I’ve seen a couple of sources saying that Folley remodeled the Temple Theatre in 1938. That’s certainly possible. It’s also possible that Folley was working in one of Ketcham’s offices in 1939 (Ketcham’s main office was in Syracuse, but he had a branch office in Utica) and that he was given the task of designing the Kallet.
But one source I found indicated that Foley was 82 years old in 1998, which would have made him about 23 in 1939. That would not have prevented him from designing a major project at that time, but it makes it less likely that he did. That’s the age at which most architects are serving as draftsmen in someone else’s firm, not designing buildings on their own.
Neither have I found any sources saying that there was any connection between Ketcham and Folley. Unless a period source turns up identifying Folley as the architect of this theater, I’m still inclined to accept the known period sources naming Ketcham as the architect of the 1939 project. A 1986 newspaper article- almost fifty years after the Kallet Theatre was built- just isn’t enough.
The conflation of the 1908 Hohman Opera House and the Temple Theatre, built next door to the Hohman in 1925, appears to be of fairly recent origin. I’ve found no instance of it on the Internet from earlier than 2008.
In any case, This PDF of the February 6, 1939, issue of the Oswego Palladium-Times should clear up the confusion. An article headed “Theater Chain Obtains Second Pulaski Block” says that Kallet had bought the site of the Hohman Opera House/Pulaski Theatre (which had burned in 1934) adjacent to the site of their recently burned Temple Theatre. These were definitely two different buildings. The Kallet Theatre built in 1939 apparently occupied the site of the Temple Theatre (1925-1939) and part of the site of the Hohman Opera House Block (1908-1934.)
I should clarify my previous comment by saying that the confusion over the date of the Kallet Theatre’s construction probably stemmed from the fact that it occupied the sites of two burned theaters, one of which, the former Hohman Opera House, which apparently operated as a movie house called the Pulaski Theatre during its last years, did burn down in 1934. The Temple burned in 1939 and the Kallet, a bit wider than the Temple, was built on the site of the Temple and partly on the site of the Hohman.
This PDF of the February 8, 1939, issue of Oswego Palladium-Tmes has an article about Kallet’s purchase of the Hohman Block/Pulaski Theatre site adjacent to the Temple Theatre. The Hohman Block and the Temple Theater were not the same building. George Ketcham is once again mentioned as the architect who was designing the new theater. All the sources online attributing the design to Milo Folley are fairly recent (2008 or later), and give 1938 as the year he designed it. I’ll trust the period sources that say George Ketcham designed it in 1939.
The report of the fire that destroyed the Temple Theatre in the Oswego Palladium-Times of January 23, 1939, said: “M. J. Kallet of Oneida, head of the Kallet chain of theaters, and architect George Ketcham of Utica arrived in Pulaski Monday noon to look over the ruins.”
The February 9 issue of the same publication also mentioned Ketcham, saying that he was preparing the plans for the new theater, though this item gave the location of his office as Syracuse. That article also noted that Kallet had purchased the lot adjacent to the Temple Theatre, and that the new house would probably have a parking lot on one of the lots. The adjacent lot had been the site of the Hohman Opera House, which had itself burned down some years before.
Cezar Del Valle attributes the design of the Astor Theatre in Attica, New York, to George Ketcham, too. See the caption to this photo at Flickr.
The destruction of the Temple Theatre and Odd Fellows Temple at Pulaski by fire was reported in several regional newspapers. The January 23, 1939, editions of the Troy Times Record, the Schenectady Gazette, and The Saratogian of Saratoga Springs all carried brief items about the event, but the most extensive article was in the Oswego Palladium-Times (PDF here)
All the articles mentioned that the theater was in the IOOF Temple building. The April 15 and May 27 issue of The American Contractor carried items about the new IOOF Temple planned at Pulaski which was to include a movie theater. However, the project was not completed until 1925. The March 4 issue of the Jefferson County Journal said that the Temple Theatre was scheduled to open on the 6th of that month. Construction had taken several months, the newspaper reported.
The Contractor items attribute the design of the IOOF Temple and theater to architect William J. Townsend, but I’ve found no sources confirming that he retained the contract through the two year delay before construction began.
