The only photo of the Capitol Theatre I’ve been able to find is in a panoramic view at the bottom of this page of The Architectural History of Randolph County North Carolina. The Capitol was in the right-most building on the left side of the street, partly hidden by the sandwich board sign sitting in the intersection. The image will have to be enlarged enormously (use the + sign in the tool bar at the lower right of the page) to make the theater’s rather plain little marquee visible. The theater’s name is not readable.
Some other sources give the opening year as 1916, but they usually say that it was Asheboro’s first movie theater, and the Randolph County Historical Society’s book Randolph County 1779-1979 quotes an item from the February 18, 1914, issue of The Bulletin and Randleman News indicating that a movie theater was already in operation on Depot Street (now Sunset Avenue) by that time:
“MOVING PICTURE SHOW
“The moving picture show has changed hands. Mr. W. P. Fowler has bought the movie from Col. Bowman, and will close the place until Friday to make it a place beautiful by overhauling and painting and otherwise improving the place. It will give the very highest class pictures service, in fact much better than has ever appeared before in Asheboro. Will be open Friday evening at 7:30p.m. Popular prices, children 5 cents, 10 cents to adults.
“A good movie in Asheboro will meet a long felt want on the part of the people both in town and country. Such is about to be realized, since Mr. Fowler has purchased the show house on Depot Street and will greatly improve the place. He will open up Friday evening and give a matinee every Saturday afternoon at 3 o'clock. All ministers families admitted free.”
Either the Joyland Theatre was operating by early 1914, or it was not Asheboro’s first movie theater. DocSouth’s Going to the Show is no help on this one, as it lists for Asheboro only the Sunset, the Capitol, and three houses with unknown names, none at the Joyland’s address.
If the building the Princess occupied was demolished to make way for the construction of the Grand’s lobby, then the Princess should certainly have its own page, as a theater can’t be listed as both demolished and still standing.
If the building the Princess was in was converted into the Grand’s lobby, even though the Grand was opened twelve years after the Princess closed, it could work either way. If you want to submit the Princess, though, I’d say go ahead, and Ken Roe can make the call about whether or not to add a new page for it or just add the information to this page.
On the 1916 Sanborn map, 63 S.Main is listed as vacant, and the auditorium of the Grand Theatre does not exist. It doesn’t appear on the 1922 map either. It’s possible that the building the Princess occupied became part of the lobby of the Grand, but it doesn’t appear to have been a theater after the Princess closed in 1916.
This page from the Organ Historical Society lists a Kilgen & Son organ installed in the Paramount Grand Theatre / Benbow Theatre in Mount Airy in 1928. It must have been this theater, though Internet searches fetch no other instances of the name Paramount Grand Theatre. In the 1931 city directory it’s just the Grand Theatre.
Mayberry on Main is south of the Earle Theatre, and should have a smaller number, but the Earle is 142 N. Main. The shop should probably be listed at 122 N. Main, but for some reason it’s listed all over the Internet at 192. Maybe somebody made a typo once, and it just spread to every other web site.
I suspect that the Center Theatre was on the lot that now has some seating in front and what looks to be public restrooms toward the back. The lot is across the street from Mayberry’s Music Center, which has the address 117 N. Main.
Street View is currently facing the wrong side of the street. The Grand Theatre’s entrance was up the block on the left, in the building that now sports a banner reading CASH-A-CHECK. The entrance lobby was very long, and the auditorium extended to the left at the end of it, behind the stores along the block, as seen in the satellite view.
The NRHP Registration Form for the Harris Arcade mentions the Carolina Theatre, saying that it was designed by Charlotte architect M. R. Marsh. Marion Rossiter Marsh also designed the Plaza Theatre in Charlotte. His firm was in operation from 1922 to 1964.
I’ve managed to “drive” Street View to the correct location of this theater, but be advised that the pin icon on the Google map is, at this date, still stuck some 19 or 20 blocks east of where it ought to be.
The Hickory theaters are a very useful contribution, Stephen. Please continue to submit theaters, and add whatever information you can find about theaters that are already listed. Many sources will turn out to be wrong (my contributions have been corrected by other members many times, and I’ve even had to to correct my own errors on some occasions when new sources have become available), but the information everybody contributes is necessary to puzzling out the history of each theater, and the contradictions and corrections are just part of that process.
