Fargo History provides pages for the Bijou and for the Garrick. The Garrick page says that the expansion of the theater took place at the time it was renamed, in 1915. It also says that the theater was no longer listed in the 1932 city directory, having been replaced by Grant’s Department Store.
Here is another photo of the Garrick, probably from its last year as the eight-story Black Building up the block was completed in 1931.
Multiple sources, including the Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to, indicate that the plans for the 1925 rebuilding of the Grand Theatre were prepared by Boller Brothers. Not only was a new facade put on the building, but the interior was gutted and rebuilt, allowing an increase in seating capacity despite the removal of the original gallery.
This photo of the Novelty Theatre is dated September, 1926, which would be shortly after the remodeling by the Boller Brothers that year. The mid-1920s were a busy time for the Bollers in Topeka. Their new Jayhawk Theatre would open in August, 1926, and the Grand Theatre had been substantially rebuilt to their plans in 1925.
This item is from the March 29, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News concerns a theater being built at Corona, California, by J. J Cruz:
“Cruz Building at Corona, Cal.
“Construction has commenced on a new theatre on lower Main Street, Corona, Cal., next to the store of J. J. Cruz & sons, and will be conducted by them. Mr. Cruz states that his new playhouse will be ready by July 15, and that he will expend in the neighborhood of $12,000 for equipment. The building measures 120x25 with a stage for stock performances as part of the plans.”
This brief article about Clair Patee, owner of the Patee Theatre, appeared in the July 12, 1930, issue of Motion Picture News:
“Oldest Showman In U. S., Is Claim Of Clair Patee
“Topeka, Kas. — This may force the line to form to the right, but it is, nevertheless, the claim of Clair M. Patee, owner of the Patee theatre at Lawrence, that he is the oldest exhibitor in the United States. Not only that, but Patee asserts that claim has never been contested.
“‘Colonel’ Patee states he opened a picture theatre in Jersey City, N.J., in 1898, which he claims to be the first in the country. Later he opened the ‘Patee Nickel’ in Lawrence, Kas., in 1903. In 1904 he opened, on Delaware St., in Kansas City, the ‘Nickel Theatre,’ claimed to be the first picture house in Kansas City.
“Patee has never missed an MPTO convention — ‘since they have been having them,’ he adds. He has attended all of the twelve annual conclaves of the Kansas and Missouri unit. He personally published a pamphlet called ‘Facts,’ the sheets of which show publicity in early form. It was a four-page weekly, in which was a queer assemblage of reading matter, fashion notes, home hints, recipes, school news, and — carefully sandwiched in between — facts about the then new picture business.
“In those days, Patee says, the public did not look with a very friendly eye upon pictures. They were in the category of ‘fakes.’ The purpose of ‘Facts’ was to tactfully dispel this idea and to gain favor for the pictures.
“In Lawrence, his home, Patee has been an exhibitor since the ‘Patee Nickel’ was opened in 1903. His house now is called simply the ‘Patee.’ It is different from many houses in that it is on the English plan, with the choice, and highest-priced seats, in the balcony.”
The Princess Theatre is mentioned in the May 30, 1912, edition of The Topeka Daily Capital.
As many references to early theaters in Topeka that I’ve found in the trade journals, I have not yet found any mention of a Victorian Theatre. There were houses called the Aurora and the Olympic that converted to movies in 1908, there were theaters called the Majestic, the Isis, the Iris, the Empress, the Cozy, the Best, the Gem, the Earl, and the Hippodrome, but so far no Victorian.
The Sanford Theatre opened on September 13, 1926, according to the October 23 issue of Motion Picture News. The theater was in the Spanish Renaissance style, and was originally operated by Fabian Theatres in association with the Stanley Company.
The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to says that the Patee Theatre was built in 1903. However, this page from the Watkins Museum of History says that the house opened by Clair and Vivian Patee in 1903 was at 708 Massachusetts Street, and was originally called the Nickel Theatre.
It was in 1913 that they opened the Patee Theatre at 828 Massachusetts Street. The Patee Theatre was gutted by a fire in March, 1955, and the building demolished later that year. The location of the theater’s entrance is now the site of a pedestrian walkway to a parking lot. The original Nickel Theatre building is now a bookshop.
The page has a slide show with photos of both theaters, but they are all just front views.
