The January 1, 1916, issue of Motography has an item about this theater:
“The new White Way theater in Mansfield was opened by Manager Roberts. The decorations are white and green and are tastily carried out in all the furnishings. Feature films will be shown.”
The Palace Theatre dates back to at least as early as 1921. It was on a list of public buildings for which license fees had been collected by the state during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1921.
Chris, you might find the list useful as you’ve been adding theaters in South Dakota. It starts here and continues through page 246 of the Google Books scan. About half the list appears to be theaters. Unfortunately, the list isn’t alphabetical either by theater name or by place, so you have to use the Google Books' search box in the left frame of the page to quickly find if a particular theater was licensed in 1921.
The Legion post building has a plaque with the year 1915 above the entrance, so the building is quite old. It looks as though it might have been built as a lodge hall, though if built in 1915 it wouldn’t have been for the American Legion, which wasn’t founded until 1919. I don’t know how long Hartford’s Legion post has been in this building, but if it was there in 1948 then the State Theatre might have another aka. An item in the October 16, 1948, issue of Showmen’s Trade Review says that “[t]he Legion, Hartford, S. D., is closed for remodeling.”
This is from the August 1, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:
“Floyd Opens Sebring House
“Sebring, Fla. — Floyd Theaters has opened their new $25,000 theater, the Florida. Gene Stone is manager of the 609-seat house. Interior is finished in white-brown Celotex and cypress in natural tones with a two-tone light green trim. Foyer is finished in natural wood, with a bright red carpet. Exterior is concrete with strips of bright orange carra glass.”
I suspect that “carra glass” was meant to read “Carrara Glass,” a competitor of the better-known Vitrolite brand of pigmented glass tiles.
There is a photo of the auditorium of the Kiva Theatre on this page of the April 29, 1939, issue of Showmen’s Trade Review The caption says that the recent renovation of the house was designed by the Kiva’s owner, Frank Maloff, but I believe the correct spelling of his name was Maloof.
Boxoffice is behaving badly again and Tinseltoes' link is not working (whether temporarily or permanently I don’t know.) Fortunately, the remodeling of the Colony Theatre was the subject of an article in the April 29, 1939, issue of Showmen’s Trade Journal, as well, and here is a scan of it at the ever-reliable Internet Archive. The 1939 remodeling was designed by John Eberson.
Have we got the addresses of the State and Hartford Theatres reversed, or is it the names and histories? Internet says that the Hartford American Legion post is at 120 N. Main Avenue. Google Street View shows the address 119 next to the door of the Senior Citizens Center across the street.
The June 13, 1930, issue of The Film Daily said in an item datelined Fort Dodge that “Bruno Pierce is managing the new Iowa here, recently opened by the Rivola Co.”
Indeed, This is Cinerama had been running at the Broadway Theatre in New York for seven months, since September 30, 1952, and at the Music Hall in Detroit for more than a month, beginning March 23, 1953, before it opened at the Warner Hollywood on April 29, 1953. The fourth Cinerama installation was at the Warner Theatre in New York, to which the movie moved after playing 36 weeks at the Broadway. Chicago’s Palace Theatre got the fifth installation, and the movie opened there some three months after its Hollywood opening. Cinerama was rolled out very slowly. By the end of 1953, there had been only ten installations.
The Capitol Theatre opened on January 12, 1927, according to the theater’s history on this web page. The listing in the Buechner & Orth papers was for the year of design and construction, not the year of opening. Henry Orth was probably lead architect on the project, as Charles Buechner died in 1924.
Unless something happened to the original building, or the name was moved to a different house, the Strand Theatre dates to 1916. Here is an item from the July 16 issue of The Moving Picture World
“THE STRAND THEATER, FORT DODGE.
“A. F. Powers, of the Decorators Supply Company, has closed a contract for the ornamental plaster decorations and lighting fixtures for the Strand theater now being erected at Fort Dodge, Iowa, by Messrs. Julius & Awe.
