In 1884, eight years before designing the Carson Block with its upper floor Ingomar Theatre, architects Samuel and Joseph Cather Newsom designed Eureka’s most iconic building, the ornate and towering Carson mansion, for the same client. Since 1950, the mansion has been the home of the Ingomar Club, a private men’s club named for the theater which, in turn, was named for William Carson’s favorite play, “Ingomar, the Barbarian.”
The 1952 version of the Golden Bough Playhouse was designed by local architect James B. Pruitt. Since being taken over by the Pacific Repertory Theatre group in 1994, the building has undergone two major periods of renovations, from 2008-2011 and from 2021-2024, which have significantly altered the original configuration of the house.
The March 30, 1925 issue of the Bristol, Tennessee Evening Herald Courier had an article about the opening of the Cameo Theatre which attributed the design of the house to the noted Richmond, Virginia theater architect Claude K. Howell. After several major remodeling projects over the decades it’s unlikely that any of Mr. Howell’s original details remain.
A page about Claude K. Howell at the Architects of Richmond web site attributes the design of the Lyric to him. The Keith circuit was sufficiently pleased with his work to hire him to design additional theaters for them throughout the south.
The October 10, 1926 issue of The Dixie Manufacturer featured a photo of the Ritz. The house had been designed by Atlanta Architect C. K. Howell. Prior to opening an office in Atlanta, Claude Howell had practiced in Richmond, Virginia for more than a decade, designing at least four theaters in that city.
Bhamwiki’s Frolic Theatre page says the the house had operated in the 1910s as the Dixie Theatre. The Dixie was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, so it most likely opened in the latter half of the decade. A contract between the African-American production company Norman Studios and the New Dixie Theatre in Bessemer for films to be run in September, 1920 does exist. A contract between the same studio and the Frolic Theatre dated 1923 also exists. The NRHP registration form for the Downtown Bessemer Historic District says the building was razed in 1959.
Bhamwiki says that the Grand Theatre closed after 1957, and features a photo with the 1956 release “Lust for Life” on the marquee. For some reason the Grand was not listed in the 1954 Bessemer telephone directory, though its smaller sister theater down the street, the State, was.
The NRHP registration form for the Downtown Bessemer Historic District says that the State Theatre closed in 1960 and the building was completely remodeled for a chain jewelry store in 1964. It also mistakenly says that the building housed “…the Grand (later the State) Theatre for many years….” The building down the block that actually housed the Grand is long gone.
Both the Grand and the State were in operation in 1945 when their operating company, Bessemer Theatres Inc., filed a lawsuit against the city over its license fees for the theaters. The Alabama Supreme Court’s final decision, handed down in 1955, favored the city.
The Rialto listed in FDY’s in the 1940s and 1950s is either a mistake or was at a different location. This photo of the Cameo looks to have been taken around 1940 (judging from the cars, as the titles on the Cameo marquee aren’t clear enough for my eyes) and the Woolworth store had already taken over the space formerly occupied by the Rialto and its neighbor to the south. A page from the Anniston Photo Archives says that the Woolworth store moved to this location ca.1939, so the Rialto had to have been gone by then.
Two theaters are conflated on this page. The confusion arises from an address shift. Current 1026 Noble, the Cameo’s building, is one door north of the earlier 1026 Noble, where the Theatorium/Theato/Rialto was located. The modern address of the Theato would be 1024 Noble. The Cameo was apparently a new house opened in former retail space in 1939 and had no akas.
A photo of the Theato can be seen on this Facebook page from the Anniston Photo Archives. The original name was Theatorium, which is how it was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. It had been renamed Theato by March, 1919. The text on the photo page says the Theato closed in the early 1930s and reopened as the Rialto in 1933 (a comment by 50sSNIPES on our Anniston Roxy page says the Rialto opened on Christmas Day, 1933.) I don’t have access to FDYs at the moment, but I believe that the Rialto had closed by the time the Cameo was opened next door in 1939.