I’ve found no sources mentioning a Temple Theatre in Pulaski prior to this one, but there was a theatre called the Hohman Opera House (a couple of sources call it the Pulaski Theatre or the Pulaski Opera House) which was located next door to the site of the Temple. It was destroyed by fire in the 1930s, and when the Temple burned in 1939 Kallet bought the lot where the opera house had been. Newspapers reported that the new Kallet Theatre would have parking on one of the lots. The Kallet looks to have been a bit wider than the Temple, though, so the new building probably occupied part of the site of the opera house.
There were two Bell Theatres in San Francisco.I came across a reference to the Bell Theatre on Market Street being destroyed in the 1906 fire, but the Bell that Gus Cohn was connected with in later years was on Mission Street.
Theaters did change operators and names frequently, and several of the unidentified theatres from the 1900s-1910s might actually be theaters we already have listed under other names.
An item in the June 14, 1911, issue of The Call makes me believe that the renovation of the Bell didn’t happen. It is datelined Vallejo, June 13, almost a month after the item about the plans to renovate the Bell for $10,000, and it says that the IOOF would build a $15,000 theater on Virginia Street for manager Gus Cohn of the Sullivan & Considine circuit. That had to be the Empress, though no theater name was given in the item. I doubt that Sullivan & Considine (or Cohn) would have spent $10,000 renovating the Bell if they was getting a lease on a new theater built at someone else’s expense.
Thanks for reminding me that the Empress opened in 1912 as a Sullivan & Considine house. I now realize that the new Bell Theatre in the Call items was the Empress. It just hadn’t been given that name yet when the items were published. Gus Cohn’s involvement indicates that the Empress still had a connection to Cohn’s Bell circuit, even if it had been given Sullivan & Considine’s favorite name.
So the Bell Theatre that was being planned in December, 1910 did get built, and perhaps the Bell Theatre that was already in operation did also get its renovation as reported in May, 1911. When the new theater opened as the Empress in February, 1912, the old Bell kept its name, and perhaps it was then that it was operated by Hanlon, McCauley and Moran.
So far I’ve been unable to find any Call articles about the opening of the Empress.
A reminiscence by Anne Meara, who grew up in Great Neck in the 1930s, includes a paragraph in which she mentions going to the Squire Theatre with her mother:
“She loved movies and would take me with her whenever she could. I was thrilled. We would walk down Middleneck Road to the Squire theatre. The Squire Theatre was the Enchanted Wood of Great Neck circa 1935.”
If the Squire was open around 1935, it was probably the proposed house that was announced in the April 11, 1935, issue of The Film Daily:
“DeLuxer for Great Neck
“A 700-seat deluxe house, with adjoining parking space for 250 cars, is to be built in Great Neck, L. I., on a site owned by Pomander Square, Inc. House has been leased to a client of D. Seymour Wolfson, attorney, who is withholding the lessee’s name for the present.”
I’m not familiar with Great Neck, so I don’t know where the parking lot would have been, assuming it was built.
The May 8, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News had an item about a “Mayfield” Theatre at Great Neck, as did the July 10 issue. I don’t know if this was a repeated error or if the theater actually changed names. In the May item, the house had just been taken over by Irving Lesser, operator of the Great Neck Playhouse:
“Irving Lesser continues to expand his theatre circuit. According to report, the latest house to be taken over by him is the Mayfield, Great Neck, L. I. This is number five in the chain, the others being the Great Neck Playhouse, the Strand at Rockville Centre, Memorial Hall, Beacon, N. Y., and the Capitol at Haverstraw.”
The July item said that the house was temporarily closed and would reopen on August 1.
If the Mayfair closed by 1928, it must have reopened later. The July 28, 1932, issue of The Film Daily had the Mayfair, Great Neck, listed in its “Closings” column. Some theaters were seasonal in those days, so this might have been another temporary closing and the Mayfair might have opened yet again.
This house might have been called the Great Neck Theatre in 1921. The December 10 issue of Exhibitors Trade Review said that the world premier of the Warner Brothers production School Days had been given its world premier at the Great Neck Theatre on November 24. Another item in the same issue, datelined Gret Neck, said that the movie had been given its premier at “…the local picture house….”, suggesting that there was only the one movie theater in the town.
The condominium project at the Great Neck Playhouse has not been completed, and I’m not sure it’s even underway yet. When it does get underway, the theater will probably be demolished rather than converted for a new use.
This article from April 25, 2013, said that the developer wanted to demolish the theater and build a new building that would replicate the facade, rather than preserving the street-front walls per the original plans for the project.