“The decorations of the Strand will be carried out according to the designs furnished by the proprietors. The theater will seat about 700, and will be of strictly fire-proof construction. The auditorium will be ventilated with a modern air washing apparatus. The interior of the auditorium will be carried out to represent an Italian garden effect, with semi-direct electric bowls suspended from arches between the wall pilasters. The wall pilasters and proscenium arch will be of caenstone.
“The foyer and lobby will be of ornamental plaster marble and mosaic floor. The prevailing color of the auditorium will be French gray and ivory, with electric fixtures in ivory and antique gold. The entire front of the building will be covered with an artistic electric sign and display lights.”
The Strand Theatre changed hands in 1917, as reported in the September 1 issue of MPW:
“Fort Dodge, Ia. — D. B. Lederman, manager of the Des Moines Laemmle Film service, has purchased the Strand theater in Fort Dodge from Messrs. Julius & Awe.”
The Rialto Theatre changed hands in 1925, according to the November 7 issue of Motion Picture News:
“The Rialto theatre at Fort Dodge, formerly owned by William Johnson has been added to the string of A. H. Blank. It has not yet been anounced [sic] who will manage the theatre for Mr. Blank.”
Unless the Orient Theatre operated in more than one location, it existed before the 1920s. This item is from the January 29, 1916, issue of The American Contractor:
“Jersey City, N. J.—Moving Picture Theater: $22,000. 1 sty. Archt. C. H. Ziegler, 75 Montgomery st. Owner Orient Theater Corp.. Wm. A. Higgins, pres., 27 Monticello av. Fdn. started. Gen. contr. let to the Jersey City Constr. Co., 75 Montgomery st.”
The style of the brickwork on the facade of this theater was popular in the 1910s, so I’m inclined to think that Our Lady of Sorrows Church is the movie house built by the Orient Theatre Corp. in 1916. $22,000 would have been adequate for construction of a theater of this size before construction costs rose following the U.S. entry into WWI in 1917.
The October 21, 1916, issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror said that the Orient Theatre in Jersey City had opened on October 7. The new moving picture house was being managed by John E. Moody.
A number of Maud Humphrey’s illustrations can be seen on this web page. She illustrated a number of children’s books as well as drawing advertisements. Mellin’s Baby Food was among her clients.
A letter from A. C. Russell of the New Iris Theatre, Velva, North Dakota, was published in the October 13, 1923, issue of Exhibitors Herald. Velva’s movie house was called simply the Iris Theatre when a letter from its earlier operator, L. K. Sivertson, was published in Motography of January 13, 1917. That letter was dated December 26, 1916.
The April 1, 1954, issue of Motion Picture Daily said that the Lake Theatre in Powers Lake, North Dakota, had recently been equipped for CinemaScope movies.
The diagram in the article says the new seats are 60 inches wide. Sixty inches is five feet! They look to be a couple of feet taller than they are wide, too- I’d say about seven feet from floor to top of seat back. Gerry Lopez must be a giant. In the photo he looks to be almost as wide as the back of the seat he’s in, and his head extends above the top of it. So if the CEO of AMC is ten feet tall and weighs about seven or eight hundred pounds, it’s no wonder they think they need to re-seat their theaters. Maybe they should just hire a smaller CEO and save their money.
LOL Wall Street Journal. When did their graphics department get so innumerate? It should be obvious to anyone with a sense of proportion that the rows are five feet deep, not the seats five feet wide.
The Vernon Theatre was originally a project of the Dusenbury brothers. This item is from the February 7, 1914, issue of Motography:
“J. W. Dusenbury has taken out a building permit for the
erection of a moving picture theater on Mount Vernon avenue, near Twentieth street, Columbus, to cost $30,000.”
A follow-up item appeared in the May 2 issue of the same publication:
“The new picture theater built by the Messrs. Dusenbury in
Mt. Vernon avenue, Columbus, is now nearing completion and will be opened to the public shortly. It will be called the Vernon. Its capacity is 1,000.”
