The Crescent Theatre had been closed for eleven years when plans to remodel and reopen it were announced in the April 11, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:
“Long-Shuttered House Will Be Reconditioned
“Ithaca — Plans to remodel and refurnish the old Crescent Theater to operate as a second-run house and to improve the Strand, have been announced here.
“In announcing the changes, Jules Berinstein, general manager of Cornell Theaters, Inc., said that the Crescent will be reopened as ‘a new theater.’ He said the building will be reconditioned throughout, with 1,200 seats all on one floor. Latest sound equipment will be installed. A new front is also planned. Work is slated to be completed in time for a September opening.
“New seats, a remodeled entrance and new decorations are among the improvements slated for the Strand during the Summer.
“The Crescent, acquired by the Cornell Theaters, Inc., in February, 1929, has been closed 11 years.”
I haven’t been able to find anything else about the reopening, so I don’t know if the project was carried out or not, or if so whether the house reopened under its original name or another name.
According to this item from the April 11, 1941, issue of The Film Daily, the Cine Olimpia reopened that year after being completely rebuilt:
“U. S. Equip. Is Feature Of Mexico City Stand
“Mexico City — With Paramount’s ‘Arise, My Love’ on the screen, the new Cine Olimpia, completely rebuilt on the site of the old one, of which Enrico Caruso laid the cornerstone in 1919, has opened on the Avenida 16 de Septiembre, one of Mexico City’s main arteries.
“Formerly American-owned, the new Cine Olimpia is now operated by Edward Noonan and Antonio de G. Osio. It has 2,800 seats from American Seating Co., Western Electric projection and sound system, and is carpeted by Mohawk. The Olimpia is also equipped with air-conditioning. Architect Carlos Crombe, who built the original Olimpia, was responsible for the new house.”
wolfgirl500: Have you ever heard of an early theater in Youngstown called the Luxor? A brief article about it appeared in the July 2, 1910, issue of a trade journal called The Film Index. It’s in the middle column on this page. Unfortunately there’s no photo of it.
Richard Abel’s Americanizing the Movies and “Movie-Mad” Audiences, 1910-1914 mentions the Luxor twice (Google Books preview) saying that it was one the theaters in Youngstown that catered to Italian audiences, but I’ve been unable to find anything else about it on the Internet.
Abel says that th Luxor was one of the theaters that didn’t advertise in the papers, so information might be difficult to find in the Vindicator, but it might have been mentioned in an article at one time or another, especially around the time it opened. Cinema Treasures has no theaters listed for Federal Plaza east of the Park Theatre, so I’m sure it’s not already here under another name.
Some of the cars in the photo of the New and Main Theatres are from the early 1950s. I think this page should be renamed Main Theatre, with Rex as an aka. The Boxoffice item I cited earlier indicates that the Rex Theatre moved into the building at 106 Main Street in 1946, so it had to have become the Main Theatre later, in the 1950s.
The Arkansas Historical Society magazine cited in the introduction was mistaken about the location of the Park Hill Theatre, which was a few miles north of the Liberty. The Liberty Theatre was built in 1940. It is mentioned three times in issue of The Film Daily late that year. This item is from the November 8 issue:
“Little Rock, Ark.— C. C. Mundo,
owner of the Rex, will open a new 300-seat house, the Liberty, at 313 Main St. in December. RCA sound will be installed.”
This is what the December 6 issue said:
“C. C. Mundo is going to manage the new Liberty Theater which E. W. Pickthome, prexy of Central Amusement Co., and his colleagues are building in North Little Rock, Ark.”
The Liberty had apparently opened by the time this item was published on December 20:
“Torch Is Held High
“North Little Rock, Ark.— C. C. Mundo, owner of the Rex in Little Rock, and general manager of the new Liberty Theater here, has not only given latter house a patriotic name but has symbolized ‘Liberty’ via a flaming red torch built on the center section of the marquee. The device is a constant reminder to the community of what Americans must defend in a topsy-turvy world.”
A photo of the Liberty Theatre, and two showing the front of the older and more elaborate Rialto Theatre a block away, can be seen on this web page. The rather plain Liberty looks as though it had been installed in an existing building.