An entry from September 9 on the Great Neck Historical Society’s Facebook page says:
“It seems quite clear that demolition of the Playhouse is a certainty. The architect presented their plans, and folks were only permitted to ask questions, not state their positions. No answers were permitted to the questions, but all questions were to be answered in writing at a future date.”
The Facebook page has no more recent posts on the subject of the Playhouse. If we have a demolition watch list, this theater should be placed on it.
The Novelty Theatre at Vallejo was listed frequently in issue of The Billboard in 1908. It was primarily a vaudeville house, but often had movies as part of the show. The manager was Sam Mendelson.
The Novelty was also listed in the vaudeville theaters section of the 1906-1907 and 1908-1909 editions of the Cahn guide, with the booking agent listed as Bert Pittman, Novelty, Denver. Pittman was listed as booking agent for about twenty theaters, almost all in the west, many, but not all, called the Novelty.
Everything I’ve found about the early years of the Bell Theatre is a bit puzzling. This item comes from the December 9, 1910, issue of the San Francisco Call:
“BELL CIRCUIT PLANS THEATER IN VALLEJO
“Representative of Company Looks for a Location
“VALLEJO, Dec. 8.— Gus Cohn, a representative of the Bell circuit of theaters, was in Vallejo today looking for a location on which to erect a building or start a new playhouse.”
But the Bell Theatre was in operation by May 17, when The Call ran this item in its “Vallejo Brevities” column:
“THEATER TO BE IMPROVED
“Gus Homan of the Sullivan & Considine Vaudeville circuit was here today and made arrangements to spend $10,000 in renovating the Bell theater.”
“Homan” was probably an error, the writer conflating Gus Cohn with Edward Homan, another person connected with the Bell circuit. Then there is an item from the July 15, 1911, issue of Variety, which mentions Gus Cohn as the manager of the Bell Thetre in Vallejo. Then the November 8, 1911, issue of The Call ran this brief item about the Bell:
“VALLEJO THEATER TO OPEN ON CHRISTMAS
“Will Present First Class Plays and Vaudeville
“VALLEJO, Nov. 7.—Edward A. Homan, one of the proprietors of the new Bell theater, arrived here today from Oakland. Besides Sullivan & Considine acts Homan announces that he has made arrangements to play some of the Cort theater and Belasco productions at the local playhouse next year. The theater will be opened Christmas night.”
An item in the December 16 issue of the same publication said that Bell Theatre was scheduled to open on New Year’s Day.
As near as I can puzzle out from these fragments, the Bell circuit originally planned to replace their existing theater in Vallejo, then later decided to merely renovate it, and after some delays the updated house was ready by the beginning of 1912. I don’t know how long the Cohns controlled the theater, but a March 25, 1916, item in The Moving Picture World indicates that, probably by 1915, it was being operated by a W. G. Maupin.
The Cohn family operated houses called the Bell Theatre in Oakland and in San Francisco. There might have been others in the region as well, but I’ve been unable to track them down.
At 2222 Second Street, you can see the stage house of the State Theatre, which has been converted to retail use with two floors of (probably) offices above. The theater was built behind the existing Schenone Building, with a long passageway leading through it to the new auditorium. A sign to the left of the Second Street entrance identifies the place as The Old Theatre Mall.
A couple of modern sources say that the Bell Theatre began operating at this location in 1914, but I’ve found no period sources saying anything at all about the theater other than that in 1921 the proprietors were Kline & Levy.
I’ve only found the Star Theatre mentioned twice in the early trade publications. The first was a brief letter from it’s operator, C. Whitthorne, to the Nestor Film Company of New York, praising their movie In Commissioned Ranks. This was published in the July 15, 1911, issue of The Moving Picture World.
The other mention is a brief item from the March 25, 1916, issue of the same publication: “Vallejo, Calif.—The Star theater, which has been closed for several months, has been re-opened by W. G. Maupin. This theater was formerly conducted by Mr. Maupin, who closed it when he took over the Bell Theater.”
The December 10, 1915, issue of the Aberdeen Herald had this brief item: “Chandler & Ripley, of the Western Circuit Amusement Company, have mortgaged their interests in the Bijou, Rex, and Starland Theaters, to the Aberdeen State Bank for $1,000.” There was an ad for the Weir Theatre on the same page, so both it and the Rex were operating at the same time.
I’ve found no advertising for the Rex in the Herald, nor for the Starland, nor any other mentions of either house. However, there are a few ads for the a movie house called the Dream Theatre, located on Heron Street, from May, 1911, to November, 1915.