As for puzzling out the location of the Park Theatre, while it is now rare in the United States, it is still common in some countries for lots facing all sides of a square to have addresses on that square. The Pastime Theatre page at DocSouth gives the address of the theater as 1002A Union Square, and displays the building note “located on the east end of the square,” clearly indicating that Hickory did at that time use Union Square numbers not just on the long side of the square but the east end as well.
The map on Page 3 at this link shows the lots with the address 1002 Union Square, and it has the notation “Moving Pictures 1st” (meaning the ground floor.) That was the Pastime. (I think the use of 1002
Hickory eventually abandoned the old system and, sometime prior whatever date your original source for the address of the Park Theatre had, gave the lot the address 1000 Federal Street. There is simply no other place that the addresses 1000 and 1002 Federal Street could have been than the same lots as the former addresses 1000 and 1002 Union Square. The east end of Union Square is the only block that would have had the 1000 numbers. The block of Federal Street south of 10th Avenue was the 900 block (see page 4 of the Sanborn maps.)
Later, when the numbering system throughout the town was changed, there would have been two-digit addresses for those lots, which is what they would have now if they had not been incorporated into the square.
It has actually turned out to be pretty easy to discover the locations of Hickory’s old theaters, thanks to the 1919 Sanborn maps that RidgewoodKen discovered were on display at DocSouth. I think we’ll be able to find the modern addresses for all of them, eventually.
Please don’t be put off by the appearance of controversy. It’s really only the way any crowd-sourced web site works. At Cinema Treasures, somebody posts a theater and then everybody adds whatever other information they can find about it, and sooner or later, in most cases we figure out what the facts are. I probably would never have found out about the Charles E. Jeffers Theatre if you hadn’t submitted it (under its earlier name Paramount Theatre), and I probably wouldn’t have figured out exactly where it was located if RidgewoodKen hadn’t found those Sanborn maps. Every little bit helps.
It has just occurred to me that the address 1000 Federal Street had to have been north of 10th Avenue (now Main Avenue.) The only place that could have been is the lot that was also numbered as 1000 Union Square, which was the address of the Pastime Theatre. The Pastime must have been renamed the Park sometime before 1940.
The Sanborn map shows that the original east end of the square did line up with Federal Street. DocSouth has a listing for the Pastime Theatre, but the Park is represented only by “Name Unknown” at the same address as the Pastime (which DocSouth lists as 1002 Union Square, apparently due to the error on the Sanborn map.)
Ken, the Hub theater definitely occupied the building at what is now 12 2nd Street NW. Here’s Google Street View, since we aren’t getting one at the top of the page right now.
deilenberger: The photo currently displayed at the head of the Paramount page is the Plainfield Theatre, which did indeed become the Paramount in later years. See the first photo on this page, which shows the Paramount about 1950. Note that the building to the left, with the distinctive crow-stepped gable, is the same building seen in the much earlier photo of the Plainfield Theatre.
When the Plainfield was remodeled in 1928, architect Thomas Lamb added the grand entrance to the right of the original building, and remodeled the original facade to match the style of the addition. The interior was extensively altered as well, of course. I’m sure that very little of the old Plainfield remained once Lamb was done with it, but the shell survived.
When originally opened, this house was called simply the Auditorium. Today, the name of the house itself is the Charles E. Jeffers Theatre. Hickory Community Theatre is a group that uses the venue. Many other events take place in the house, including musical performances. Quite a few videos made at the Jeffers can be found on the Internet.
Trade Avenue still exists, but appears as Trade Alley on some maps. Union Square exists, too, though altered somewhat. The Rivoli Theatre must have been in the building that now houses Wee Mount-N-Friend Frame shop, which is at 12 2nd Street NW.
A Sanborn map from 1919 shows that 1022 14th Street under the old numbering system is actually on the east side of modern 3rd Street NW, just north of Trade Alley. The old Municipal Building is still standing at the northeast corner of that intersection, and the Paramount Theatre was in the auditorium that is part of the building.