An early report on the project appeared in the September 13, 1913, issue of The American Contractor:
“Moving Picture Theater: 2 sty. & bas. $15,000. Mt. Vernon av., nr. 20th st. Archts. Dawson & Holbrook, Outlook bldg. Owner J. W. Dusenbury, care Southern Theater. Architects are receiving figures on foundation. Brick, terra cotta, tile lobby, composition roof, galv. iron cornice, pine finish & floors, struct. & archt. iron.”
Dawson & Holbrook also designed the downtown Columbus house that was long known as the Knickerbocker Theatre, and might have planned the conversion of the old Grand Opera House on State Street into a movie theater around 1914.
This house was built in 1914 and opened as the Empress Theatre. This PDF with data from the Library of Congress Historic American Buildings survey was prepared shortly before the front of the building was demolished in 1980. The document notes Horace L. Chapman as the owner of the building prior to 1919, but says that it was built in 1915-1916.
It also says that the architect is unknown, but the Internet provides evidence that the theater was designed by the firm of Dawson & Holbrook. Here is an item from the April 11, 1914, issue of The American Contractor:
Columbus, O.—Theater. Store & Flat Bldg. (seating 1,300): 3 sty. & bas., providing for 8 sty. later. 80x187. $80,000. High & Cherry Sts. Archts. Dawson & Holbrook, Outlook bldg. Owner Horace L. Chapman, Wyandotte bldg. General contract to J. W. Heckert, Ruggery bldg. Excavating. Architect desires bids at once on plastering.“
Currently, Amazon has on sale a 1915 print ad from the O. W. Ketcham Terra Cotta Works, and the ad features a photo of this house, captioned "Empress Theatre Building, Columbus, O. Dawson & Holbrook, Architects.” Here is a link (though it is probably temporary.) Amazon doesn’t say what magazine the ad was published in, but it might turn up at the Internet Archive or Google Books eventually.
Architects Dawson & Holbrook designed at least one other built theater in Columbus, the Vernon, and in 1914 they were selected to design a new theater to be built on the site of the Grand Opera House on State Street, though it appears that he opera house was merely renovated around that time, and I haven’t been able to discover if the plans for that project were done by Dawson & Holbrook.
John Siebrand, operator of the New Grand Theatre, submitted capsule reviews to Exhibitors Herald in the early 1920s. This one was published in the December 31, 1921, issue:
“The Passion Flower, with Norma Talmadge. — Good picture, but does not please the Norma fans. — John W. Siebrand. New Grand theatre, Northwood, N. Dak. — Neighborhood patronage.”
He was more pleased with the public response to another movie which he reviewed in the January 21, 1922 issue:
“Lahoma, an Edgar Lewis production. — A real blue ribbon feature of the west in the making. Went over like a landslide. Pathe has a number of winners like this one. — John W. Siebrand. New Grand theatre. Northwood. N. Dak. — Neighborhood patronage.”
The Woodland Theatre building is located at 549 Park Street. LoopNet has a recent street view. At some point the theater entrance was moved from the center of the front, which has a pediment, to an adjacent storefront, but the old marquee was left in place.
The only vintage decorations left on the facade are a few medallions and a pair of thin, engaged Solomonic columns in a false portico on the second floor, but it looks like it might have been a very pretty little building at one time, perhaps of Spanish or Italian Renaissance style.
Here is a bit more in formation about the Shaw-Hayden Theatre, from the “Contracts Awarded” column of the August 9, 1919, issue of The American Contractor:
“M. P. Theater & 4 Stores & Lodge Room: $100,000. 3 sty. 110x114. Hayden av. nr. Shaw av., East Cleveland, O. Archt. W. S. Ferguson, 1900 Euclid bldg., Cleveland. Owner Shaw Hayden Amusement Co., J. F. Bruce, pres., 315 Ardenall av., East Cleveland. Gen. Contr. J. E. Chrustlan Co., 1307 St. Clair av., Cleveland. Mas. & carp, by gen. contr. Htg. let to Martin Elec. Co., Illuminating bldg., Cleveland. 1st sty. mas.”
Architect William Stanley Ferguson designed at least three other theaters in the Cleveland area.
