The June 24, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World said that W. S. Butterfield had recently been in Bay City making arrangements for the remodeling and redecoration of the Bijou Theatre. Plans included a new ventilation and cooling system and two new Simplex projection machines.
The Bijou was originally built for owner-operator J. D. Pilmore, with a notice that construction contracts had been let appearing in the July, 1908 issue of The Bricklayer and Mason. Pilmore had operated an earlier Bay City house also called the Bijou, at least as early as 1905. The earlier Bijou was listed in the 1907 edition of Polk’s Michigan Gazetteer as being at the northwest corner of Center and Madison.
The Barrow Preservation Society’s book Around Winder says that the Strand Theatre was opened in 1916. I’ve found the Strand mentioned in trade journals as early as 1923, and an item in the March 4, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World notes plans for a new theater in Winder in a two story building 30x100 feet, to be built by J. L. Saul and operated by L. Love. The item doesn’t give a theater name, but it must have been the Strand.
Another book, Barrow County: Photographs from the Stell-Kilgore Collection, by Myles Godfrey, features a photo of the Strand with a caption that says it was located where the addition to the courthouse is now. The courthouse addition is on the west side of N. Broad Street in the block south of Athens Street (Google Books preview.)
I’ve been unable to discover when the Strand got its moderne front, or when it closed. So far I’ve found no trade journal references to it later than the one from May 1950, cited in an earlier comment by kencmcintyre.
Boxoffice of October 3, 1960, ran a short article about the plans for demolition of the Bijou for an urban redevelopment project. The theater was then operating as a double feature grind house, and management planned to keep the house open until “…the bulldozers start nudging the walls,” though the contract for the demolition had already been signed. It was the oldest theater then operating in Minneapolis.
The Bijou had never been the city’s leading theater, but prior to its conversion to a movie house had hosted such fare as popular melodramas at popular prices. Big roadshows and prestige dramas appeared at other houses, not the Bijou, where one might attend such events as a wrestling match or a religious revival.
The Villa Theatre was mentioned in the January 24, 1948 issue of Boxoffice, which said that the house had discontinued Sunday shows on January 1. The Villa had been showing movies on Sundays “for several years” the item said.
The Villa was a Martin Theatres operation for a while, as the October 9, 1954 Boxoffice said that the chain had recently sold the house.
The January 8, 1955 issue of Independent Film Journal said that Hubert Countryman and Neal Richardson had installed CinemaScope in their Villa Theatre in Villa Rica.
The most recent mention of the Villa I’ve found in the trade journals is in the October 3, 1960 issue of Boxoffice. The manager at that time was named Thomas Carter.
I think the Elm Theater most likely ended its movie career in 1929. Starting in 1931 it was the home of live theater presented by the newly-founded Portland Players theater group, an organization that still exists. During this period the theater was known as the Playhouse. The Players later moved into the Portland Theatre for some time. I’ve been unable to find any evidence that the Elm Theatre ever returned to being a movie house before being demolished in 1952.
There is a period photo of the Pex Theatre at the Georgia Writers Museum. Construction of the Pex had been announced in August, 1941, and the project continued through the fall and winter that year. I’ve been unable to find the opening date, but it must have been late 1941 or early 1942. The original seating capacity was 750.
On October 10, 2019, the Pex Theatre was acquired by the Eatonton Downtown Development Authority with a grant from the Fox Theatre Institute of Atlanta. The EDDA’s intention was to restore the house for use as a single-screen movie theater, but the project appears to have suffered delays as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Renovation has continued, however, and a new marquee was installed in April, 2022. I’ve been unable to discover anything about the state of the interior renovations. A date for reopening has not yet been announced.
Throughout its history, the theater was operated by members of the Peck family. The name Pex is a unique variant spelling of Peck’s.
The Royce Theatre was at 539 Bowers Street. The building was being used for storage at the time of the 2021 fire, but had previously been converted for retail use. In 2014 the building sported one of those mansard-style aluminum canopies popular around 1970, so the theater must have been closed by that decade.