The house on Akansas-Missouri Highway was definitely the Park Hill Theatre, and opened in 1940. The theater was located in what is now the 3400 block of Kennedy Boulevard according to a document about the Park Hill district from the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program (PDF here.) This is what the document says about the theater:
“The Park Hill Theater and Community Center in the 3400 block of John F. Kennedy Blvd. (formerly the Arkansas Missouri Highway) was constructed in 1939-1940 and was another design by architects Brueggeman, Swaim and Allen. The complex, often referred to as North Little Rock’s first multiple-store complex, originally housed a drug store, grocery, post office and movie theater. Edward F. Brueggeman headed this local architectural firm, which was responsible for the design of some of the most notable buildings in Park Hill. The firm was best known for its designs for Malco theater buildings nationwide in the 1930s.”
The October 24, 1940, issue of The Film Daily had this announcement about the Park Hill Theatre:
“New Malco House Seats 750
“North Little Rock, Ark.— Malco’s new community theater, which will be constructed at Arkansas-Missouri Highway and D St. in Park Hill, will have a seating capacity of 750 and will be of stadium-type design. Work on the new house is expected to start construction is expected to start soon, M. S. McCord, general manager of the Malco Realty Corp., announces here.
“The structure will contain a modern theater with a seating capacity of 750 persons, three stores 25 ft. in width each and one 40 ft. in width. Malco Theaters, Inc., which operates the Rialto and Princess Theaters in North Little Rock, has leased the building.
“The theater will be of stadium-type design and will have a small stage. Interior of the structure will be finished in ornamental plaster and treated for proper acoustics. The projection booth will be installed against the front, behind the loges.
“A parkway with trees and shrubbery will be in front of the building. Ample parking space will be provided on the premises. Space at one end of the parkway will be reserved for erection of a service station.
“Store fronts will be of plate and structural glass designed to suit the needs of tenants and in keeping with the general design.”
The “D St.” mentioned in the article is actually called D Avenue, and is the beginning of the 3400 block of Kennedy Boulevard.
If there was also a house called the Park Theatre in North Little Rock, it had to have been the theater on Main Street, not the one on Arkansas-Missouri Highway/Kennedy Boulevard, and the address 406 might have belonged to it. The 400 block of Main Street is in the old commercial district of the town, and would have been a block or two from the Rialto and Liberty Theatres. We don’t have the Princess Theatre listed, but I would imagine it was in the same area.
This item about the Midway Theatre is from the “Theatres Under Construction” of the December 16, 1938, issue of The Film Daily: “Los Angeles — New, 600 seats, 3140 Pico Blvd.; Builder: Frank A. Schilling; Architect: M. P. Miller; Operator: Louis Berkoff; To be completed 12-15-38.”
Architect Marcus P. Miller is little-known, even though he designed one of the iconic landmarks of Los Angeles; The Dark Room, a Wilshire Boulevard camera shop with a front designed to look like a camera. The Midway Theatre was built the same year as The Dark Room.
The “Theatres Under Construction” column of The Film Daily for December 16, 1938, includes this brief note for the Main Theatre: “Ephrata — Main, 750 seats; Architect: D. Supowitz; Operator: Harry Stiefer; To be completed 12-15-38.”
A brief history of Hurley (PDF here) has this paragraph with information about the Tejo Theatre:
“By late 1911 and early 1912, business houses and recreation facilities were starting. A new modern saloon on Cortez street, still in use as the Mexican Casino, was built. Also, an open air theater was built of corrugated iron 8-foot walls, dirt floor, wooden benches and, for the first summer, the star-decked heaven for a roof. A tin roof was added later. It showed silent movies and tickets were $.15 each. It stood where the Chino Club is now, and was operated by Lee Gooding, the village tailor. It was replaced in 1915 with a new modern building built by Chino and located on the corner of First and Cortez. It was leased to Mr. Murray and his son Leroy (the father and brother of Mrs. Beryl Sweske who still lives here). The next manager was Eddie Ward, an ex-Copper League baseball player. He named it the Tejo Theater and it was on the Gibraltar circuit. He ran it until 1955 when it was sold to John W. Galbraith along with the townsite, resold and then torn down and hauled to Deming in 1958. The foundation still remains.”