This earlier comment by AlAlvarez says that the Stanley was showing movies as early as 1916. Its age, and the fact that it is the only theater listed for this stretch of 7th Avenue, makes it more likely that it was the theater in this item from The American Contractor of July 5, 1913:
“Moving Picture Theater (seating capacity 800): 2 sty. 60x90. $35,000. W. S. Seventh av., nr. 41st st., New York City. Archt. W. H. Hoffman, Empire bldg., Philadelphia, Pa. Const. Engr. Jas. P. Whiskerman, 30 E. 42d st., New York City. Brick. Bldrs. H. P. Wright & Co., 30 E. 42d st., New York City. Excavation finished. Plumbing let to Savoy Plumbing Co., 162 Prince st., New York City.”
W. H. Hoffman was, of course, the senior partner in the Philadelphia architectural firm of Hoffman & Henon, specialists in theater design.
This item is from the July 5, 1913, issue of The American Contractor:
“Motion Picture Theater: 1 sty. 60 x110. $15,000. 404 S. Orange av. Archt. W. E. Lehman, 738 Broad st. Owner H. C. Schneider (builder), 514 S. 14th st., & Edw. A. Kirch (furniture), Market st. Lessee about to sign lease. Architect & owner receiving bids. Brick, buff Indiana limestone, slag roof, galv. iron skylights, cornice, struct. & orn. iron, N. C. pine & cement flooring, white wood trim, tiling, gas & electric fixtures.”
The De Luxe must have been one of the more modest theaters designed by William E. Lehman.
This item is from the July 5, 1913, issue of The American Contractor:
“Picture Theater: 2 ¼ sty. 100x150. $30,000. Main st. & Fillmore av. Archt. H. P. Kehr, 503 Mutual Life bldg. Owner Buffalo Cement Co., 110 Franklin st. Up to roof. Architect desires bids on interior wood finish, electric work.”
I haven’t been able to find anything else about architect H. P. Kehr.
There is a possibility that the Royal Theatre was a house that had opened in 1918 as the Liberty Theatre. The September 21 issue of The Moving Picture World that year said that “[m]oving picture theatre congestion at Orange, Texas, has been relieved by the opening of the Strand and the Liberty theatres on Front near Sixth street in that city.” 510 W. Front Street would put the Royal near Sixth Street. The upstairs windows of the building in the ca.1948 photo CSWalczak linked to are of an old style typical of the 1910s but pretty much obsolete for commercial construction by 1940. However, the Liberty was supposed to have had about 1,100 seats, so if it was the same house as the Royal there was quite a discrepancy to account for.
This notice appeared in the September 7, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Herschel Thomas' Strand Theatre at
Orange, Texas, opened August 28 with Rex Beach’s ‘Heart of the Sunset.’ This theatre cost $70,000.”
A somewhat belated item in the September 21 issue of the same publication revealed that Orange also had theaters called the Liberty and the Princess, neither of which is currently listed (under those names, at least) at Cinema Treasures:
“Orange, Tex.— The Liberty and Strand theatres will open very shortly, with a seating capacity of between 1,100 and 1,200 each. The Princess theatre of this city will be located in the New Holland building with double its former seating capacity.”
The same issue of the magazine has another item saying both the Strand and the Liberty were already open:
“Moving picture theatre congestion at Orange, Texas, has been relieved by the opening of the Strand and the Liberty theatres on Front near Sixth street in that city. Before these new play houses opened crowds would stand in line for an hour waiting to get a chance to see a show. The influx of population owing to ship building activity caused these conditions.”
Another item mentions the Airdome Theatre in Orange. Judging from Google’s Street and Satellite views, Orange has almost completely disemboweled itself, so it’s unlikely that any of its old theaters have survived.
Ed: I’ve held off submitting the Wadsworth Theatre because I’ve been unable to find any evidence that it operated as a movie house at any time during its brief existence. However, while trying to find such evidence I came across an item in the July 5, 1913, issue of The American Contractor that is probably about the Heights Theatre, which opened October 11, 1913:
“Store, Office & Moving Picture Bldg.: 2 sty. 102x150x100. $75,000. Broadway, 181st st. & Wadsworth av. Archts. Townsend, Steinle & Haskell, 1328 Broadway. Owner Robert E. Westcott estate, 33 Wall st. Bldrs. Fountain & Choate, 110 E. 23d st. Brick, stone. Work in progress. Plastering let to T. A. O'Rourke Co., 103 Park av.”
A couple of Townsend, Steinle & Haskell’s large apartment buildings made it into the AIA Guide to New York City, but the Heights didn’t.
This brief item appeared in the July 29, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World: “Shakopee, Minn.—The Gem theater here is now controlled by Frank Viegel, of St. James, Minn.”
The movie theater section of the 1921 Cahn-Hill guide listed a 250-seat Gem Theatre at Shakopee. The September 3, 1921, issue of Exhibitor’s Trade Review published a letter from L. E. Dawson, manager of the Gem Theatre in Shakopee (right column.)