I wonder if the grand opening of this house actually took place on schedule? It seems unlikely to me. The ad would have appeared in the morning papers, but by evening things would have changed all over America. November 22, 1963 was the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and many events scheduled for that day and a few subsequent days were cancelled or postponed. If the Cooper 70 did go through with the plans, I can’t imagine the event was very well attended.
The destruction of the Arnett Theatre by fire was reported in Boxoffice of March 4, 1950. The reopening was reported in the same journal’s issue of April 8, which said that the new brick building with glass tile front had been built in a record 30 days. The Arnett was still in operation at least as late as April, 1963, when manager Elben E. Ingram submitted capsule movie reviews to the April 15 issue of Boxoffice. The town then had a population of only 800.
A 1978 article archived on this web page mentions this theater. The nickelodeon on the ground floor of the Masonic lodge in Mannington was called the Idle Hour Theatre, and was owned by a Lebanese immigrant named Joseph Modi. The Idle Hour was one of three theaters listed at Mannington in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the others being the Pastime Theatre and the Virginia Theatre, both located on Market Street. A 235-seat Idle Hour Theatre was listed in the 1929 Film Daily Year Book, the only competition to the 400-seat Burt’s Theatre. This was the last year the Idle Hour was listed.
zebulongrady’s belief that the Broad Avenue Theatre and the Liberty Theatre were the same house is correct. The Liberty was opened in June, 1919 according to an article in the Albany Herald of September 10, 2017. It replaced a house called the Rawlings Theatre on the same site. The Rawlings was opened in 1908 and was destroyed by fire in 1917.
zebulongrady’s other claim, that the Liberty/Broad Street was the same house as the Clair Theatre, is mistaken. The Clair was on the odd-numbered side of the street, and the Liberty/Broad Street was at 246-250 W. Broad. (The missing zip code is 31701.)
Boxoffice of January 17, 1966 listed a new house for Blumenfeld Theatres under construction in the Montecito Plaza Shopping Center at San Rafael. The Montecito Plaza project was still under construction when Blumenfeld’s Northgate Theatre opened at another location in San Rafael on May 26, but it must have opened that year.
An article about Blumenfeld’s Northgate Theatre appeared in the San Rafael Independent-Journal on May 25, 1966, the day before the house opened. Though a rather small house, at 460 seats, the Northgate was the first theater in the Marin County to feature 70mm projection. Architects for the project were William B. David & Associates.
The Rootsweb history page I cited in my earlier comment has a few problems, notably glaring omissions and a couple of egregious errors which call other information it contains into question. It turns out that the Regal Theatre was built in 1923, probably opened in early 1924, and it replaced a house (under the same ownership but with a different name) which had burned in early 1923. The site also got the owner’s name wrong. It was Bollinger, not Burlinger. The May 12, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World said:
“W. T. Bollinger, of Elvins, Mo., whose theatre was destroyed by fire several weeks ago, has perfected plans to open an airdome in Elvins early in May. He also plans to rebuild the Electric Theatre.”
I’ve been unable to discover if the Regal Theatre was built on the site of the burned Electric Theater. Mr. Bollinger’s recent opening of the new Regal was noted in the February 9, 1924 issue of MPW.
A brief notice about this house appeared in the “New Theatre Building Projects” column of Motion Picture News for September 2, 1927: “Cumberland— Contractor, John I. Vandergrift. Thea. and store (2) bldg., 40 x 90. Seating capacity, 500. Colored patronage. Name: Howard. Location, North Mechanic St.”
A notice about this house appeared in the September 2, 1927 issue of Motion Picture News: “Anderson— Construction started on thea. and store room bldg., costing $50,000. Location, 23rd St. & Columbus Ave. 67 x 115. Seating capacity, 700.”
Motion Picture News of August 26, 1927 ran this belated notice about the Broad Theatre and the Loews-United Artists partnership’s other new theater planned for Columbus:
“The first of the new Loew-United Artists houses will open in Columbus on August 21st. This is the Broad, a combination house seating 2,700. The other Columbus house, the Ohio, is not scheduled to open until December. It has 3,300 seats and the policy will be pictures and presentations.”