The earliest reports about the Hellman Theatre indicate that the project was downsized before it was completed. The theater was originally planned with a balcony and was to be equipped with Todd-AO, according to this item from the November 6, 1958, issue of Motion Picture Daily:
“Plans Suburban Theatre for Albany, Phila.
“Albany will be one of two cities where Neil Hellman will build suburban theatres next year. Philadelphia is the other.
“He announced here that a 1,200-seat house, equipped with Todd-AO and escalators to the balcony, will be constructed in the spring on a five-acre site adjoining his Thruway Motel and opposite the State Campus. The State of New York has erected several large buildings there, and plans others.
“The location is within the city limits and only 10 minutes from Schenectady, by the State Thruway. Present plans are for the presentation of road show pictures, first-runs and art films. Leon Einhorn, theatre and motel architect, will design the house. Parking facilities will be provided for 500 cars.
“Cost is expected to be around $500,000; the house to be in readiness for operation by Labor Day.
“Hellman will also put up a 1,400-seat suburban theatre on a 6 ½-acre site in Philadelphia, where he now operates the Lincoln and Andalusia drive-ins. Cost of that project is estimated at $750,000. This includes parking for 500 cars.
“Ed Potash, who retired from Universal’s Philadelphia exchange last spring to become Hellman’s general manager, will supervise the two new suburbans.”
A later issue of the magazine said that the completion date of the project had been moved up:
“Move Up Date for ‘Suburban’ Theatre
“Special to THE DAILY
“ALBANY, N. Y., Nov. 13. – Neil Hellman has announced the moving up of the date for the completion of a proposed 1,200-seat $500,000 ‘suburban’ theatre on Upper Washington Avenue, within the city limits, from Labor Day to July 15.
“He said that construction work will begin within three weeks. Originally it was not to start until spring. Hellman stated that the job will be put up for bids in the near future.
“Parking facilities for 500 cars are one of the features. The house, which will also have a stage and dressing rooms, is to seat 1,000 on the main floor, and 200 in the balcony. The latter will be reached by escalators.”
As built, the Hellman Theatre had 140 fewer seats than originally announced, the balcony was not built, and Cinerama replaced the planned Todd-AO installation. Apparently it had neither stage nor dressing rooms, eihter. That the house actually opened in April, 1960, rather than July, 1959, and that a second architect (Schenker) was brought on to the project, must have been the result of these changes.
The building the Double D Lounge is in has a structure at the back that looks like a former stage house. As the Strand/first State/Alpine was the only theater listed for Point Pleasant in the 1930-1943 FDYs, and the Park was the only house other than the State listed from 1947 on, it must have been the the theater on the 1931 and 1948 maps.
The opera house on the 1931 map might have been either the Lyric or the Grand, listed in the 1927 and 1928 FDY’s. Right where one would expect to find 309 Main there is a three-story building with an arched center bay. It looks like it could have had an auditorium on the upper floors. Satellite view shows that its roof is the same height from front to back, and pitched, as an auditorium roof could be expected to be. It’s big enough to hold way more than the 250 seats listed for the Lyric, though, so if it was one of the two it was probably the Grand.
The person who sold the State Theatre to the Alpine circuit in 1936 was Ross Filson. There is a page at Find a Grave with two obituaries, one of which has this:
“For more than 50 years he was in the theater business in Point Pleasant being the owner and manager of the former Lyric Theater, State Theater and the Mason Drive-In.”
Perhaps Mr. Filson owned both State Theatres, as it says he was in the business for fifty years. The Lyric Theatre Company was formed in 1922, according to one newspaper item I found, and other items indicate that prior to that he operated a garage. Fifty years from 1922 would be 1972, so unless he was by then operating only the drive-in, the second State must have been his, too. I’m not sure where the Mason Drive-In was. We don’t have it listed, and I haven’t found anything but brief references to it on the Internet.
If February, 1936, the Alpine Theatre Circuit took over the State Theatre in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. A year later, The Film Daily mentioned an Alpine Theatre in Point Pleasant. As the Alpine circuit was in the habit of renaming its theatres with the company name, there’s little doubt that they were the same house.