The headline of a brief item datelined Franklin, Ohio in the May 18, 1970 issue of Boxoffice reads “Police Raid Franklin Cinema.” The story says that the 18 year old manager (unnamed) of the house had been arrested for being in possession of an obscene movie. About 55 people had been in the theater at the time of the arrest, watching the 1969 Great Empire Films release “The Calico Queen” (aka The Hanging of Jake Ellis.“) Hint: the movie was not about a feline mother.
The cinema had recently been remodeled by a new owner, Pete Gall, who, true to his surname, told Boxoffice the house would be reopened the next weekend. I have not discovered how long the citizens of Franklin and vicinity were treated to such titillating fare, but hey, it was the seventies, so maybe quite a while.
A photo of the Strand has surfaced, and it was showing the 1916 film “The Crisis.” In the 1930s, the building was remodeled for use as a retail store by the S. S. Kresge Company, predecessor of Kmart stores. It was likely that this conversion is what saved the building from the wrecking ball during the period when most of downtown Steubenville’s theaters were being demolished. Kresge’s store is long gone now, but the building is still standing, occupied by a second-hand appliance shop. The correct address is 438 Market Street.
This May 22, 2024 article is the most recent report I’ve found on the progress of the Grand Theatre’s renovation. The lobby has been restored, and the Wurlitzer organ was lately recommissioned, but restoration or replacement of water-damaged plaster in the Auditorium is still underway. A couple of photos show much of the auditorium still in very rough condition. No target date for completion of the project is given, but I suspect it will be quite some time.
I think I worded my previous comment badly, leading to misunderstandings. The theater added above the market hall (or maybe in a new municipal building that replaced the market hall completely) in 1882 was a rival to Garrett’s Hall, not a new location for it. The online sources for information about theaters in Steubenville are numerous but scattered, contradictory, and often puzzling, but I believe the market hall theater operated as the City Opera House for a few years, and then maybe under another name I haven’t tracked down, and then finally became the Victoria Theatre. It was demolished in the late 1920s, but I don’t know when it closed. I’ve found references to it running Keith vaudeville around 1925, and it usually ran four or five acts, which suggest it was a combination house that also ran movies. It was at 312 Market Street.
Garrett’s Hall was simply renamed Garrett’s Opera House after the new municipally-owned Opera House opened, and remained in the building that dated back to 1829-1830 as Washington Hall and then Kilgore’s Hall and was rebuilt and renamed Garrett’s Hall in 1869-1870. It was renamed Rex Theatre prior to being rebuilt as a ground floor house in 1916. I’m not positive that this venerable structure was the same house that reopened under the Rex name in the 1930s, but it could have been.
A third large house, the 800 seat Theatre Comique, operated in the late 19th century, but it burned in January, 1899, and I’ve found no indication that it was ever rebuilt.
The first year the Rexy is listed in the FDY is 1930, but the seating capacity isn’t given until the 1933 edition. There is actually a Rex Theatre listed in 1929, but again with no seating capacity. It might be that the house opened in (probably) 1928 as the Rex, or FDY might have been thrown by the unusual name Rexy and didn’t correct it until the 1931 edition. Another likely mistake is the 1934-only appearance of a 100-seat house called the Roxy.
Another possibility is that the Rexy started out at a different location, and then moved into the Family Theatre’s building, possibly in 1932. The Family is listed in the 1927 and 1929 FDYs, the capacity given only in 1929, when it had 300 seats, then vanishes until 1931 when it reappears listed with 498 seats but still a silent house. It is listed again in 1932, still not wired for sound, and also listed as closed. This was its final appearance. The Rexy was listed in both of those years, and was wired, but as I said no seating capacity given. In 1933 the Rexy is listed with a capacity for the first time, that being 448 seats.
The July 13, 1939 issue of Film Daily mentions Glenn Floyd, whose name (minus one surplus n) appears in the 1915 ad for the Family Theatre recently uploaded by robboehm. The item says: “Pittsburgh—Oaks Floyd, brother and partner of Glenn Floyd who operates theaters in Follansbee, W. Va., and Monaca, died of a heart attack.” Glen Floyd is also mentioned in the November 10, 1948 issue of The Exhibitor as co-owner of both theaters in Follansbee. Mr. Floyd’s long tenure in Follansbee, and his early connection to the Family Theatre, does, I think, make it more likely that the Rexy moved into the Family Theatre’s former location in 1932.