Here is a photo. Though the photo is dated ca. 1905-1915, I’m quite sure that’s wrong. The building is not on the 1919 Sanborn map, and in fact it was dedicated in November, 1921, according to an article on page 137 of the February, 1922, issue of The American City(Google Books scan.) Other sources indicate that the building was designed by Charlotte architect Charles C. Cook.
The modern address of the old Municipal Building is 30 3rd Street NW, and the Paramount Theatre has not been demolished. Indeed, it is still in use as the Charles E. Jeffers Theatre, home of Hickory Community Theatre. The building is still owned by the City of Hickory. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since February 18, 2000.
’ve had to reconsider my assumption that the modern address of the Paramount Theatre would be on 3rd Street SW. The old 1000 block would probably have been north of 10th Avenue (now Main Avenue), not south of it, so the theater would most likely have been in what is now the first NW block of 3rd Street. Because Hickory appears to have some addresses of less than three digits, the modern address of the Paramount Theatre site would probably be approximately 22 3rd Street NW.
I’m sure 1010 13th St. SW is a pre-1951 address. In that year, street names and addresses were changed throughout Hickory. 13th Street became 2nd Street, and I believe the 1000 block SW became either the 100 block SW or the 100 block NW (it would depend on whether the pre-1951 system had any numbers of less than 3 digits or not.) Even the way odd and even numbers were distributed might have changed in 1951, so I’m not sure if the modern address of the Rivoli’s location would be (approximately) 110 2nd St. or 109 2nd St.
The pre-1951 14th Street was renamed 3rd Street in that year, and as the current Main Avenue NW was formerly 10th Avenue, the former 1022 14th Street would now be on 3rd Street SW, probably in the 100 block. See the 1919 Sanborn map of the area in this weblog post.
This weblog post about Hickory’s confusing streets has a 1919 Sanborn map of the downtown area. Federal Street was a short street running south from Union Square, and just west of what was then 13th Street but is now 2nd Street SW. Part of Federal Street appears to still exist, but shows up on Google Maps as 2nd St.Pl. SW. The Park Theatre might have been on that stretch, or might have been on the more northerly part of the street which has been removed.
It’s going to be difficult to find the right locations of a lot of Hickory’s vanished theaters, as the town not only renumbered lots but renamed most streets in 1951. Most addresses published prior to that are now way off from current addresses. The comment by Lew Powell on the weblog post I linked to quotes a newspaper article about how Hickory’s current numbering system came to be (an academic city planner was involved, alas.)
The “Face of Mirth” that adorned the keystone of the theater’s arched entrance was unearthed when excavation for the new library was being done in 1977, 25 years after the theater had been demolished. Here is a photo of it.
A plaque installed at the site where the artifact is now displayed says that the Elm Theatre was designed by local architects William R. Miller and Raymond J. Mayo.
I think we have the second architect’s name in the firm field misspelled. Having found a few instances of the spelling Jackson & Solomonson in two sources, and a few instances of the spelling Jackson & Salmonson in two sources, I was uncertain of the correct spelling of the second architect’s surname. However, I have now found several instances of a third variant, Jackson & Salomonson, in five sources, including a modern book and, more importantly, the 1916 edition of The New England Business Directory and Gazetteer. As the canvasser for the directory would most likely have taken the name from the office door, or the firm’s business card, I think we can presume that Jackson & Salomonson is correct.
I have found multiple sources, including a 1916 business directory, which indicate that the correct spelling of the second architect’s surname is Salomonson. One source is the caption of a photo of the Haines Theatre on page 11 of Waterville, by Earle G. Shettleworth Jr. I think we can safely assume that the correct name of the firm that designed the Haines Theatre is Jackson & Salomonson.
GenDisasters' Hains Theatre page cites a Nashua Telegraph article of February 11, 1967, which referes to the Haines as a 50-year-old building. If that is correct, then the Haines was probably the theater that was the subject of this item in the June 7, 1917, issue of Engineering News-Record:
“ Waterville—Theater—Maine Theaters, Inc., c o A. S. Block, Rockland, having plans prepared by J. Salmonson, archt., 36 Bromfleld St.. Boston, 1-story, 75x90-ft., brick. About $50,000 Bids will soon be received.”