Back in 1927 and 1928, three theaters were listed at Point Pleasant: The Lyric, with 250 seats, the Strand, with 300 seats, and the Grand, with no listed capacity. In 1930, all three vanish, replaced by the State, with no capacity listed. In 1931, the town does not appear in the FDY, but in 1931 the Strand is back, with 300 seats. In 1931 the Strand is gone again, but the State is back, with 300 seats, and it remains through 1936. I suspect the Strand and State of being the same theater.
The FDY listings for Point Pleasant are odd, even for FDY. The State is listed in 1936 with 300 seats and the Alpine is listed in 1937 with 300 seats, but in 1938 the Alpine jumps up to 550 seats, then jumps again, to 580, in 1940, where it remains through 1946.
Meanwhile, the new State Theatre appears in 1944 with 700 seats, and then in 1946 the State and the 580-seat Alpine are joined by the Park Theatre with 400 seats. In 1947, the Alpine is gone, but the Park is now listed with 550 seats. In 1948, the State and Park are both still listed, but the State is down to 300 seats and the Park to 385 seats. There they remain for as long as they are listed (the last year I’ve found any listing for Point Pleasant is 1958, though the State, at least, was still in operation until 1980) but they are both listed as being on River Street. There doesn’t appear to be a River Street in Point Pleasant.
Anyway, theres a possibility that the Park’s seating
capacity increase in 1947, when the Alpine vanished, means that its name was moved to the Alpine’s location, but I’ve found no confirmation of this surmise.
The August 24, 1917, issue of the Las Cruces, New Mexico, newspaper The Rio Grand Republic had a report on various doings in bustling Deming, including this information about the Teal Theatre:
“Jolly Morris, of El Paso expects to have Raymond Teal’s theatre completed in three weeks at the corner of Pine and Diamond streets. The building will be 70 by 140 feet with a raised floor capable of seating 2000 persons. The main auditorium will be 60 by 90 feet, without a post. The stage will be 30 by 70 and 40 feet.”
The Teal Theatre lasted less than two years. The October 3, 1919, issue of The Deming Headlight reported that the fixtures of the Teal Theatre had been sold and would be used in a new theater in Tempe, Arizona, and another that was being enlarged in Chandler, Arizona.
The seating capacity of 2,000 was probably exaggerated, but probably not by much, as the theater could expect to draw patronage from Camp Cody, the nearby Army training base, which housed some 30,000 troops at its peak during WWI. The base began closing down in early 1919, leading to the dismantling of the Teal Theatre.
The Cody Theatre was named for Camp Cody, a U.S. Army base about three miles from Deming. Originally called Camp Brooks, it was established in 1916 as a base for troops dealing with raids made on the region by Mexican Revolutionary Pancho Villa, and as a base for incursions into Mexico by U.S. forces. On the entry of the United States into the European war in 1917, it was greatly expanded for use as a training camp.
Briefly renamed Camp Deming, it was finally named Camp Cody in honor of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who died in 1917. The camp remained in full operation until the early months of 1919, and at its peak housed as many as 30,000 troops. This led to an explosion of theaters in Deming, the nearest settlement of good size, and the Cody Theatre was only one of several large theaters opened there in 1917 and 1918. Once the camp began closing down, most the theaters did as well, and by 1926 the only theater listed at Deming in The Film Daily Yearbook was the Princess.
The December 5, 1919, issue of The Deming Headlight said that the Rialto Theatre would open on December 11. The house had previously been called the Grand Theatre, which had opened no later than January, 1918 (the earliest mention of it I’ve found.)
The owner of the Rialto was Sol Carragien, the brother of James Carragien, who had opened the Princess Theatre in 1917 and taken over the Isis Theatre in 1918. The March 14, 1919, issue of the newspaper had reported James Carragian’s sale of his two theaters to his brother Sol, who already taken over the Pastime and Grand Theatres.
The Majestic Theatre was destroyed by a fire in August, 1921. The August 19 issue of The Deming Headlight reported that the conflagration the previous Sunday night had left only one wall and the front of the building standing.