The May 20, 1916 issue ofMoving Picture World had news about the Rex: “The Rex, which recently fell under the ban of the inspectors of the Ohio Industrial Commission, as it was on the second floor, is being extensively remodeled so as to come up to all requirements.”
The fact that the Rex was an upstairs theater reflects its very long history. In 1869, local banker and merchant Horatio Gates Garrett, disappointed that a major touring opera company had skipped over Steubenville because its largest theater lacked adequate stage facilities, bought that theater, then called Kilgore Hall, and rebuilt it as a modern house which he named Garrett’s Hall. The sources are unclear, but Kilgore Hall might have dated to 1829 and opened as Washington Hall.
In 1882, Steubenville had another upstairs opera house built atop the town’s market hall, and after this Garrett’s Hall was renamed Garrett’s Opera House. For a while it was called Gray & Garrett’s Hall, but I haven’t found in which years. By the early 1910s it had become the Rex Theatre. It was one of nine theaters listed at Steubenville in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
Rats. I confused the Bradford and Brantford Theatoriums. The one in Canada had the explosion, and was replaced by a house called the Gem. The Pennsylvania Theatorium just got sold to new owners in 1909.
As for the Gem noted in the Bradford Landmarks newsletter, that publication cites no sources, so there’s no way to check them. I’ve found no other text references to a Gem Theatre in Bradford, but the Landmark Society’s web site has a photo collection, and this undated early photo of South Avenue features the Bradford/Shea’s Theatre. The writing is very difficult to make out, but it appears to me that the small building just this side of the Bradford has a sign that could read “Gem Novelties.” I wonder if that might have been a short-lived nickelodeon?
The newsletter article doesn’t mention the People’s Opera House, but does list a house on Chambers Street (no number) called the Theater Comique, which ran from 1877 until burning in 1880. The only other mention of Chambers Street is the Wagner Opera House, which it lists at Main and Chambers from 1878 to 1903. In any case, it’s clear that the newsletter list is, unfortunately, not entirely reliable.
There is a 1910 photo of the Peerless Theatre’s entrance on this WorthPoint listing, but it won’t enlarge enough to be clear if it were uploaded here. It’s a Real Photo post card, so another copy might turn up on another auction site someday. The accompanying text gives the operating years as 1907 to 1913, contradicting the Landmark Society’s newsletter dates of 1907-1917.
A list of Bradford’s early theaters in a newsletter from the Bradford Landmark Society (PDF here) gives the following names for the house at 11 Main Street: The Star Continuous Show (1906-1912); The Star (1912-1919); The Strand (1919-1924.) It was listed as the Star Theatre in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
The Theatorium, 29 Main St., is still listed at Bradford in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. However, a newsletter from the Bradford Landmark Society (PDF here) has a list of Bradford’s early theaters and also says the Theatorium closed in 1910, and had opened in 1906.
To add a bit more confusion, This Wikipedia article about Jay and Jules Allen, founders of Canada’s famous Allen Theatres chain, says that they were the original owners of the Theatorium, having opened it on November 10, 1906. However, Wiki’s article says that the Theatorium was destroyed by an explosion in September, 1908, “…resulting in its replacement by the Gem.”
The local newsletter lists the Gem as a house on Chambers Street which operated from 1880 until 1912, when it was converted to a horse stable. The Allens sold their local holdings in 1909, according to Wikipedia. It does not help that the Allens' first Canadian Theater was also called the Theatorium, and was in Brantford, Ontario. I’ve also found a reference to the Bradford Theatorium being in operation again in 1909, at 29 Main street, under the ownership of “Travis, Walker and Bush.”
Obviously not everything said about the Theatorium from all these sources can be correct, but I’ve not yet been able to establish which claims are accurate. There might be sources I haven’t found yet.
In 1884, eight years before designing the Carson Block with its upper floor Ingomar Theatre, architects Samuel and Joseph Cather Newsom designed Eureka’s most iconic building, the ornate and towering Carson mansion, for the same client. Since 1950, the mansion has been the home of the Ingomar Club, a private men’s club named for the theater which, in turn, was named for William Carson’s favorite play, “Ingomar, the Barbarian.”