The brick and white trim Haines resembles two Maine theaters designed earlier by the firm of Jackson & Salmonson (or Solomonson, as it appears in some other sources), which had offices at 40 Bromfield Street in 1916. Perhaps Salmonson had established his own practice, but the name J. Salmonson also makes me wonder if the magazine mistook Jackson for a first name instead of a partner’s name and abbreviated it to save space.
The only photo of the Capitol Theatre I’ve been able to find is in a panoramic view at the bottom of this page of The Architectural History of Randolph County North Carolina. The Capitol was in the right-most building on the left side of the street, partly hidden by the sandwich board sign sitting in the intersection. The image will have to be enlarged enormously (use the + sign in the tool bar at the lower right of the page) to make the theater’s rather plain little marquee visible. The theater’s name is not readable.
This chronology of Randolph County lists the opening of the Joyland Picture Palace as a 1913 event.
Some other sources give the opening year as 1916, but they usually say that it was Asheboro’s first movie theater, and the Randolph County Historical Society’s book Randolph County 1779-1979 quotes an item from the February 18, 1914, issue of The Bulletin and Randleman News indicating that a movie theater was already in operation on Depot Street (now Sunset Avenue) by that time:
Either the Joyland Theatre was operating by early 1914, or it was not Asheboro’s first movie theater. DocSouth’s Going to the Show is no help on this one, as it lists for Asheboro only the Sunset, the Capitol, and three houses with unknown names, none at the Joyland’s address.If the building the Princess occupied was demolished to make way for the construction of the Grand’s lobby, then the Princess should certainly have its own page, as a theater can’t be listed as both demolished and still standing.
If the building the Princess was in was converted into the Grand’s lobby, even though the Grand was opened twelve years after the Princess closed, it could work either way. If you want to submit the Princess, though, I’d say go ahead, and Ken Roe can make the call about whether or not to add a new page for it or just add the information to this page.
On the 1916 Sanborn map, 63 S.Main is listed as vacant, and the auditorium of the Grand Theatre does not exist. It doesn’t appear on the 1922 map either. It’s possible that the building the Princess occupied became part of the lobby of the Grand, but it doesn’t appear to have been a theater after the Princess closed in 1916.
This page from the Organ Historical Society lists a Kilgen & Son organ installed in the Paramount Grand Theatre / Benbow Theatre in Mount Airy in 1928. It must have been this theater, though Internet searches fetch no other instances of the name Paramount Grand Theatre. In the 1931 city directory it’s just the Grand Theatre.
Mayberry on Main is south of the Earle Theatre, and should have a smaller number, but the Earle is 142 N. Main. The shop should probably be listed at 122 N. Main, but for some reason it’s listed all over the Internet at 192. Maybe somebody made a typo once, and it just spread to every other web site.
I suspect that the Center Theatre was on the lot that now has some seating in front and what looks to be public restrooms toward the back. The lot is across the street from Mayberry’s Music Center, which has the address 117 N. Main.
Street View is currently facing the wrong side of the street. The Grand Theatre’s entrance was up the block on the left, in the building that now sports a banner reading CASH-A-CHECK. The entrance lobby was very long, and the auditorium extended to the left at the end of it, behind the stores along the block, as seen in the satellite view.
The NRHP Registration Form for the Harris Arcade mentions the Carolina Theatre, saying that it was designed by Charlotte architect M. R. Marsh. Marion Rossiter Marsh also designed the Plaza Theatre in Charlotte. His firm was in operation from 1922 to 1964.
I’ve managed to “drive” Street View to the correct location of this theater, but be advised that the pin icon on the Google map is, at this date, still stuck some 19 or 20 blocks east of where it ought to be.
The Hickory theaters are a very useful contribution, Stephen. Please continue to submit theaters, and add whatever information you can find about theaters that are already listed. Many sources will turn out to be wrong (my contributions have been corrected by other members many times, and I’ve even had to to correct my own errors on some occasions when new sources have become available), but the information everybody contributes is necessary to puzzling out the history of each theater, and the contradictions and corrections are just part of that process.