The Bijou Theatre is owned by the Aberdeen post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The auditorium itself has not been in use since May, 2012, when the rafters were found to be damaged. The organization plans to repair the structure, replacing the rafters with engineered trusses, according to this recent article in The Daily World. The article notes that the Bijou was built in 1908.
The Bijou Theatre was listed in the 1913-1914 edition of Cahn’s guide. It was a ground floor house with 766 seats, playing vaudeville, stock, and musical comedy.
The March 4, 1913, issue of the Aberdeen Herald reported that the new Weir Theatre had opened the previous night. The program featured several vaudeville acts and two moving pictures.
Weir was the maiden name of the wife of the theater’s owner and operator, Edward Dolan.
Street View is now fixed. The five-story, six-bay office building now on the site replaced both the Strand Theatre building and the adjacent corner building that itself had replaced the Lois Theatre building after the 1911 fire, so the Strand has been demolished.
The 1915 Masonic Temple was the last major project designed by the Seattle architectural firm of Saunders & Lawton. Charles Willard Saunders was the architect of the Seattle Theatre (1892-1893), and in 1909 he and George Willis Lawton, with whom he had formed a partnership in 1898, designed the Alhambra Theatre.
The Alhambra Theatre began its life as a legitimate house operated by the Shuberts. The September 16, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World told the story up to that time:
“SEATTLE, Wash.—The Alhambra, one of the big downtown moving picture theaters owned and operated by Jensen & Von Herberg, is to be opened with Orpheum big time vaudeville on September 24. Carl Reiter, for seven years the manager of the Orpheum here, and last year manager at Portland, will be the local executive in charge. Vice-President L C. Brown and Secretary S. Lansing, of the Orpheum Theater Company, San Francisco, have been here several days negotiating. The lease covers a long period of years, and The Alhambra will be refinished outside and in. Two performances will be given daily.
“The Wilkes Stock Company has retained the lease on the old Orpheum theater and will continue there through the winter.
“This is by no means the first change that the Alhambra has seen. It was first opened in 1909 under Schubert management. Since then it has run the gamut of uses to which a theatrical building may be put. From legitimate to vaudeville, then a combination of vaudeville and pictures, then, as the first theater acquired by Jensen & Von Herberg, recognized as one of the finest and best motion picture theaters in town. Early last spring its bill was changed again to one of vaudeville and pictures and now comes this last change.”
The “last change” turned out not to have been the last after all. Orpheum’s lease was to run for seven years, but the Orpheum circuit soon moved its vaudeville shows to the Moore Theatre, and the Wilkes Stock Company, which had displaced the vaudeville at the Orpheum Theatre, ended up taking over the lease on the Alhambra and renaming the house for itself.
The Alhambra Theatre was designed by one of Seattle’s leading architectural firms of the period, Saunders & Lawton. Charles Willard Saunders and George Willis Lawton were partners from 1898 to 1915. Their last major project as partners was the Masonic Temple on Pine Street which, in 1980, was converted into the Egyptian Theatre by the Seattle International Film Festival. Prior to entering the partnership, Saunders had designed the Seattle Theatre, erected at Third Avenue and Cherry Street in 1892-93.
The Seattle Theatre was built in 1892-93, and was designed in the Romanesque Revival style by architect Charles Willard Saunders. Two years later, Saunders formed a partnership with George Willis Lawton. Saunders & Lawton designed the Alhambra Theatre (1909) and the Masonic Temple (1915) which in 1980 became the Egyptian Theatre.
I’ve seen a couple of sources saying that Folley remodeled the Temple Theatre in 1938. That’s certainly possible. It’s also possible that Folley was working in one of Ketcham’s offices in 1939 (Ketcham’s main office was in Syracuse, but he had a branch office in Utica) and that he was given the task of designing the Kallet.
But one source I found indicated that Foley was 82 years old in 1998, which would have made him about 23 in 1939. That would not have prevented him from designing a major project at that time, but it makes it less likely that he did. That’s the age at which most architects are serving as draftsmen in someone else’s firm, not designing buildings on their own.
Neither have I found any sources saying that there was any connection between Ketcham and Folley. Unless a period source turns up identifying Folley as the architect of this theater, I’m still inclined to accept the known period sources naming Ketcham as the architect of the 1939 project. A 1986 newspaper article- almost fifty years after the Kallet Theatre was built- just isn’t enough.
