name Point Theatre was restored. The house opened and closed a few times after that, finally re-opening in the mid-1950s as the Ciné Theatre, a second-run, revival, and art house.
A thing I find remarkable is that the building’s Greek Revival pediment has survived all this time, little worse for wear. Plaster is unlikely to have held up so well, and there are no joints as one would expect in terra cotta, so it must be either wood (frequently used for exterior trim in the Bay Area even after more than half of San Francisco went up in flames in 1906) or cast iron.
A 1924 Exhibitors Trade Review item spelled Mr. Tcherassy’s name Tcherrasy, but it was mistaken. Internet search returns numerous hits referring to members of the Tcherassy family in northern California.
The Regent Theatre of 1916 remains a mystery. It is not listed on the Lost Movie Theatres of Richmond web site, nor is a house called the MacDonald that was operating in 1929. There are still bits of Richmond’s theater history waiting to be discovered.