The January 1, 1916, issue of Motography has an item about this theater:
The Palace Theatre dates back to at least as early as 1921. It was on a list of public buildings for which license fees had been collected by the state during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1921.
Chris, you might find the list useful as you’ve been adding theaters in South Dakota. It starts here and continues through page 246 of the Google Books scan. About half the list appears to be theaters. Unfortunately, the list isn’t alphabetical either by theater name or by place, so you have to use the Google Books' search box in the left frame of the page to quickly find if a particular theater was licensed in 1921.
The Legion post building has a plaque with the year 1915 above the entrance, so the building is quite old. It looks as though it might have been built as a lodge hall, though if built in 1915 it wouldn’t have been for the American Legion, which wasn’t founded until 1919. I don’t know how long Hartford’s Legion post has been in this building, but if it was there in 1948 then the State Theatre might have another aka. An item in the October 16, 1948, issue of Showmen’s Trade Review says that “[t]he Legion, Hartford, S. D., is closed for remodeling.”
This is from the August 1, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:
I suspect that “carra glass” was meant to read “Carrara Glass,” a competitor of the better-known Vitrolite brand of pigmented glass tiles.There is a photo of the auditorium of the Kiva Theatre on this page of the April 29, 1939, issue of Showmen’s Trade Review The caption says that the recent renovation of the house was designed by the Kiva’s owner, Frank Maloff, but I believe the correct spelling of his name was Maloof.
Boxoffice is behaving badly again and Tinseltoes' link is not working (whether temporarily or permanently I don’t know.) Fortunately, the remodeling of the Colony Theatre was the subject of an article in the April 29, 1939, issue of Showmen’s Trade Journal, as well, and here is a scan of it at the ever-reliable Internet Archive. The 1939 remodeling was designed by John Eberson.
There was a State Theatre in operation in Hartford by 1945. This item appeared in the January 2, 1946, issue of Film Daily:
Have we got the addresses of the State and Hartford Theatres reversed, or is it the names and histories? Internet says that the Hartford American Legion post is at 120 N. Main Avenue. Google Street View shows the address 119 next to the door of the Senior Citizens Center across the street.
The December 6, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the New Alta Theatre in Pendleton, Oregon, had opened on September 6 that year.
The June 13, 1930, issue of The Film Daily said in an item datelined Fort Dodge that “Bruno Pierce is managing the new Iowa here, recently opened by the Rivola Co.”
Indeed, This is Cinerama had been running at the Broadway Theatre in New York for seven months, since September 30, 1952, and at the Music Hall in Detroit for more than a month, beginning March 23, 1953, before it opened at the Warner Hollywood on April 29, 1953. The fourth Cinerama installation was at the Warner Theatre in New York, to which the movie moved after playing 36 weeks at the Broadway. Chicago’s Palace Theatre got the fifth installation, and the movie opened there some three months after its Hollywood opening. Cinerama was rolled out very slowly. By the end of 1953, there had been only ten installations.
The Capitol Theatre opened on January 12, 1927, according to the theater’s history on this web page. The listing in the Buechner & Orth papers was for the year of design and construction, not the year of opening. Henry Orth was probably lead architect on the project, as Charles Buechner died in 1924.
Unless something happened to the original building, or the name was moved to a different house, the Strand Theatre dates to 1916. Here is an item from the July 16 issue of The Moving Picture World
The Strand Theatre changed hands in 1917, as reported in the September 1 issue of MPW:The Rialto Theatre changed hands in 1925, according to the November 7 issue of Motion Picture News:
The “Theaters in Construction” column of the February 3, 1926, issue of Variety had this item:
C. H. Ziegler was also the architect of the Orient Theatre in Jersey City.Unless the Orient Theatre operated in more than one location, it existed before the 1920s. This item is from the January 29, 1916, issue of The American Contractor:
The style of the brickwork on the facade of this theater was popular in the 1910s, so I’m inclined to think that Our Lady of Sorrows Church is the movie house built by the Orient Theatre Corp. in 1916. $22,000 would have been adequate for construction of a theater of this size before construction costs rose following the U.S. entry into WWI in 1917.The October 21, 1916, issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror said that the Orient Theatre in Jersey City had opened on October 7. The new moving picture house was being managed by John E. Moody.