The conflation of the 1908 Hohman Opera House and the Temple Theatre, built next door to the Hohman in 1925, appears to be of fairly recent origin. I’ve found no instance of it on the Internet from earlier than 2008.
In any case, This PDF of the February 6, 1939, issue of the Oswego Palladium-Times should clear up the confusion. An article headed “Theater Chain Obtains Second Pulaski Block” says that Kallet had bought the site of the Hohman Opera House/Pulaski Theatre (which had burned in 1934) adjacent to the site of their recently burned Temple Theatre. These were definitely two different buildings. The Kallet Theatre built in 1939 apparently occupied the site of the Temple Theatre (1925-1939) and part of the site of the Hohman Opera House Block (1908-1934.)
I should clarify my previous comment by saying that the confusion over the date of the Kallet Theatre’s construction probably stemmed from the fact that it occupied the sites of two burned theaters, one of which, the former Hohman Opera House, which apparently operated as a movie house called the Pulaski Theatre during its last years, did burn down in 1934. The Temple burned in 1939 and the Kallet, a bit wider than the Temple, was built on the site of the Temple and partly on the site of the Hohman.
This PDF of the February 8, 1939, issue of Oswego Palladium-Tmes has an article about Kallet’s purchase of the Hohman Block/Pulaski Theatre site adjacent to the Temple Theatre. The Hohman Block and the Temple Theater were not the same building. George Ketcham is once again mentioned as the architect who was designing the new theater. All the sources online attributing the design to Milo Folley are fairly recent (2008 or later), and give 1938 as the year he designed it. I’ll trust the period sources that say George Ketcham designed it in 1939.
The report of the fire that destroyed the Temple Theatre in the Oswego Palladium-Times of January 23, 1939, said: “M. J. Kallet of Oneida, head of the Kallet chain of theaters, and architect George Ketcham of Utica arrived in Pulaski Monday noon to look over the ruins.”
The February 9 issue of the same publication also mentioned Ketcham, saying that he was preparing the plans for the new theater, though this item gave the location of his office as Syracuse. That article also noted that Kallet had purchased the lot adjacent to the Temple Theatre, and that the new house would probably have a parking lot on one of the lots. The adjacent lot had been the site of the Hohman Opera House, which had itself burned down some years before.
Cezar Del Valle attributes the design of the Astor Theatre in Attica, New York, to George Ketcham, too. See the caption to this photo at Flickr.
The destruction of the Temple Theatre and Odd Fellows Temple at Pulaski by fire was reported in several regional newspapers. The January 23, 1939, editions of the Troy Times Record, the Schenectady Gazette, and The Saratogian of Saratoga Springs all carried brief items about the event, but the most extensive article was in the Oswego Palladium-Times (PDF here)
All the articles mentioned that the theater was in the IOOF Temple building. The April 15 and May 27 issue of The American Contractor carried items about the new IOOF Temple planned at Pulaski which was to include a movie theater. However, the project was not completed until 1925. The March 4 issue of the Jefferson County Journal said that the Temple Theatre was scheduled to open on the 6th of that month. Construction had taken several months, the newspaper reported.
The Contractor items attribute the design of the IOOF Temple and theater to architect William J. Townsend, but I’ve found no sources confirming that he retained the contract through the two year delay before construction began.
I’ve found no sources mentioning a Temple Theatre in Pulaski prior to this one, but there was a theatre called the Hohman Opera House (a couple of sources call it the Pulaski Theatre or the Pulaski Opera House) which was located next door to the site of the Temple. It was destroyed by fire in the 1930s, and when the Temple burned in 1939 Kallet bought the lot where the opera house had been. Newspapers reported that the new Kallet Theatre would have parking on one of the lots. The Kallet looks to have been a bit wider than the Temple, though, so the new building probably occupied part of the site of the opera house.
There were two Bell Theatres in San Francisco.I came across a reference to the Bell Theatre on Market Street being destroyed in the 1906 fire, but the Bell that Gus Cohn was connected with in later years was on Mission Street.
Theaters did change operators and names frequently, and several of the unidentified theatres from the 1900s-1910s might actually be theaters we already have listed under other names.
An item in the June 14, 1911, issue of The Call makes me believe that the renovation of the Bell didn’t happen. It is datelined Vallejo, June 13, almost a month after the item about the plans to renovate the Bell for $10,000, and it says that the IOOF would build a $15,000 theater on Virginia Street for manager Gus Cohn of the Sullivan & Considine circuit. That had to be the Empress, though no theater name was given in the item. I doubt that Sullivan & Considine (or Cohn) would have spent $10,000 renovating the Bell if they was getting a lease on a new theater built at someone else’s expense.