Dave Kenney’s Twin Cities Picture Show: A Century of Moviegoing lists a house called the Elite Theatre operating at 2517 27th Avenue S. from 1912 to 1929, and lists the Metro Theatre at 2519 27th Ave. S. from 1931 to 1952. He doesn’t list them as aka’s for each other (he usually does list aka’s), so, if he’s correct, the Elite must have been demolished to make way for the Metro rather than being remodeled to become the Metro. That seems quite an extravagance for economically depressed 1931, though. The roof on the Metro’s auditorium section is of a sort that might have been built in either period, so it offers no clue.
Dave Kenney’s Twin Cities Picture Show: A Century of Moviegoing lists two houses called the Lyndale Theatre: this one, and one at 624 20th Avenue N., which he says operated from 1910 to 1913. I believe that the street name was changed at some point, and the modern address of the first Lyndale Theatre would be 624 W. Broadway Avenue. This site would be a few doors east of N. Lyndale Avenue, so the theater’s name would be plausible.
Dave Kenney’s Twin Cities Picture Show: A Century of Moviegoing does list two locations for the Elite Theatre, and one of them is 2934 Lyndale Avenue South. Kenney says that this house operated from 1911 to 1915, but an item in Construction News of December 26, 1914, said that the foundation work for a new theater at 2932 S. Lyndale Avenue had been completed.
The Lyndale Theatre occupies the modern addresses 2932-2934, so if the Elite was on the same site it had been closed and demolished by late 1914. It’s also possible that it was on an adjacent lot and the addresses have drifted a bit over the years. Either way it was gone by 1916, but apparently it did really exist.
Kenney also lists the Elite at 2517 27th Avenue S., operating from 1912 to 1929.
Fargo History provides pages for the Bijou and for the Garrick. The Garrick page says that the expansion of the theater took place at the time it was renamed, in 1915. It also says that the theater was no longer listed in the 1932 city directory, having been replaced by Grant’s Department Store.
Here is another photo of the Garrick, probably from its last year as the eight-story Black Building up the block was completed in 1931.
Multiple sources, including the Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to, indicate that the plans for the 1925 rebuilding of the Grand Theatre were prepared by Boller Brothers. Not only was a new facade put on the building, but the interior was gutted and rebuilt, allowing an increase in seating capacity despite the removal of the original gallery.
This photo of the Novelty Theatre is dated September, 1926, which would be shortly after the remodeling by the Boller Brothers that year. The mid-1920s were a busy time for the Bollers in Topeka. Their new Jayhawk Theatre would open in August, 1926, and the Grand Theatre had been substantially rebuilt to their plans in 1925.
This item is from the March 29, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News concerns a theater being built at Corona, California, by J. J Cruz:
This brief article about Clair Patee, owner of the Patee Theatre, appeared in the July 12, 1930, issue of Motion Picture News:
The Princess Theatre is mentioned in the May 30, 1912, edition of The Topeka Daily Capital.
As many references to early theaters in Topeka that I’ve found in the trade journals, I have not yet found any mention of a Victorian Theatre. There were houses called the Aurora and the Olympic that converted to movies in 1908, there were theaters called the Majestic, the Isis, the Iris, the Empress, the Cozy, the Best, the Gem, the Earl, and the Hippodrome, but so far no Victorian.
The Sanford Theatre opened on September 13, 1926, according to the October 23 issue of Motion Picture News. The theater was in the Spanish Renaissance style, and was originally operated by Fabian Theatres in association with the Stanley Company.
Here is an additional photo showing the Patee Theatre around the time of its opening in 1913.
The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to says that the Patee Theatre was built in 1903. However, this page from the Watkins Museum of History says that the house opened by Clair and Vivian Patee in 1903 was at 708 Massachusetts Street, and was originally called the Nickel Theatre.
It was in 1913 that they opened the Patee Theatre at 828 Massachusetts Street. The Patee Theatre was gutted by a fire in March, 1955, and the building demolished later that year. The location of the theater’s entrance is now the site of a pedestrian walkway to a parking lot. The original Nickel Theatre building is now a bookshop.
The page has a slide show with photos of both theaters, but they are all just front views.
The Princess Theatre was listed at 834 N. Kansas Avenue in the 1921 Topeka City Directory.
The Royal Theatre at Park Rapids, Minnesota, was mentioned in the September 7, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World.