A September 23 article said that W. W. Wilcox, who had been showing movies at the Majestic two nights a week, had managed to save his projection equipment from the fire and had leased the Crystal Theatre, which he would reopen as a seven-day movie house called the Broadway Theatre.
An ad appearing in The Deming Headlight in September, 1918, said that James Carragien would commemorate the first anniversary of his Princess Theatre by installing a $10,000 pipe organ. Carragien had also taken over the Isis Theatre, next door to the Princess, in April, 1918.
Checking the Film Daily Yearbook, I’ve found that the Luna Theatre was not listed in 1954 or 1955, but reappears in 1956, and is listed under Griffith Theatres or Frontier Theatres (Griffith was renamed about 1960) in the Circuits section as late as 1964. Griffith might have closed the Luna for a couple of years due to the cost of converting for CinemaScope, and then reopened it. 1954 is the year the Mimbres Drive-In appears in the listings, so the chain would still have had two theaters in Luna County while the Luna was closed.
The Comet Theatre was mentioned in The Deming Headlight in 1912, 1913, and 1914. An item from May 1, 1914, says that Thomas Hull, manager of the Comet and Crystal Theatres, was building an Airdome on Silver Avenue. He had ordered new seats for the Comet, and would move the old seats to the new Airdome.
117 S. Silver Avenue today is a shop the name of which can’t be identified in Street View, but this web page about Camp Cody, the WWI Army training facility near Deming, says that the Comet Theatre was at 115 S. Silver. That lot is currently occupied by a Victory Outreach chapel called The House of Miracles. The front looks to be fairly modern masonry, but it might be an old building lurking behind an updated facade. If the Camp Cody page is correct, the Comet might still be standing and used as a church.
The May 1, 1914, issue of The Deming Headlight has an article about the new Airdome Theatre:
“Building New Airdome
“Thomas E. Hull, manager of the Comet and Crystal theatres, has given W. W. Barracks the contract for the erection of his new airdoroe on Silver avenue, on the block north of the Baker hotel. The building will be finished and equipped by the time the weather is warm enough for outside shows. Part of the equipment of the Comet theatre will be transferred to the airdome, Mr. Hull having ordered chairs for the Comet from the Steel Furniture company, of Grand Rapids. Mich. The airdome will have a seating capacity of three hundred and fifty, and will be one of the finest open air houses of entertainment in the southwest. Haste Wilson have been given the contract for the electrical lighting of the airdome, and they will also install a complete new system of electrical lighting in the Comet theatre. The lantern that will be used in the airdome will be the latest on the market and will be specially adapted for outdoor shows, while the screen will also be of a special make that has always given best results in open air theatres and that will not be liable to cause a strain on the eyes, as so many screens do. While it is the intention of Mr. Hull to make the airdome a popular price house, where the general admission will be five and ten cents, there will be times when special attractions will be presented that will call for higher prices of admission.”
The May 29 issue of the paper said that he Airdome would open the following night.
The theater yearbook doesn’t list the Broadway Theatre in 1926, 1927, or 1928, but it reappears in 1929, where it is listed along with the Princess and, oddly, the Catholic Church. That is the Broadway’s last appearance in the FDY (and the only listing of the Catholic Church.)
The earliest mention of the Crystal Theatre I’ve found in the local newspaper is from early 1912, in an item noting that a concert had been held there the previous Thanksgiving. I suspect that prior to that it was still being called the Opera House, though the name Opera House is also mentioned in 1912 and 1913, so there might have been more than one opera house in Deming, or the names Crystal Theatre and Opera House might have been used interchangeably.
One item gives the name of the person managing the Crystal Theatre in 1912 as George L. Shakespeare, but I suspect that it was actually being managed by Jack Bacon or Tom DeVere.
The November 1, 1926, issue of The Scranton Republican said that Comerford’s new West Side Theatre had been designed by Leon H. Lempert & Son.