In the 1930s Aberdeen had a movie house called the Harbor Theatre, listed in the 1933 FDY with 400 seats. I wonder if this could have been the Roxy under an earlier name? In the 1926 through 1929 editions of the FDY There was a house called the Dream Theatre, also with 400 seats. A Dream Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, though the address and seating capacity were not given.
Although the Grand Theatre was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the January 15, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World noted that “[t]he Grand theater has been reopened by G. H. Nye.” George H. Nye was manager of the Grand in 1914 when it was operating as a legitimate house, and still managing the house in 1925. The Grand advertised in the yearbooks of Aberdeen’s Weatherwax High School both of those years.
The Grand was not one of the four theaters listed at Aberdeen in the 1926 FDY, but was one of six listed in the 1927 edition, when it had 980 seats. It was still listed in 1929, but was gone by 1930.
The July 12, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World said that the new D & R Theatre in Aberdeen (the “Finest in Southwest Washington”) had recently opened after ten months of construction. The September 15, 1923 issue of Pacific Builder & Engineer had noted that construction was underway on a new theater at Aberdeen for Dolan and Ripley. The architect for the project was George B. Purvis of Seattle.
The only appearance of the Dreamland I’ve found in the trade publications is a passing mention in the January 4, 1919 Moving Picture World, which said it had booked the same programs as the Bijou Theatre.
The Lyric Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. In 1914 the Lyric and another house called the Bijou were being run by a Harry H. Burford, mentioned multiple times in the trade journals that year. There was news about the Lyric Theatre in the February 13, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World:
“The Lyric theater at Tower avenue and Twelfth street in Superior, Wis., has been taken over by the Northland Theater Company of that place, which also operates the Princess theater and which has secured a site for another house at Tower avenue and Fourteenth street. Frank C. Buckley will be manager of the newly acquired house, having resigned his position as ticket agent at the Union depot, which he held for a decade, in order to devote all his time to the amusement enterprises of the company. The house has been remodeled and will be operated on the same policy as that ruling at the Princess, featuring high class pictures. The object of erecting a large house at Tower and Fourteenth street survives despite the acquisition of a theater in that vicinity.”
The Dome Theatre was mentioned in this item from Moving Picture World of January 1, 1916:
“Michael Barry and Michael Abraham have purchased the building occupied by the Dome theater on the north side of La Crosse. They have also purchased the theater from Mr. and Mrs. Henry Liesenfeld, and Barry, who has had photoplay experience in San Francisco and Duluth, will operate it.”
The June 24, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World said that W. S. Butterfield had recently been in Bay City making arrangements for the remodeling and redecoration of the Bijou Theatre. Plans included a new ventilation and cooling system and two new Simplex projection machines.
The Bijou was originally built for owner-operator J. D. Pilmore, with a notice that construction contracts had been let appearing in the July, 1908 issue of The Bricklayer and Mason. Pilmore had operated an earlier Bay City house also called the Bijou, at least as early as 1905. The earlier Bijou was listed in the 1907 edition of Polk’s Michigan Gazetteer as being at the northwest corner of Center and Madison.
The Barrow Preservation Society’s book Around Winder says that the Strand Theatre was opened in 1916. I’ve found the Strand mentioned in trade journals as early as 1923, and an item in the March 4, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World notes plans for a new theater in Winder in a two story building 30x100 feet, to be built by J. L. Saul and operated by L. Love. The item doesn’t give a theater name, but it must have been the Strand.
Another book, Barrow County: Photographs from the Stell-Kilgore Collection, by Myles Godfrey, features a photo of the Strand with a caption that says it was located where the addition to the courthouse is now. The courthouse addition is on the west side of N. Broad Street in the block south of Athens Street (Google Books preview.)
I’ve been unable to discover when the Strand got its moderne front, or when it closed. So far I’ve found no trade journal references to it later than the one from May 1950, cited in an earlier comment by kencmcintyre.