The 1952 version of the Golden Bough Playhouse was designed by local architect James B. Pruitt. Since being taken over by the Pacific Repertory Theatre group in 1994, the building has undergone two major periods of renovations, from 2008-2011 and from 2021-2024, which have significantly altered the original configuration of the house.
The current occupant of the Rialto’s space at 1024 Noble Street and the adjacent storefront at 1022 is a restaurant called Classic On Noble.
The March 30, 1925 issue of the Bristol, Tennessee Evening Herald Courier had an article about the opening of the Cameo Theatre which attributed the design of the house to the noted Richmond, Virginia theater architect Claude K. Howell. After several major remodeling projects over the decades it’s unlikely that any of Mr. Howell’s original details remain.
A page about Claude K. Howell at the Architects of Richmond web site attributes the design of the Lyric to him. The Keith circuit was sufficiently pleased with his work to hire him to design additional theaters for them throughout the south.
The October 10, 1926 issue of The Dixie Manufacturer featured a photo of the Ritz. The house had been designed by Atlanta Architect C. K. Howell. Prior to opening an office in Atlanta, Claude Howell had practiced in Richmond, Virginia for more than a decade, designing at least four theaters in that city.
Bhamwiki’s Frolic Theatre page says the the house had operated in the 1910s as the Dixie Theatre. The Dixie was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, so it most likely opened in the latter half of the decade. A contract between the African-American production company Norman Studios and the New Dixie Theatre in Bessemer for films to be run in September, 1920 does exist. A contract between the same studio and the Frolic Theatre dated 1923 also exists. The NRHP registration form for the Downtown Bessemer Historic District says the building was razed in 1959.
Bhamwiki says that the Grand Theatre closed after 1957, and features a photo with the 1956 release “Lust for Life” on the marquee. For some reason the Grand was not listed in the 1954 Bessemer telephone directory, though its smaller sister theater down the street, the State, was.
The NRHP registration form for the Downtown Bessemer Historic District says that the State Theatre closed in 1960 and the building was completely remodeled for a chain jewelry store in 1964. It also mistakenly says that the building housed “…the Grand (later the State) Theatre for many years….” The building down the block that actually housed the Grand is long gone.
Both the Grand and the State were in operation in 1945 when their operating company, Bessemer Theatres Inc., filed a lawsuit against the city over its license fees for the theaters. The Alabama Supreme Court’s final decision, handed down in 1955, favored the city.
The Lincoln Theatre, now undergoing restoration, has this official web site.
The Rialto listed in FDY’s in the 1940s and 1950s is either a mistake or was at a different location. This photo of the Cameo looks to have been taken around 1940 (judging from the cars, as the titles on the Cameo marquee aren’t clear enough for my eyes) and the Woolworth store had already taken over the space formerly occupied by the Rialto and its neighbor to the south. A page from the Anniston Photo Archives says that the Woolworth store moved to this location ca.1939, so the Rialto had to have been gone by then.
Two theaters are conflated on this page. The confusion arises from an address shift. Current 1026 Noble, the Cameo’s building, is one door north of the earlier 1026 Noble, where the Theatorium/Theato/Rialto was located. The modern address of the Theato would be 1024 Noble. The Cameo was apparently a new house opened in former retail space in 1939 and had no akas.
A photo of the Theato can be seen on this Facebook page from the Anniston Photo Archives. The original name was Theatorium, which is how it was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. It had been renamed Theato by March, 1919. The text on the photo page says the Theato closed in the early 1930s and reopened as the Rialto in 1933 (a comment by 50sSNIPES on our Anniston Roxy page says the Rialto opened on Christmas Day, 1933.) I don’t have access to FDYs at the moment, but I believe that the Rialto had closed by the time the Cameo was opened next door in 1939.
When Cinecom opened the Mounds Cinema in 1970, it was Anderson’s first indoor house outside the downtown area.
The headline of a brief item datelined Franklin, Ohio in the May 18, 1970 issue of Boxoffice reads “Police Raid Franklin Cinema.” The story says that the 18 year old manager (unnamed) of the house had been arrested for being in possession of an obscene movie. About 55 people had been in the theater at the time of the arrest, watching the 1969 Great Empire Films release “The Calico Queen” (aka The Hanging of Jake Ellis.“) Hint: the movie was not about a feline mother.
The cinema had recently been remodeled by a new owner, Pete Gall, who, true to his surname, told Boxoffice the house would be reopened the next weekend. I have not discovered how long the citizens of Franklin and vicinity were treated to such titillating fare, but hey, it was the seventies, so maybe quite a while.
This house may be the same one that was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory as the Bijou Dream Theatre, on West State Street.
The Gem was one of three theaters listed at Fremont in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
A photo of the Strand has surfaced, and it was showing the 1916 film “The Crisis.” In the 1930s, the building was remodeled for use as a retail store by the S. S. Kresge Company, predecessor of Kmart stores. It was likely that this conversion is what saved the building from the wrecking ball during the period when most of downtown Steubenville’s theaters were being demolished. Kresge’s store is long gone now, but the building is still standing, occupied by a second-hand appliance shop. The correct address is 438 Market Street.
This May 22, 2024 article is the most recent report I’ve found on the progress of the Grand Theatre’s renovation. The lobby has been restored, and the Wurlitzer organ was lately recommissioned, but restoration or replacement of water-damaged plaster in the Auditorium is still underway. A couple of photos show much of the auditorium still in very rough condition. No target date for completion of the project is given, but I suspect it will be quite some time.
I think I worded my previous comment badly, leading to misunderstandings. The theater added above the market hall (or maybe in a new municipal building that replaced the market hall completely) in 1882 was a rival to Garrett’s Hall, not a new location for it. The online sources for information about theaters in Steubenville are numerous but scattered, contradictory, and often puzzling, but I believe the market hall theater operated as the City Opera House for a few years, and then maybe under another name I haven’t tracked down, and then finally became the Victoria Theatre. It was demolished in the late 1920s, but I don’t know when it closed. I’ve found references to it running Keith vaudeville around 1925, and it usually ran four or five acts, which suggest it was a combination house that also ran movies. It was at 312 Market Street.
Garrett’s Hall was simply renamed Garrett’s Opera House after the new municipally-owned Opera House opened, and remained in the building that dated back to 1829-1830 as Washington Hall and then Kilgore’s Hall and was rebuilt and renamed Garrett’s Hall in 1869-1870. It was renamed Rex Theatre prior to being rebuilt as a ground floor house in 1916. I’m not positive that this venerable structure was the same house that reopened under the Rex name in the 1930s, but it could have been.
A third large house, the 800 seat Theatre Comique, operated in the late 19th century, but it burned in January, 1899, and I’ve found no indication that it was ever rebuilt.
The first year the Rexy is listed in the FDY is 1930, but the seating capacity isn’t given until the 1933 edition. There is actually a Rex Theatre listed in 1929, but again with no seating capacity. It might be that the house opened in (probably) 1928 as the Rex, or FDY might have been thrown by the unusual name Rexy and didn’t correct it until the 1931 edition. Another likely mistake is the 1934-only appearance of a 100-seat house called the Roxy.
Another possibility is that the Rexy started out at a different location, and then moved into the Family Theatre’s building, possibly in 1932. The Family is listed in the 1927 and 1929 FDYs, the capacity given only in 1929, when it had 300 seats, then vanishes until 1931 when it reappears listed with 498 seats but still a silent house. It is listed again in 1932, still not wired for sound, and also listed as closed. This was its final appearance. The Rexy was listed in both of those years, and was wired, but as I said no seating capacity given. In 1933 the Rexy is listed with a capacity for the first time, that being 448 seats.
The July 13, 1939 issue of Film Daily mentions Glenn Floyd, whose name (minus one surplus n) appears in the 1915 ad for the Family Theatre recently uploaded by robboehm. The item says: “Pittsburgh—Oaks Floyd, brother and partner of Glenn Floyd who operates theaters in Follansbee, W. Va., and Monaca, died of a heart attack.” Glen Floyd is also mentioned in the November 10, 1948 issue of The Exhibitor as co-owner of both theaters in Follansbee. Mr. Floyd’s long tenure in Follansbee, and his early connection to the Family Theatre, does, I think, make it more likely that the Rexy moved into the Family Theatre’s former location in 1932.
The May 20, 1916 issue ofMoving Picture World had news about the Rex: “The Rex, which recently fell under the ban of the inspectors of the Ohio Industrial Commission, as it was on the second floor, is being extensively remodeled so as to come up to all requirements.”
The fact that the Rex was an upstairs theater reflects its very long history. In 1869, local banker and merchant Horatio Gates Garrett, disappointed that a major touring opera company had skipped over Steubenville because its largest theater lacked adequate stage facilities, bought that theater, then called Kilgore Hall, and rebuilt it as a modern house which he named Garrett’s Hall. The sources are unclear, but Kilgore Hall might have dated to 1829 and opened as Washington Hall.
In 1882, Steubenville had another upstairs opera house built atop the town’s market hall, and after this Garrett’s Hall was renamed Garrett’s Opera House. For a while it was called Gray & Garrett’s Hall, but I haven’t found in which years. By the early 1910s it had become the Rex Theatre. It was one of nine theaters listed at Steubenville in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
Rats. I confused the Bradford and Brantford Theatoriums. The one in Canada had the explosion, and was replaced by a house called the Gem. The Pennsylvania Theatorium just got sold to new owners in 1909.
As for the Gem noted in the Bradford Landmarks newsletter, that publication cites no sources, so there’s no way to check them. I’ve found no other text references to a Gem Theatre in Bradford, but the Landmark Society’s web site has a photo collection, and this undated early photo of South Avenue features the Bradford/Shea’s Theatre. The writing is very difficult to make out, but it appears to me that the small building just this side of the Bradford has a sign that could read “Gem Novelties.” I wonder if that might have been a short-lived nickelodeon?
The newsletter article doesn’t mention the People’s Opera House, but does list a house on Chambers Street (no number) called the Theater Comique, which ran from 1877 until burning in 1880. The only other mention of Chambers Street is the Wagner Opera House, which it lists at Main and Chambers from 1878 to 1903. In any case, it’s clear that the newsletter list is, unfortunately, not entirely reliable.
There is a 1910 photo of the Peerless Theatre’s entrance on this WorthPoint listing, but it won’t enlarge enough to be clear if it were uploaded here. It’s a Real Photo post card, so another copy might turn up on another auction site someday. The accompanying text gives the operating years as 1907 to 1913, contradicting the Landmark Society’s newsletter dates of 1907-1917.
A list of Bradford’s early theaters in a newsletter from the Bradford Landmark Society (PDF here) gives the following names for the house at 11 Main Street: The Star Continuous Show (1906-1912); The Star (1912-1919); The Strand (1919-1924.) It was listed as the Star Theatre in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
The Theatorium, 29 Main St., is still listed at Bradford in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. However, a newsletter from the Bradford Landmark Society (PDF here) has a list of Bradford’s early theaters and also says the Theatorium closed in 1910, and had opened in 1906.
To add a bit more confusion, This Wikipedia article about Jay and Jules Allen, founders of Canada’s famous Allen Theatres chain, says that they were the original owners of the Theatorium, having opened it on November 10, 1906. However, Wiki’s article says that the Theatorium was destroyed by an explosion in September, 1908, “…resulting in its replacement by the Gem.”
The local newsletter lists the Gem as a house on Chambers Street which operated from 1880 until 1912, when it was converted to a horse stable. The Allens sold their local holdings in 1909, according to Wikipedia. It does not help that the Allens' first Canadian Theater was also called the Theatorium, and was in Brantford, Ontario. I’ve also found a reference to the Bradford Theatorium being in operation again in 1909, at 29 Main street, under the ownership of “Travis, Walker and Bush.”
Obviously not everything said about the Theatorium from all these sources can be correct, but I’ve not yet been able to establish which claims are accurate. There might be sources I haven’t found yet.