The Crescent Theatre had been closed for eleven years when plans to remodel and reopen it were announced in the April 11, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:
I haven’t been able to find anything else about the reopening, so I don’t know if the project was carried out or not, or if so whether the house reopened under its original name or another name.According to this item from the April 11, 1941, issue of The Film Daily, the Cine Olimpia reopened that year after being completely rebuilt:
The Park Hill Theatre actually opened on March 30, 1941, according to the April 11 issue of The Film Daily.
wolfgirl500: Have you ever heard of an early theater in Youngstown called the Luxor? A brief article about it appeared in the July 2, 1910, issue of a trade journal called The Film Index. It’s in the middle column on this page. Unfortunately there’s no photo of it.
Richard Abel’s Americanizing the Movies and “Movie-Mad” Audiences, 1910-1914 mentions the Luxor twice (Google Books preview) saying that it was one the theaters in Youngstown that catered to Italian audiences, but I’ve been unable to find anything else about it on the Internet.
Abel says that th Luxor was one of the theaters that didn’t advertise in the papers, so information might be difficult to find in the Vindicator, but it might have been mentioned in an article at one time or another, especially around the time it opened. Cinema Treasures has no theaters listed for Federal Plaza east of the Park Theatre, so I’m sure it’s not already here under another name.
Some of the cars in the photo of the New and Main Theatres are from the early 1950s. I think this page should be renamed Main Theatre, with Rex as an aka. The Boxoffice item I cited earlier indicates that the Rex Theatre moved into the building at 106 Main Street in 1946, so it had to have become the Main Theatre later, in the 1950s.
The Arkansas Historical Society magazine cited in the introduction was mistaken about the location of the Park Hill Theatre, which was a few miles north of the Liberty. The Liberty Theatre was built in 1940. It is mentioned three times in issue of The Film Daily late that year. This item is from the November 8 issue:
This is what the December 6 issue said:The Liberty had apparently opened by the time this item was published on December 20:A photo of the Liberty Theatre, and two showing the front of the older and more elaborate Rialto Theatre a block away, can be seen on this web page. The rather plain Liberty looks as though it had been installed in an existing building.The house on Akansas-Missouri Highway was definitely the Park Hill Theatre, and opened in 1940. The theater was located in what is now the 3400 block of Kennedy Boulevard according to a document about the Park Hill district from the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program (PDF here.) This is what the document says about the theater:
The October 24, 1940, issue of The Film Daily had this announcement about the Park Hill Theatre:The “D St.” mentioned in the article is actually called D Avenue, and is the beginning of the 3400 block of Kennedy Boulevard.If there was also a house called the Park Theatre in North Little Rock, it had to have been the theater on Main Street, not the one on Arkansas-Missouri Highway/Kennedy Boulevard, and the address 406 might have belonged to it. The 400 block of Main Street is in the old commercial district of the town, and would have been a block or two from the Rialto and Liberty Theatres. We don’t have the Princess Theatre listed, but I would imagine it was in the same area.
This item from the January 10, 1923, issue of The Film Daily indicates that there was an earlier Rex Theatre in El Dorado:
This item about the Midway Theatre is from the “Theatres Under Construction” of the December 16, 1938, issue of The Film Daily: “Los Angeles — New, 600 seats, 3140 Pico Blvd.; Builder: Frank A. Schilling; Architect: M. P. Miller; Operator: Louis Berkoff; To be completed 12-15-38.”
Architect Marcus P. Miller is little-known, even though he designed one of the iconic landmarks of Los Angeles; The Dark Room, a Wilshire Boulevard camera shop with a front designed to look like a camera. The Midway Theatre was built the same year as The Dark Room.
The “Theatres Under Construction” column of The Film Daily for December 16, 1938, includes this brief note for the Main Theatre: “Ephrata — Main, 750 seats; Architect: D. Supowitz; Operator: Harry Stiefer; To be completed 12-15-38.”
A brief history of Hurley (PDF here) has this paragraph with information about the Tejo Theatre:
The earliest reports about the Hellman Theatre indicate that the project was downsized before it was completed. The theater was originally planned with a balcony and was to be equipped with Todd-AO, according to this item from the November 6, 1958, issue of Motion Picture Daily:
A later issue of the magazine said that the completion date of the project had been moved up:As built, the Hellman Theatre had 140 fewer seats than originally announced, the balcony was not built, and Cinerama replaced the planned Todd-AO installation. Apparently it had neither stage nor dressing rooms, eihter. That the house actually opened in April, 1960, rather than July, 1959, and that a second architect (Schenker) was brought on to the project, must have been the result of these changes.The building the Double D Lounge is in has a structure at the back that looks like a former stage house. As the Strand/first State/Alpine was the only theater listed for Point Pleasant in the 1930-1943 FDYs, and the Park was the only house other than the State listed from 1947 on, it must have been the the theater on the 1931 and 1948 maps.