As for puzzling out the location of the Park Theatre, while it is now rare in the United States, it is still common in some countries for lots facing all sides of a square to have addresses on that square. The Pastime Theatre page at DocSouth gives the address of the theater as 1002A Union Square, and displays the building note “located on the east end of the square,” clearly indicating that Hickory did at that time use Union Square numbers not just on the long side of the square but the east end as well.
The map on Page 3 at this link shows the lots with the address 1002 Union Square, and it has the notation “Moving Pictures 1st” (meaning the ground floor.) That was the Pastime. (I think the use of 1002
Hickory eventually abandoned the old system and, sometime prior whatever date your original source for the address of the Park Theatre had, gave the lot the address 1000 Federal Street. There is simply no other place that the addresses 1000 and 1002 Federal Street could have been than the same lots as the former addresses 1000 and 1002 Union Square. The east end of Union Square is the only block that would have had the 1000 numbers. The block of Federal Street south of 10th Avenue was the 900 block (see page 4 of the Sanborn maps.)
Later, when the numbering system throughout the town was changed, there would have been two-digit addresses for those lots, which is what they would have now if they had not been incorporated into the square.
It has actually turned out to be pretty easy to discover the locations of Hickory’s old theaters, thanks to the 1919 Sanborn maps that RidgewoodKen discovered were on display at DocSouth. I think we’ll be able to find the modern addresses for all of them, eventually.
Please don’t be put off by the appearance of controversy. It’s really only the way any crowd-sourced web site works. At Cinema Treasures, somebody posts a theater and then everybody adds whatever other information they can find about it, and sooner or later, in most cases we figure out what the facts are. I probably would never have found out about the Charles E. Jeffers Theatre if you hadn’t submitted it (under its earlier name Paramount Theatre), and I probably wouldn’t have figured out exactly where it was located if RidgewoodKen hadn’t found those Sanborn maps. Every little bit helps.
It has just occurred to me that the address 1000 Federal Street had to have been north of 10th Avenue (now Main Avenue.) The only place that could have been is the lot that was also numbered as 1000 Union Square, which was the address of the Pastime Theatre. The Pastime must have been renamed the Park sometime before 1940.
The Sanborn map shows that the original east end of the square did line up with Federal Street. DocSouth has a listing for the Pastime Theatre, but the Park is represented only by “Name Unknown” at the same address as the Pastime (which DocSouth lists as 1002 Union Square, apparently due to the error on the Sanborn map.)
Ken, the Hub theater definitely occupied the building at what is now 12 2nd Street NW. Here’s Google Street View, since we aren’t getting one at the top of the page right now.
deilenberger: The photo currently displayed at the head of the Paramount page is the Plainfield Theatre, which did indeed become the Paramount in later years. See the first photo on this page, which shows the Paramount about 1950. Note that the building to the left, with the distinctive crow-stepped gable, is the same building seen in the much earlier photo of the Plainfield Theatre.
When the Plainfield was remodeled in 1928, architect Thomas Lamb added the grand entrance to the right of the original building, and remodeled the original facade to match the style of the addition. The interior was extensively altered as well, of course. I’m sure that very little of the old Plainfield remained once Lamb was done with it, but the shell survived.
When originally opened, this house was called simply the Auditorium. Today, the name of the house itself is the Charles E. Jeffers Theatre. Hickory Community Theatre is a group that uses the venue. Many other events take place in the house, including musical performances. Quite a few videos made at the Jeffers can be found on the Internet.
Trade Avenue still exists, but appears as Trade Alley on some maps. Union Square exists, too, though altered somewhat. The Rivoli Theatre must have been in the building that now houses Wee Mount-N-Friend Frame shop, which is at 12 2nd Street NW.
A Sanborn map from 1919 shows that 1022 14th Street under the old numbering system is actually on the east side of modern 3rd Street NW, just north of Trade Alley. The old Municipal Building is still standing at the northeast corner of that intersection, and the Paramount Theatre was in the auditorium that is part of the building.
Here is a photo. Though the photo is dated ca. 1905-1915, I’m quite sure that’s wrong. The building is not on the 1919 Sanborn map, and in fact it was dedicated in November, 1921, according to an article on page 137 of the February, 1922, issue of The American City(Google Books scan.) Other sources indicate that the building was designed by Charlotte architect Charles C. Cook.