Thanks for reminding me that the Empress opened in 1912 as a Sullivan & Considine house. I now realize that the new Bell Theatre in the Call items was the Empress. It just hadn’t been given that name yet when the items were published. Gus Cohn’s involvement indicates that the Empress still had a connection to Cohn’s Bell circuit, even if it had been given Sullivan & Considine’s favorite name.
So the Bell Theatre that was being planned in December, 1910 did get built, and perhaps the Bell Theatre that was already in operation did also get its renovation as reported in May, 1911. When the new theater opened as the Empress in February, 1912, the old Bell kept its name, and perhaps it was then that it was operated by Hanlon, McCauley and Moran.
So far I’ve been unable to find any Call articles about the opening of the Empress.
Here is a link to the Anne Meara piece cited in my previous comment.
A reminiscence by Anne Meara, who grew up in Great Neck in the 1930s, includes a paragraph in which she mentions going to the Squire Theatre with her mother:
If the Squire was open around 1935, it was probably the proposed house that was announced in the April 11, 1935, issue of The Film Daily:I’m not familiar with Great Neck, so I don’t know where the parking lot would have been, assuming it was built.The May 8, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News had an item about a “Mayfield” Theatre at Great Neck, as did the July 10 issue. I don’t know if this was a repeated error or if the theater actually changed names. In the May item, the house had just been taken over by Irving Lesser, operator of the Great Neck Playhouse:
The July item said that the house was temporarily closed and would reopen on August 1.If the Mayfair closed by 1928, it must have reopened later. The July 28, 1932, issue of The Film Daily had the Mayfair, Great Neck, listed in its “Closings” column. Some theaters were seasonal in those days, so this might have been another temporary closing and the Mayfair might have opened yet again.
This house might have been called the Great Neck Theatre in 1921. The December 10 issue of Exhibitors Trade Review said that the world premier of the Warner Brothers production School Days had been given its world premier at the Great Neck Theatre on November 24. Another item in the same issue, datelined Gret Neck, said that the movie had been given its premier at “…the local picture house….”, suggesting that there was only the one movie theater in the town.
The condominium project at the Great Neck Playhouse has not been completed, and I’m not sure it’s even underway yet. When it does get underway, the theater will probably be demolished rather than converted for a new use.
This article from April 25, 2013, said that the developer wanted to demolish the theater and build a new building that would replicate the facade, rather than preserving the street-front walls per the original plans for the project.
An entry from September 9 on the Great Neck Historical Society’s Facebook page says:
The Facebook page has no more recent posts on the subject of the Playhouse. If we have a demolition watch list, this theater should be placed on it.Marilyn Nunes Devlin’s book A Brief History of Rockville Centre says that the Strand Theatre opened in 1922.
The Novelty Theatre at Vallejo was listed frequently in issue of The Billboard in 1908. It was primarily a vaudeville house, but often had movies as part of the show. The manager was Sam Mendelson.
The Novelty was also listed in the vaudeville theaters section of the 1906-1907 and 1908-1909 editions of the Cahn guide, with the booking agent listed as Bert Pittman, Novelty, Denver. Pittman was listed as booking agent for about twenty theaters, almost all in the west, many, but not all, called the Novelty.
Everything I’ve found about the early years of the Bell Theatre is a bit puzzling. This item comes from the December 9, 1910, issue of the San Francisco Call:
But the Bell Theatre was in operation by May 17, when The Call ran this item in its “Vallejo Brevities” column:“Homan” was probably an error, the writer conflating Gus Cohn with Edward Homan, another person connected with the Bell circuit. Then there is an item from the July 15, 1911, issue of Variety, which mentions Gus Cohn as the manager of the Bell Thetre in Vallejo. Then the November 8, 1911, issue of The Call ran this brief item about the Bell:An item in the December 16 issue of the same publication said that Bell Theatre was scheduled to open on New Year’s Day.As near as I can puzzle out from these fragments, the Bell circuit originally planned to replace their existing theater in Vallejo, then later decided to merely renovate it, and after some delays the updated house was ready by the beginning of 1912. I don’t know how long the Cohns controlled the theater, but a March 25, 1916, item in The Moving Picture World indicates that, probably by 1915, it was being operated by a W. G. Maupin.