The opera house on the 1931 map might have been either the Lyric or the Grand, listed in the 1927 and 1928 FDY’s. Right where one would expect to find 309 Main there is a three-story building with an arched center bay. It looks like it could have had an auditorium on the upper floors. Satellite view shows that its roof is the same height from front to back, and pitched, as an auditorium roof could be expected to be. It’s big enough to hold way more than the 250 seats listed for the Lyric, though, so if it was one of the two it was probably the Grand.
The person who sold the State Theatre to the Alpine circuit in 1936 was Ross Filson. There is a page at Find a Grave with two obituaries, one of which has this:
Perhaps Mr. Filson owned both State Theatres, as it says he was in the business for fifty years. The Lyric Theatre Company was formed in 1922, according to one newspaper item I found, and other items indicate that prior to that he operated a garage. Fifty years from 1922 would be 1972, so unless he was by then operating only the drive-in, the second State must have been his, too. I’m not sure where the Mason Drive-In was. We don’t have it listed, and I haven’t found anything but brief references to it on the Internet.If February, 1936, the Alpine Theatre Circuit took over the State Theatre in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. A year later, The Film Daily mentioned an Alpine Theatre in Point Pleasant. As the Alpine circuit was in the habit of renaming its theatres with the company name, there’s little doubt that they were the same house.
Back in 1927 and 1928, three theaters were listed at Point Pleasant: The Lyric, with 250 seats, the Strand, with 300 seats, and the Grand, with no listed capacity. In 1930, all three vanish, replaced by the State, with no capacity listed. In 1931, the town does not appear in the FDY, but in 1931 the Strand is back, with 300 seats. In 1931 the Strand is gone again, but the State is back, with 300 seats, and it remains through 1936. I suspect the Strand and State of being the same theater.
The FDY listings for Point Pleasant are odd, even for FDY. The State is listed in 1936 with 300 seats and the Alpine is listed in 1937 with 300 seats, but in 1938 the Alpine jumps up to 550 seats, then jumps again, to 580, in 1940, where it remains through 1946.
Meanwhile, the new State Theatre appears in 1944 with 700 seats, and then in 1946 the State and the 580-seat Alpine are joined by the Park Theatre with 400 seats. In 1947, the Alpine is gone, but the Park is now listed with 550 seats. In 1948, the State and Park are both still listed, but the State is down to 300 seats and the Park to 385 seats. There they remain for as long as they are listed (the last year I’ve found any listing for Point Pleasant is 1958, though the State, at least, was still in operation until 1980) but they are both listed as being on River Street. There doesn’t appear to be a River Street in Point Pleasant.
Anyway, theres a possibility that the Park’s seating
capacity increase in 1947, when the Alpine vanished, means that its name was moved to the Alpine’s location, but I’ve found no confirmation of this surmise.
The destruction of the Cody Theatre by fire is shown in several photos on this web page. Report from The Deming Headlight of July 12, 1918.
The August 24, 1917, issue of the Las Cruces, New Mexico, newspaper The Rio Grand Republic had a report on various doings in bustling Deming, including this information about the Teal Theatre:
The Teal Theatre lasted less than two years. The October 3, 1919, issue of The Deming Headlight reported that the fixtures of the Teal Theatre had been sold and would be used in a new theater in Tempe, Arizona, and another that was being enlarged in Chandler, Arizona.The seating capacity of 2,000 was probably exaggerated, but probably not by much, as the theater could expect to draw patronage from Camp Cody, the nearby Army training base, which housed some 30,000 troops at its peak during WWI. The base began closing down in early 1919, leading to the dismantling of the Teal Theatre.