The modern address of the old Municipal Building is 30 3rd Street NW, and the Paramount Theatre has not been demolished. Indeed, it is still in use as the Charles E. Jeffers Theatre, home of Hickory Community Theatre. The building is still owned by the City of Hickory. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since February 18, 2000.
’ve had to reconsider my assumption that the modern address of the Paramount Theatre would be on 3rd Street SW. The old 1000 block would probably have been north of 10th Avenue (now Main Avenue), not south of it, so the theater would most likely have been in what is now the first NW block of 3rd Street. Because Hickory appears to have some addresses of less than three digits, the modern address of the Paramount Theatre site would probably be approximately 22 3rd Street NW.
I’m sure 1010 13th St. SW is a pre-1951 address. In that year, street names and addresses were changed throughout Hickory. 13th Street became 2nd Street, and I believe the 1000 block SW became either the 100 block SW or the 100 block NW (it would depend on whether the pre-1951 system had any numbers of less than 3 digits or not.) Even the way odd and even numbers were distributed might have changed in 1951, so I’m not sure if the modern address of the Rivoli’s location would be (approximately) 110 2nd St. or 109 2nd St.
The pre-1951 14th Street was renamed 3rd Street in that year, and as the current Main Avenue NW was formerly 10th Avenue, the former 1022 14th Street would now be on 3rd Street SW, probably in the 100 block. See the 1919 Sanborn map of the area in this weblog post.
This weblog post about Hickory’s confusing streets has a 1919 Sanborn map of the downtown area. Federal Street was a short street running south from Union Square, and just west of what was then 13th Street but is now 2nd Street SW. Part of Federal Street appears to still exist, but shows up on Google Maps as 2nd St.Pl. SW. The Park Theatre might have been on that stretch, or might have been on the more northerly part of the street which has been removed.
It’s going to be difficult to find the right locations of a lot of Hickory’s vanished theaters, as the town not only renumbered lots but renamed most streets in 1951. Most addresses published prior to that are now way off from current addresses. The comment by Lew Powell on the weblog post I linked to quotes a newspaper article about how Hickory’s current numbering system came to be (an academic city planner was involved, alas.)
This photo from Maine Memory provides a rather oblique view of the Elm Theatre dated 1920.
The “Face of Mirth” that adorned the keystone of the theater’s arched entrance was unearthed when excavation for the new library was being done in 1977, 25 years after the theater had been demolished. Here is a photo of it.
A plaque installed at the site where the artifact is now displayed says that the Elm Theatre was designed by local architects William R. Miller and Raymond J. Mayo.
I think we have the second architect’s name in the firm field misspelled. Having found a few instances of the spelling Jackson & Solomonson in two sources, and a few instances of the spelling Jackson & Salmonson in two sources, I was uncertain of the correct spelling of the second architect’s surname. However, I have now found several instances of a third variant, Jackson & Salomonson, in five sources, including a modern book and, more importantly, the 1916 edition of The New England Business Directory and Gazetteer. As the canvasser for the directory would most likely have taken the name from the office door, or the firm’s business card, I think we can presume that Jackson & Salomonson is correct.
I have found multiple sources, including a 1916 business directory, which indicate that the correct spelling of the second architect’s surname is Salomonson. One source is the caption of a photo of the Haines Theatre on page 11 of Waterville, by Earle G. Shettleworth Jr. I think we can safely assume that the correct name of the firm that designed the Haines Theatre is Jackson & Salomonson.
GenDisasters' Hains Theatre page cites a Nashua Telegraph article of February 11, 1967, which referes to the Haines as a 50-year-old building. If that is correct, then the Haines was probably the theater that was the subject of this item in the June 7, 1917, issue of Engineering News-Record:
The brick and white trim Haines resembles two Maine theaters designed earlier by the firm of Jackson & Salmonson (or Solomonson, as it appears in some other sources), which had offices at 40 Bromfield Street in 1916. Perhaps Salmonson had established his own practice, but the name J. Salmonson also makes me wonder if the magazine mistook Jackson for a first name instead of a partner’s name and abbreviated it to save space.