This earlier comment by AlAlvarez says that the Stanley was showing movies as early as 1916. Its age, and the fact that it is the only theater listed for this stretch of 7th Avenue, makes it more likely that it was the theater in this item from The American Contractor of July 5, 1913:
W. H. Hoffman was, of course, the senior partner in the Philadelphia architectural firm of Hoffman & Henon, specialists in theater design.They usually are, guarina, but for some reason on Wadsworth Avenue it’s back-asswards.
This item is from the July 5, 1913, issue of The American Contractor:
The De Luxe must have been one of the more modest theaters designed by William E. Lehman.This item is from the July 5, 1913, issue of The American Contractor:
I haven’t been able to find anything else about architect H. P. Kehr.There is a possibility that the Royal Theatre was a house that had opened in 1918 as the Liberty Theatre. The September 21 issue of The Moving Picture World that year said that “[m]oving picture theatre congestion at Orange, Texas, has been relieved by the opening of the Strand and the Liberty theatres on Front near Sixth street in that city.” 510 W. Front Street would put the Royal near Sixth Street. The upstairs windows of the building in the ca.1948 photo CSWalczak linked to are of an old style typical of the 1910s but pretty much obsolete for commercial construction by 1940. However, the Liberty was supposed to have had about 1,100 seats, so if it was the same house as the Royal there was quite a discrepancy to account for.
This notice appeared in the September 7, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World:
A somewhat belated item in the September 21 issue of the same publication revealed that Orange also had theaters called the Liberty and the Princess, neither of which is currently listed (under those names, at least) at Cinema Treasures:The same issue of the magazine has another item saying both the Strand and the Liberty were already open:Another item mentions the Airdome Theatre in Orange. Judging from Google’s Street and Satellite views, Orange has almost completely disemboweled itself, so it’s unlikely that any of its old theaters have survived.Ed: I’ve held off submitting the Wadsworth Theatre because I’ve been unable to find any evidence that it operated as a movie house at any time during its brief existence. However, while trying to find such evidence I came across an item in the July 5, 1913, issue of The American Contractor that is probably about the Heights Theatre, which opened October 11, 1913:
A couple of Townsend, Steinle & Haskell’s large apartment buildings made it into the AIA Guide to New York City, but the Heights didn’t.The Majestic Theatre in Jersey City opened September 16th, 1907, according to the October, 1907, issue of Architects' and Builders' Magazine.
Also, here is JCJohn’s link in clickable form. There is a brief history of the theater and some photos of the restored entrance building.
guarina: at 150 Wadsworth, the Heights Theatre building is on the west side of the street.
This brief item appeared in the July 29, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World: “Shakopee, Minn.—The Gem theater here is now controlled by Frank Viegel, of St. James, Minn.”
The movie theater section of the 1921 Cahn-Hill guide listed a 250-seat Gem Theatre at Shakopee. The September 3, 1921, issue of Exhibitor’s Trade Review published a letter from L. E. Dawson, manager of the Gem Theatre in Shakopee (right column.)
Dave Kenney’s Twin Cities Picture Show: A Century of Moviegoing lists a house called the Elite Theatre operating at 2517 27th Avenue S. from 1912 to 1929, and lists the Metro Theatre at 2519 27th Ave. S. from 1931 to 1952. He doesn’t list them as aka’s for each other (he usually does list aka’s), so, if he’s correct, the Elite must have been demolished to make way for the Metro rather than being remodeled to become the Metro. That seems quite an extravagance for economically depressed 1931, though. The roof on the Metro’s auditorium section is of a sort that might have been built in either period, so it offers no clue.
Dave Kenney’s Twin Cities Picture Show: A Century of Moviegoing lists two houses called the Lyndale Theatre: this one, and one at 624 20th Avenue N., which he says operated from 1910 to 1913. I believe that the street name was changed at some point, and the modern address of the first Lyndale Theatre would be 624 W. Broadway Avenue. This site would be a few doors east of N. Lyndale Avenue, so the theater’s name would be plausible.
Dave Kenney’s Twin Cities Picture Show: A Century of Moviegoing does list two locations for the Elite Theatre, and one of them is 2934 Lyndale Avenue South. Kenney says that this house operated from 1911 to 1915, but an item in Construction News of December 26, 1914, said that the foundation work for a new theater at 2932 S. Lyndale Avenue had been completed.
The Lyndale Theatre occupies the modern addresses 2932-2934, so if the Elite was on the same site it had been closed and demolished by late 1914. It’s also possible that it was on an adjacent lot and the addresses have drifted a bit over the years. Either way it was gone by 1916, but apparently it did really exist.
Kenney also lists the Elite at 2517 27th Avenue S., operating from 1912 to 1929.
Also, this theater has not been demolished. It still shows up in Google street view at its correct address of 2932 Lyndale Avenue South.