The Cody Theatre was named for Camp Cody, a U.S. Army base about three miles from Deming. Originally called Camp Brooks, it was established in 1916 as a base for troops dealing with raids made on the region by Mexican Revolutionary Pancho Villa, and as a base for incursions into Mexico by U.S. forces. On the entry of the United States into the European war in 1917, it was greatly expanded for use as a training camp.
Briefly renamed Camp Deming, it was finally named Camp Cody in honor of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who died in 1917. The camp remained in full operation until the early months of 1919, and at its peak housed as many as 30,000 troops. This led to an explosion of theaters in Deming, the nearest settlement of good size, and the Cody Theatre was only one of several large theaters opened there in 1917 and 1918. Once the camp began closing down, most the theaters did as well, and by 1926 the only theater listed at Deming in The Film Daily Yearbook was the Princess.
The December 5, 1919, issue of The Deming Headlight said that the Rialto Theatre would open on December 11. The house had previously been called the Grand Theatre, which had opened no later than January, 1918 (the earliest mention of it I’ve found.)
The owner of the Rialto was Sol Carragien, the brother of James Carragien, who had opened the Princess Theatre in 1917 and taken over the Isis Theatre in 1918. The March 14, 1919, issue of the newspaper had reported James Carragian’s sale of his two theaters to his brother Sol, who already taken over the Pastime and Grand Theatres.
The Majestic Theatre was destroyed by a fire in August, 1921. The August 19 issue of The Deming Headlight reported that the conflagration the previous Sunday night had left only one wall and the front of the building standing.
A September 23 article said that W. W. Wilcox, who had been showing movies at the Majestic two nights a week, had managed to save his projection equipment from the fire and had leased the Crystal Theatre, which he would reopen as a seven-day movie house called the Broadway Theatre.
An ad appearing in The Deming Headlight in September, 1918, said that James Carragien would commemorate the first anniversary of his Princess Theatre by installing a $10,000 pipe organ. Carragien had also taken over the Isis Theatre, next door to the Princess, in April, 1918.
Checking the Film Daily Yearbook, I’ve found that the Luna Theatre was not listed in 1954 or 1955, but reappears in 1956, and is listed under Griffith Theatres or Frontier Theatres (Griffith was renamed about 1960) in the Circuits section as late as 1964. Griffith might have closed the Luna for a couple of years due to the cost of converting for CinemaScope, and then reopened it. 1954 is the year the Mimbres Drive-In appears in the listings, so the chain would still have had two theaters in Luna County while the Luna was closed.
The Comet Theatre was mentioned in The Deming Headlight in 1912, 1913, and 1914. An item from May 1, 1914, says that Thomas Hull, manager of the Comet and Crystal Theatres, was building an Airdome on Silver Avenue. He had ordered new seats for the Comet, and would move the old seats to the new Airdome.
117 S. Silver Avenue today is a shop the name of which can’t be identified in Street View, but this web page about Camp Cody, the WWI Army training facility near Deming, says that the Comet Theatre was at 115 S. Silver. That lot is currently occupied by a Victory Outreach chapel called The House of Miracles. The front looks to be fairly modern masonry, but it might be an old building lurking behind an updated facade. If the Camp Cody page is correct, the Comet might still be standing and used as a church.
The May 1, 1914, issue of The Deming Headlight has an article about the new Airdome Theatre:
The May 29 issue of the paper said that he Airdome would open the following night.The theater yearbook doesn’t list the Broadway Theatre in 1926, 1927, or 1928, but it reappears in 1929, where it is listed along with the Princess and, oddly, the Catholic Church. That is the Broadway’s last appearance in the FDY (and the only listing of the Catholic Church.)
The earliest mention of the Crystal Theatre I’ve found in the local newspaper is from early 1912, in an item noting that a concert had been held there the previous Thanksgiving. I suspect that prior to that it was still being called the Opera House, though the name Opera House is also mentioned in 1912 and 1913, so there might have been more than one opera house in Deming, or the names Crystal Theatre and Opera House might have been used interchangeably.
One item gives the name of the person managing the Crystal Theatre in 1912 as George L. Shakespeare, but I suspect that it was actually being managed by Jack Bacon or Tom DeVere.