Boxoffice of October 3, 1960, ran a short article about the plans for demolition of the Bijou for an urban redevelopment project. The theater was then operating as a double feature grind house, and management planned to keep the house open until “…the bulldozers start nudging the walls,” though the contract for the demolition had already been signed. It was the oldest theater then operating in Minneapolis.
The Bijou had never been the city’s leading theater, but prior to its conversion to a movie house had hosted such fare as popular melodramas at popular prices. Big roadshows and prestige dramas appeared at other houses, not the Bijou, where one might attend such events as a wrestling match or a religious revival.
The Villa Theatre was mentioned in the January 24, 1948 issue of Boxoffice, which said that the house had discontinued Sunday shows on January 1. The Villa had been showing movies on Sundays “for several years” the item said.
The Villa was a Martin Theatres operation for a while, as the October 9, 1954 Boxoffice said that the chain had recently sold the house.
The January 8, 1955 issue of Independent Film Journal said that Hubert Countryman and Neal Richardson had installed CinemaScope in their Villa Theatre in Villa Rica.
The most recent mention of the Villa I’ve found in the trade journals is in the October 3, 1960 issue of Boxoffice. The manager at that time was named Thomas Carter.
I think the Elm Theater most likely ended its movie career in 1929. Starting in 1931 it was the home of live theater presented by the newly-founded Portland Players theater group, an organization that still exists. During this period the theater was known as the Playhouse. The Players later moved into the Portland Theatre for some time. I’ve been unable to find any evidence that the Elm Theatre ever returned to being a movie house before being demolished in 1952.
There is a period photo of the Pex Theatre at the Georgia Writers Museum. Construction of the Pex had been announced in August, 1941, and the project continued through the fall and winter that year. I’ve been unable to find the opening date, but it must have been late 1941 or early 1942. The original seating capacity was 750.
On October 10, 2019, the Pex Theatre was acquired by the Eatonton Downtown Development Authority with a grant from the Fox Theatre Institute of Atlanta. The EDDA’s intention was to restore the house for use as a single-screen movie theater, but the project appears to have suffered delays as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Renovation has continued, however, and a new marquee was installed in April, 2022. I’ve been unable to discover anything about the state of the interior renovations. A date for reopening has not yet been announced.
Throughout its history, the theater was operated by members of the Peck family. The name Pex is a unique variant spelling of Peck’s.
The Royce Theatre was at 539 Bowers Street. The building was being used for storage at the time of the 2021 fire, but had previously been converted for retail use. In 2014 the building sported one of those mansard-style aluminum canopies popular around 1970, so the theater must have been closed by that decade.
Google street view, May, 2014.
The Ozark Theatre was at 116 E. Main Street. The building is currently in retail use as the Ozark Classic Crafts Mall.
I wonder if the grand opening of this house actually took place on schedule? It seems unlikely to me. The ad would have appeared in the morning papers, but by evening things would have changed all over America. November 22, 1963 was the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and many events scheduled for that day and a few subsequent days were cancelled or postponed. If the Cooper 70 did go through with the plans, I can’t imagine the event was very well attended.
The destruction of the Arnett Theatre by fire was reported in Boxoffice of March 4, 1950. The reopening was reported in the same journal’s issue of April 8, which said that the new brick building with glass tile front had been built in a record 30 days. The Arnett was still in operation at least as late as April, 1963, when manager Elben E. Ingram submitted capsule movie reviews to the April 15 issue of Boxoffice. The town then had a population of only 800.
A 1978 article archived on this web page mentions this theater. The nickelodeon on the ground floor of the Masonic lodge in Mannington was called the Idle Hour Theatre, and was owned by a Lebanese immigrant named Joseph Modi. The Idle Hour was one of three theaters listed at Mannington in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the others being the Pastime Theatre and the Virginia Theatre, both located on Market Street. A 235-seat Idle Hour Theatre was listed in the 1929 Film Daily Year Book, the only competition to the 400-seat Burt’s Theatre. This was the last year the Idle Hour was listed.
zebulongrady’s belief that the Broad Avenue Theatre and the Liberty Theatre were the same house is correct. The Liberty was opened in June, 1919 according to an article in the Albany Herald of September 10, 2017. It replaced a house called the Rawlings Theatre on the same site. The Rawlings was opened in 1908 and was destroyed by fire in 1917.
zebulongrady’s other claim, that the Liberty/Broad Street was the same house as the Clair Theatre, is mistaken. The Clair was on the odd-numbered side of the street, and the Liberty/Broad Street was at 246-250 W. Broad. (The missing zip code is 31701.)