The Cohn family operated houses called the Bell Theatre in Oakland and in San Francisco. There might have been others in the region as well, but I’ve been unable to track them down.
At 2222 Second Street, you can see the stage house of the State Theatre, which has been converted to retail use with two floors of (probably) offices above. The theater was built behind the existing Schenone Building, with a long passageway leading through it to the new auditorium. A sign to the left of the Second Street entrance identifies the place as The Old Theatre Mall.
A couple of modern sources say that the Bell Theatre began operating at this location in 1914, but I’ve found no period sources saying anything at all about the theater other than that in 1921 the proprietors were Kline & Levy.
I’ve only found the Star Theatre mentioned twice in the early trade publications. The first was a brief letter from it’s operator, C. Whitthorne, to the Nestor Film Company of New York, praising their movie In Commissioned Ranks. This was published in the July 15, 1911, issue of The Moving Picture World.
The other mention is a brief item from the March 25, 1916, issue of the same publication: “Vallejo, Calif.—The Star theater, which has been closed for several months, has been re-opened by W. G. Maupin. This theater was formerly conducted by Mr. Maupin, who closed it when he took over the Bell Theater.”
The December 10, 1915, issue of the Aberdeen Herald had this brief item: “Chandler & Ripley, of the Western Circuit Amusement Company, have mortgaged their interests in the Bijou, Rex, and Starland Theaters, to the Aberdeen State Bank for $1,000.” There was an ad for the Weir Theatre on the same page, so both it and the Rex were operating at the same time.
I’ve found no advertising for the Rex in the Herald, nor for the Starland, nor any other mentions of either house. However, there are a few ads for the a movie house called the Dream Theatre, located on Heron Street, from May, 1911, to November, 1915.
The Bijou Theatre is owned by the Aberdeen post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The auditorium itself has not been in use since May, 2012, when the rafters were found to be damaged. The organization plans to repair the structure, replacing the rafters with engineered trusses, according to this recent article in The Daily World. The article notes that the Bijou was built in 1908.
The Bijou Theatre was listed in the 1913-1914 edition of Cahn’s guide. It was a ground floor house with 766 seats, playing vaudeville, stock, and musical comedy.
The March 4, 1913, issue of the Aberdeen Herald reported that the new Weir Theatre had opened the previous night. The program featured several vaudeville acts and two moving pictures.
Weir was the maiden name of the wife of the theater’s owner and operator, Edward Dolan.
Street View is now fixed. The five-story, six-bay office building now on the site replaced both the Strand Theatre building and the adjacent corner building that itself had replaced the Lois Theatre building after the 1911 fire, so the Strand has been demolished.
The 1915 Masonic Temple was the last major project designed by the Seattle architectural firm of Saunders & Lawton. Charles Willard Saunders was the architect of the Seattle Theatre (1892-1893), and in 1909 he and George Willis Lawton, with whom he had formed a partnership in 1898, designed the Alhambra Theatre.
The Alhambra Theatre began its life as a legitimate house operated by the Shuberts. The September 16, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World told the story up to that time:
The “last change” turned out not to have been the last after all. Orpheum’s lease was to run for seven years, but the Orpheum circuit soon moved its vaudeville shows to the Moore Theatre, and the Wilkes Stock Company, which had displaced the vaudeville at the Orpheum Theatre, ended up taking over the lease on the Alhambra and renaming the house for itself.The Alhambra Theatre was designed by one of Seattle’s leading architectural firms of the period, Saunders & Lawton. Charles Willard Saunders and George Willis Lawton were partners from 1898 to 1915. Their last major project as partners was the Masonic Temple on Pine Street which, in 1980, was converted into the Egyptian Theatre by the Seattle International Film Festival. Prior to entering the partnership, Saunders had designed the Seattle Theatre, erected at Third Avenue and Cherry Street in 1892-93.
The Seattle Theatre was built in 1892-93, and was designed in the Romanesque Revival style by architect Charles Willard Saunders. Two years later, Saunders formed a partnership with George Willis Lawton. Saunders & Lawton designed the Alhambra Theatre (1909) and the Masonic Temple (1915) which in 1980 became the Egyptian Theatre.
I found only the one listing, giving Fourth Avenue as the location.
A comment by David Jeffers on this web page gives the address of the Mission Theatre as 1412-14 Fourth Avenue.