A number of Maud Humphrey’s illustrations can be seen on this web page. She illustrated a number of children’s books as well as drawing advertisements. Mellin’s Baby Food was among her clients.
A letter from A. C. Russell of the New Iris Theatre, Velva, North Dakota, was published in the October 13, 1923, issue of Exhibitors Herald. Velva’s movie house was called simply the Iris Theatre when a letter from its earlier operator, L. K. Sivertson, was published in Motography of January 13, 1917. That letter was dated December 26, 1916.
The April 1, 1954, issue of Motion Picture Daily said that the Lake Theatre in Powers Lake, North Dakota, had recently been equipped for CinemaScope movies.
The diagram in the article says the new seats are 60 inches wide. Sixty inches is five feet! They look to be a couple of feet taller than they are wide, too- I’d say about seven feet from floor to top of seat back. Gerry Lopez must be a giant. In the photo he looks to be almost as wide as the back of the seat he’s in, and his head extends above the top of it. So if the CEO of AMC is ten feet tall and weighs about seven or eight hundred pounds, it’s no wonder they think they need to re-seat their theaters. Maybe they should just hire a smaller CEO and save their money.
LOL Wall Street Journal. When did their graphics department get so innumerate? It should be obvious to anyone with a sense of proportion that the rows are five feet deep, not the seats five feet wide.
The Vernon Theatre was originally a project of the Dusenbury brothers. This item is from the February 7, 1914, issue of Motography:
A follow-up item appeared in the May 2 issue of the same publication:An early report on the project appeared in the September 13, 1913, issue of The American Contractor:Dawson & Holbrook also designed the downtown Columbus house that was long known as the Knickerbocker Theatre, and might have planned the conversion of the old Grand Opera House on State Street into a movie theater around 1914.This house was built in 1914 and opened as the Empress Theatre. This PDF with data from the Library of Congress Historic American Buildings survey was prepared shortly before the front of the building was demolished in 1980. The document notes Horace L. Chapman as the owner of the building prior to 1919, but says that it was built in 1915-1916.
It also says that the architect is unknown, but the Internet provides evidence that the theater was designed by the firm of Dawson & Holbrook. Here is an item from the April 11, 1914, issue of The American Contractor:
Currently, Amazon has on sale a 1915 print ad from the O. W. Ketcham Terra Cotta Works, and the ad features a photo of this house, captioned "Empress Theatre Building, Columbus, O. Dawson & Holbrook, Architects.” Here is a link (though it is probably temporary.) Amazon doesn’t say what magazine the ad was published in, but it might turn up at the Internet Archive or Google Books eventually.Architects Dawson & Holbrook designed at least one other built theater in Columbus, the Vernon, and in 1914 they were selected to design a new theater to be built on the site of the Grand Opera House on State Street, though it appears that he opera house was merely renovated around that time, and I haven’t been able to discover if the plans for that project were done by Dawson & Holbrook.
John Siebrand, operator of the New Grand Theatre, submitted capsule reviews to Exhibitors Herald in the early 1920s. This one was published in the December 31, 1921, issue:
He was more pleased with the public response to another movie which he reviewed in the January 21, 1922 issue:The Woodland Theatre building is located at 549 Park Street. LoopNet has a recent street view. At some point the theater entrance was moved from the center of the front, which has a pediment, to an adjacent storefront, but the old marquee was left in place.
The only vintage decorations left on the facade are a few medallions and a pair of thin, engaged Solomonic columns in a false portico on the second floor, but it looks like it might have been a very pretty little building at one time, perhaps of Spanish or Italian Renaissance style.
Here is a bit more in formation about the Shaw-Hayden Theatre, from the “Contracts Awarded” column of the August 9, 1919, issue of The American Contractor:
Architect William Stanley Ferguson designed at least three other theaters in the Cleveland area.