Boxoffice of January 17, 1966 listed a new house for Blumenfeld Theatres under construction in the Montecito Plaza Shopping Center at San Rafael. The Montecito Plaza project was still under construction when Blumenfeld’s Northgate Theatre opened at another location in San Rafael on May 26, but it must have opened that year.
An article about Blumenfeld’s Northgate Theatre appeared in the San Rafael Independent-Journal on May 25, 1966, the day before the house opened. Though a rather small house, at 460 seats, the Northgate was the first theater in the Marin County to feature 70mm projection. Architects for the project were William B. David & Associates.
The Rootsweb history page I cited in my earlier comment has a few problems, notably glaring omissions and a couple of egregious errors which call other information it contains into question. It turns out that the Regal Theatre was built in 1923, probably opened in early 1924, and it replaced a house (under the same ownership but with a different name) which had burned in early 1923. The site also got the owner’s name wrong. It was Bollinger, not Burlinger. The May 12, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World said:
I’ve been unable to discover if the Regal Theatre was built on the site of the burned Electric Theater. Mr. Bollinger’s recent opening of the new Regal was noted in the February 9, 1924 issue of MPW.A brief notice about this house appeared in the “New Theatre Building Projects” column of Motion Picture News for September 2, 1927: “Cumberland— Contractor, John I. Vandergrift. Thea. and store (2) bldg., 40 x 90. Seating capacity, 500. Colored patronage. Name: Howard. Location, North Mechanic St.”
A notice about this house appeared in the September 2, 1927 issue of Motion Picture News: “Anderson— Construction started on thea. and store room bldg., costing $50,000. Location, 23rd St. & Columbus Ave. 67 x 115. Seating capacity, 700.”
Motion Picture News of August 26, 1927 ran this belated notice about the Broad Theatre and the Loews-United Artists partnership’s other new theater planned for Columbus:
In the 1930s Aberdeen had a movie house called the Harbor Theatre, listed in the 1933 FDY with 400 seats. I wonder if this could have been the Roxy under an earlier name? In the 1926 through 1929 editions of the FDY There was a house called the Dream Theatre, also with 400 seats. A Dream Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, though the address and seating capacity were not given.
Although the Grand Theatre was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the January 15, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World noted that “[t]he Grand theater has been reopened by G. H. Nye.” George H. Nye was manager of the Grand in 1914 when it was operating as a legitimate house, and still managing the house in 1925. The Grand advertised in the yearbooks of Aberdeen’s Weatherwax High School both of those years.
The Grand was not one of the four theaters listed at Aberdeen in the 1926 FDY, but was one of six listed in the 1927 edition, when it had 980 seats. It was still listed in 1929, but was gone by 1930.
The July 12, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World said that the new D & R Theatre in Aberdeen (the “Finest in Southwest Washington”) had recently opened after ten months of construction. The September 15, 1923 issue of Pacific Builder & Engineer had noted that construction was underway on a new theater at Aberdeen for Dolan and Ripley. The architect for the project was George B. Purvis of Seattle.
The Bex Theatre was one of six movie houses listed at Aberdeen in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
The only appearance of the Dreamland I’ve found in the trade publications is a passing mention in the January 4, 1919 Moving Picture World, which said it had booked the same programs as the Bijou Theatre.
The Lyric Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. In 1914 the Lyric and another house called the Bijou were being run by a Harry H. Burford, mentioned multiple times in the trade journals that year. There was news about the Lyric Theatre in the February 13, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World:
The Dome Theatre was mentioned in this item from Moving Picture World of January 1, 1916: