In satellite view, it looks like the Midway had a very shallow stage house without a tall fly tower. Many vaudeville acts didn’t use much scenery, and some didn’t use any, so the space would have been sufficient for their purposes. The theater could never have mounted any sort of big stage production, though.
I must have intended to put a link in my previous comment but forgot to insert it. I can’t find the photo of the Lyric Theatre I was linking to now, but I’ll keep looking for it. The American Terra Cotta Company’s archives are at the University of Minnesota Libraries, and they’ve reconfigured their web site. I don’t know if the photos are even available online anymore.
Linkrot repair: The Bamaboys' web page I linked to in my first comment of October 17, 2009, is now at this link. The 1959 photo of the Martin Theatre is fourth from the bottom.
An October 23 article in a Rockford newspaper (one of the worst newspaper web sites I’ve ever visited, so I won’t link) says that the Midway Theatre has been stabilized with a new roof, and the owners intend to restore the building, but the part of the article available to me didn’t say anything about it being used as a theater again. I got the impression that at least part of the theater will be re-purposed for other uses. The owners will attempt to get the building listed on the NRHP so they can get tax credits for any restoration work they do, and if they do get it listed the exterior at least should be safe.
The article also said that the theater has been vacant since 2003.
Here’s an interesting line from the NRHP Registration Form for the Central Theatre:
“The original interior had ‘pastel tinting and designing by Hugo
Claussen combined with thick carpeting and soft florescent lighting to produce a restful feeling.’”
The form doesn’t specify the source for the quote naming Hugo Clausen (which I believe is the correct spelling of his surname), but it might have been from the Ely Daily Times, which is cited as a general source.
The NRHP registration form for the Schubert Theatre says that it was designed by Hugo Clausen.
Clausen was a Salt Lake City decorator who, like San Francisco’s Gale Santocono, sometimes did architectural design. His company decorated the Egyptian Theatre in Boise, Idaho, and Clausen himself painted murals in the Central Theatre in Ely, Nevada.
Though the Internet does have some instances of the spelling Claussen, I believe the correct spelling of the architect’s surname is Clausen. He was primarily a decorator. His Salt Lake City firm, Hugo Clausen & Company, did the decorations for the Egyptian Theatre in Boise, Idaho, and Clausen painted the murals in the Central Theatre at Ely, Nevada. He is credited by an NRHP registration form as the architect of the Schubert Theatre (now the Gooding Cinema) at Gooding, Idaho.
DavidGill: I don’t recall the source for the 1972 twinning. It wasn’t on the Medina Masonic Temple Company web site (which is now gone, but I checked the Wayback Machine for it.) The source might also be gone from the Internet, as I can’t find it. However, as you went to the theater in 1981 and say it was still a single screen then, I’ll take your word for it. (It’s entirely possible that my source said 1982 and I made a typo and failed to notice it.)
Anyway, I’m glad to see that the theater is open again, even if it’s only showing movies part time.
This house reopened in 2012 as the Medina Community Theatre (official web site.) However, the house has only been showing movies occasionally. Religious services are also sometimes held in the auditorium. Renovations are ongoing, mostly with volunteer help.
Either Washington and Miller switched architects, or Emil Motel might only have been the supervising architect for the Rialto Theatre. The February 2, 1921, issue of The American Architect ran this item:
“Monticello, N. Y. —A theatre building will be erected by Washington & Miller at Monticello, N. Y., at a cost of about $90,000. Backoff, Jones & Cook of Newark, N. J., Architects.”
George W. Backoff, George Elwood Jones and J. Frederick Cook established their partnership in early 1920. If the house did open in 1921, especailly the first half of the year, they probably designed it, but if it didn’t open until 1922 as this page says, then the architect might have been changed.
I’ve only found a couple of oblique references to the Bentley’s location. A message board comment said that there was a high bluff behind it, and there are no bluffs in the 100 block of East Main, but there is a bluff just behind the buildings on the south side of the 100 West block.
There is also a reference in Walls of Illusion, a reminiscence by Joseph A. Bulko (Google Books preview), that describes an unnamed theater being “…at the end of main street [sic] across from the bridge over the Monongahela River.” Bulko lived in a room in the building while working at Johnny Matthews' appliance store, which was located in a storefront in the theater building. The newspaper article I linked to in my previous comment also mentions Matthews, and says that his appliance store was one of three shops in the Bentley Theatre building.
The current bridge crosses the 300 block of East Main, so I’m thinking there must have been an old bridge that has been demolished since the 1950s. I now believe that the newspaper got the address wrong, and the theater was on the south side of West Main Street. The newspaper article described the theater building as having three storefronts, and said that it would be converted into 12 apartments. Only one standing building fits that description, so I’ve set Street View to it. I can’t tell from the side walls how old they are, but it’s possible that the auditorium was not completely demolished but merely gutted, and the apartments built into the shell. It could probably never be used as a theater again, though.
A 1985 article about the pending demolition of the Bentley Theatre says that the Anton Theatre, at Third and Main Streets, operated until 1970 and was demolished in 1977. A McDonald’s restaurant was built on the site.
This article from the February 17, 1985, issue of The Pittsburgh Press says that the Bentley Theatre, which had been closed since the early 1950s, was to be demolished to make way for a new apartment house. However, a later paragraph mentions a “renovated building” with twelve apartments. Perhaps part of the structure was preserved. The article also says that the Bentley Theatre was on East Main Street, so we might have the wrong address for it.
I found an address of 247 West Main Street for the Gem Theatre, but it was published in 1908. If Monongahela’s numbering system might or might not have changed since then. If it hasn’t changed, then this theater has been demolished. It must have been on what is now part of the site of a modern building that has an H&R Block store in it. The store directly across the street from Block, Twice as Nice, is at 246 W. Main.
The same publication had an advertisement for the Ideal Theatre, featuring “Vaudeville, Motion Pictures, Illustrated Songs”, so the Ideal did show movies.
A brief item in the October 25, 1929, issue of Motion Picture News said that Jimmy Chest, operator of the Capitol Theatre in Canajoharie, had decided to keep the house open only two nights a week during the fall. A later issue of the same magazine said that the second theater in Canajoharie, the Strand, had been closed.
The Strand was still operating in 1930, though, when the October 11 issue of Exhibitors Herald World reported that Jack Vasil had opened the new Strand Theatre. He had promised to build the new theater if Canajoharie repealed its law against movies being shown on Sunday.
The January 8, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World mentioned an Empress Theatre that had recently reopened in Tekamah, operated by Frank Welch. As the Lyric was in operation that year, this must have been a different theater.
The 1913-1914 Cahn guide lists the Shafer Theater at Tekamah, a ground-floor house with 400 seats on the main floor and 250 in the balcony (the total capacity was about half the population of Tekamah.) This house was too large to have been the Lyric, but it might have become the Empress.
The October 5, 1930, issue of Motion Picture News said that Harry Day had opened the New Lyric Theatre in Tekamah, Nebraska on September 24. The new house had cost $32,000.
The Nebraska State Historical Society has a ledger from the Lyric Theatre in Tekamah, covering the years 1915 to 1919. Presumably, the New Lyric was a replacement for the earlier theater, or perhaps an extensive rebuilding of the original theater.
The Nugget Theatre was the subject of a few paragraphs in an article about Dartmouth University in the February, 1923, issue of George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken’s magazine, The Smart Set. The operator of the Nugget, angered by the rowdy behavior of undergraduates attending the shows, closed the theater, precipitating an “outrage meeting” by the students in the street. After two days, the manager reopened the Nugget, but the rowdy behavior in the theater continued. Kids those days!
The Google Maps pin icon is currently about three miles too far south. The theater is at the northwest corner of Highway 19 and Cypress Pond Road. For some reason the building is labeled on the map as New Purpose Community Church, but it is the theater. Maybe the church holds services in one of the auditoriums. I’ve set Street View to the correct location.
In satellite view, it looks like the Midway had a very shallow stage house without a tall fly tower. Many vaudeville acts didn’t use much scenery, and some didn’t use any, so the space would have been sufficient for their purposes. The theater could never have mounted any sort of big stage production, though.
I must have intended to put a link in my previous comment but forgot to insert it. I can’t find the photo of the Lyric Theatre I was linking to now, but I’ll keep looking for it. The American Terra Cotta Company’s archives are at the University of Minnesota Libraries, and they’ve reconfigured their web site. I don’t know if the photos are even available online anymore.
Linkrot repair: The article about the Guyan Theatre in Boxoffice of December 2, 1950, is now at this link.
Linkrot repair: The Bamaboys' web page I linked to in my first comment of October 17, 2009, is now at this link. The 1959 photo of the Martin Theatre is fourth from the bottom.
An October 23 article in a Rockford newspaper (one of the worst newspaper web sites I’ve ever visited, so I won’t link) says that the Midway Theatre has been stabilized with a new roof, and the owners intend to restore the building, but the part of the article available to me didn’t say anything about it being used as a theater again. I got the impression that at least part of the theater will be re-purposed for other uses. The owners will attempt to get the building listed on the NRHP so they can get tax credits for any restoration work they do, and if they do get it listed the exterior at least should be safe.
The article also said that the theater has been vacant since 2003.
Here’s an interesting line from the NRHP Registration Form for the Central Theatre:
The form doesn’t specify the source for the quote naming Hugo Clausen (which I believe is the correct spelling of his surname), but it might have been from the Ely Daily Times, which is cited as a general source.The NRHP registration form for the Schubert Theatre says that it was designed by Hugo Clausen.
Clausen was a Salt Lake City decorator who, like San Francisco’s Gale Santocono, sometimes did architectural design. His company decorated the Egyptian Theatre in Boise, Idaho, and Clausen himself painted murals in the Central Theatre in Ely, Nevada.
Though the Internet does have some instances of the spelling Claussen, I believe the correct spelling of the architect’s surname is Clausen. He was primarily a decorator. His Salt Lake City firm, Hugo Clausen & Company, did the decorations for the Egyptian Theatre in Boise, Idaho, and Clausen painted the murals in the Central Theatre at Ely, Nevada. He is credited by an NRHP registration form as the architect of the Schubert Theatre (now the Gooding Cinema) at Gooding, Idaho.
As noted in the Boxoffice article that Tinseltoes linked to, Victoria’s El Rancho Theatre was designed by architects Corgan & Moore.
The Tower Theatre will celebrate its 75th anniversary on Monday, October 11, 2013. Here is the story in today’s Sacramento Bee.
DavidGill: I don’t recall the source for the 1972 twinning. It wasn’t on the Medina Masonic Temple Company web site (which is now gone, but I checked the Wayback Machine for it.) The source might also be gone from the Internet, as I can’t find it. However, as you went to the theater in 1981 and say it was still a single screen then, I’ll take your word for it. (It’s entirely possible that my source said 1982 and I made a typo and failed to notice it.)
Anyway, I’m glad to see that the theater is open again, even if it’s only showing movies part time.
This house reopened in 2012 as the Medina Community Theatre (official web site.) However, the house has only been showing movies occasionally. Religious services are also sometimes held in the auditorium. Renovations are ongoing, mostly with volunteer help.
Either Washington and Miller switched architects, or Emil Motel might only have been the supervising architect for the Rialto Theatre. The February 2, 1921, issue of The American Architect ran this item:
George W. Backoff, George Elwood Jones and J. Frederick Cook established their partnership in early 1920. If the house did open in 1921, especailly the first half of the year, they probably designed it, but if it didn’t open until 1922 as this page says, then the architect might have been changed.I’ve only found a couple of oblique references to the Bentley’s location. A message board comment said that there was a high bluff behind it, and there are no bluffs in the 100 block of East Main, but there is a bluff just behind the buildings on the south side of the 100 West block.
There is also a reference in Walls of Illusion, a reminiscence by Joseph A. Bulko (Google Books preview), that describes an unnamed theater being “…at the end of main street [sic] across from the bridge over the Monongahela River.” Bulko lived in a room in the building while working at Johnny Matthews' appliance store, which was located in a storefront in the theater building. The newspaper article I linked to in my previous comment also mentions Matthews, and says that his appliance store was one of three shops in the Bentley Theatre building.
The current bridge crosses the 300 block of East Main, so I’m thinking there must have been an old bridge that has been demolished since the 1950s. I now believe that the newspaper got the address wrong, and the theater was on the south side of West Main Street. The newspaper article described the theater building as having three storefronts, and said that it would be converted into 12 apartments. Only one standing building fits that description, so I’ve set Street View to it. I can’t tell from the side walls how old they are, but it’s possible that the auditorium was not completely demolished but merely gutted, and the apartments built into the shell. It could probably never be used as a theater again, though.
Thanks, Hank. Owl is an odd name for a hotel, unless it catered mostly to people who slept in the daytime.
A 1985 article about the pending demolition of the Bentley Theatre says that the Anton Theatre, at Third and Main Streets, operated until 1970 and was demolished in 1977. A McDonald’s restaurant was built on the site.
This article from the February 17, 1985, issue of The Pittsburgh Press says that the Bentley Theatre, which had been closed since the early 1950s, was to be demolished to make way for a new apartment house. However, a later paragraph mentions a “renovated building” with twelve apartments. Perhaps part of the structure was preserved. The article also says that the Bentley Theatre was on East Main Street, so we might have the wrong address for it.
I found an address of 247 West Main Street for the Gem Theatre, but it was published in 1908. If Monongahela’s numbering system might or might not have changed since then. If it hasn’t changed, then this theater has been demolished. It must have been on what is now part of the site of a modern building that has an H&R Block store in it. The store directly across the street from Block, Twice as Nice, is at 246 W. Main.
The same publication had an advertisement for the Ideal Theatre, featuring “Vaudeville, Motion Pictures, Illustrated Songs”, so the Ideal did show movies.
A brief item in the October 25, 1929, issue of Motion Picture News said that Jimmy Chest, operator of the Capitol Theatre in Canajoharie, had decided to keep the house open only two nights a week during the fall. A later issue of the same magazine said that the second theater in Canajoharie, the Strand, had been closed.
The Strand was still operating in 1930, though, when the October 11 issue of Exhibitors Herald World reported that Jack Vasil had opened the new Strand Theatre. He had promised to build the new theater if Canajoharie repealed its law against movies being shown on Sunday.
The January 8, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World mentioned an Empress Theatre that had recently reopened in Tekamah, operated by Frank Welch. As the Lyric was in operation that year, this must have been a different theater.
The 1913-1914 Cahn guide lists the Shafer Theater at Tekamah, a ground-floor house with 400 seats on the main floor and 250 in the balcony (the total capacity was about half the population of Tekamah.) This house was too large to have been the Lyric, but it might have become the Empress.
The October 5, 1930, issue of Motion Picture News said that Harry Day had opened the New Lyric Theatre in Tekamah, Nebraska on September 24. The new house had cost $32,000.
The Nebraska State Historical Society has a ledger from the Lyric Theatre in Tekamah, covering the years 1915 to 1919. Presumably, the New Lyric was a replacement for the earlier theater, or perhaps an extensive rebuilding of the original theater.
There is a photo of the Robin Theatre on this page of the Robbinsdale Historical Society’s weblog.
The Nugget Theatre was the subject of a few paragraphs in an article about Dartmouth University in the February, 1923, issue of George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken’s magazine, The Smart Set. The operator of the Nugget, angered by the rowdy behavior of undergraduates attending the shows, closed the theater, precipitating an “outrage meeting” by the students in the street. After two days, the manager reopened the Nugget, but the rowdy behavior in the theater continued. Kids those days!
The Star Theatre was listed in the 1913-1914 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide with 280 seats. It was listed as showing movies only.
Newberg also had a house called the Gem Theatre that was destroyed by fire, along with some other buildings, in September, 1913.
The Google Maps pin icon is currently about three miles too far south. The theater is at the northwest corner of Highway 19 and Cypress Pond Road. For some reason the building is labeled on the map as New Purpose Community Church, but it is the theater. Maybe the church holds services in one of the auditoriums. I’ve set Street View to the correct location.