According to a document about Iowa’s opera houses from the NRHP,the original architect of the Grand Opera House in Dubuque was Willoughby J. Edbrooke. He also designed the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, Colorado, and was co-architect of the Tabor Grand Opera House in Denver..
Harry W. J. Edbrooke was not involved in the design of the Tabor Grand Opera House. He was only 18 years old when it was built. His father, Willoughby J. Edbrooke, was one of the architects, and his uncle Frank E. Edbrooke served as supervising architect.
Harry Edbrooke was not the architect of the Wheeler Opera House. He was only 16 years old when it was built. It was actually designed by his father, Willoughby J. Edbrooke. Construction was probably supervised by W.J.’s brother, Frank E. Edbrooke, who performed that office for the Tabor Grand Opera House in Denver and later established his own practice in Denver.
An NRHP document about Iowa theaters says that the Grand Opera House at Perry was built in 1903, and was designed by a Chicago architect listed only as Col. E. Young. I’ve been unable to find anything else about him on the Internet.
The earlier Waterloo Theatre at 511-513 Lafayette Avenue did exist. It was designed by Chicago theater architect Sidney Lovell, and was built in 1907. I’ve been unable to discover whether or not it ever operated as a movie house, but it was dismantled in 1936.
According to a document prepared for the NRHP covering the history of Iowa opera houses from 1835 to 1940, the Midland Theatre was one of two Iowa houses designed by a St. Louis architect named George Johnston. He also designed the Grand Opera House at Muscatine, built around 1903. I’ve been unable to find any other information about George Johnston on the Internet.
According to a document prepared for the NRHP covering the history of Iowa opera houses from 1835 to 1940, the Grand Opera House in Muscatine was one of two Iowa houses designed by a St. Louis architect named George Johnston. He also designed the Midland Theatre in Fort Dodge, built in 1900. I’ve been unable to find any other information about George Johnston on the Internet.
As the earlier photo links are all dead, here are some photos of the Grand Opera House:
Exterior, October, 1901, which was probably around the time it opened.
The architect of the Grand Opera House in Story City was James S. Cox of Estherville, Iowa. He also designed the Windsor Theatre in Hampton, Iowa, which was built the same year as the Story City house.
The Windsor Theatre in Hampton was designed by Estherville, Iowa, architect James S. Cox. Cox also designed the Story Grand Opera House in Story City, Iowa, which was also built in 1913.
The Plymouth Theatre was still listed in the Plymouth city directory in 1962, the most recent edition available on the Internet. It was the only theater listed.
The Clayton looks like it would have been built in the 1950s. I wonder if it was a replacement for the Clay Theatre, which was about a block east?
Here is a Street View of 419 E. Main Street, since Google Maps insists on fetching a view of E. 2nd Street instead.
The 2nd Street view does show the back of the building, though, if you swing it around to the opposite side of the street from where it is currently fixed. The Clay was awfully narrow for a theater with 350 seats, and they’d have had a hard time squeezing a CinemaScope screen into that space.
Here is another vintage photo of the Mars Theatre from Mars Theater District’s Facebook photo album. The movies Above and Beyond and Battle Zone, displayed on posters above the marquee, were both released in 1952.
The Street View currently on display dates from 2007, four years before the Mars Theatre building suffered a major fire which is depicted on this web page. The Mars Theatre opened in 1931, and closed in the 1950s.
An outfit called Mars Theatre District maintains a a Facebook page with numerous photos of the renovations which have been undertaken since the fire. There is also this vintage photo showing the Mars Theatre sometime around 1940.
I’ve been unable to find a Clay Theatre in Clayton, but I did find a Clayton Theatre, operating in the 1950s at 321 E. Main Street. DocSouth’s Going to the Show lists several theaters at Clayton, but the Clay is not among them, nor is the Clayton, though two are listed as “Name Unknown”. Three are listed as being on Railroad Street, which does not appear on Google Maps. I wonder if Main Street used to be called Railroad Street?
This web page (which I believe you need a Google account to see) says that the Ritz Theatre was twinned. This was probably done around 1970, when the building was remodeled, losing its sleek, Streamline Modern Vitrolite to a skin of that fake stone which was so popular during that architecturally challenged decade. The Ritz closed in 1982, a couple of years after the Quin Theaters opened in the East Sylva Shopping Center.
The page has a downloadable digital model of the Ritz which you can apparently print out, cut, and assemble. I haven’t bothered to do so as I don’t have a printer.
Here is a photo of the Ritz from September 3, 1942, with a group of Army recruits posing in front of it.
Here is the list of theaters in Winston-Salem in 1926:
AMUZU THEATRE, 116 w 4th
AUDITORIUM, n Liberty cor 5th
BROADWAY THEATRE, 429 n Liberty
Dunbar Theatre, n Depot cor e 6th
ELMONT THEATRE, 411 n Liberty
GEM THEATRE (The), Waughtown, S'side
Hippodrome Theatre, Kimberly Park
Lafayette Theatre, 108 e 4th
PILOT THEATRE, 111 w 4th
Rex Theatre, 104 e 4th
The FDY did sometimes duplicate a listing if a theater had changed names recently, so it’s still possible that the Colonial was the Broadway renamed. Photos from 1926 or earlier would be helpful to determine if the Colonial was in the same building as the Broadway or a new one.
The 1926 Winston-Salem city directory lists a Broadway Theatre at 429 N. Liberty Street. I wonder if this was the same house as the Colonial, or if it was demolished to make way for the Colonial? The Broadway must have been a fairly important theater, as it is advertised several times in the directory.
Something must have happened to the Niles Theatre in 1936. The December 18, 1937, issue of The Film Daily ran this item:
“Niles Celebrates
“Anamosa, Ia. — When Clifford Niles, owner of the Niles Theater here, celebrates, he celebrates. To mark the first anniversary of the house, he threw the doors open from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. with no admish charge and also staged a free dance at Firemen’s Hall.”
Clifford Niles and his son Charles were operating three theaters in Anamosa in 1937, according to another issue of the same publication, though it didn’t give their names. One of them must have been the Circle, but I’ve been unable to find the name of the third.
ShortyP: It’s probable that the McKinley Theatre on North Main Street was a later theater of the same name, and not the one built in 1921-22. The October 9, 1937, issue of The Film Daily had this item about a new theater in Niles:
“Niles, O. — A new corporation, McKinley Theaters, Inc., has been granted permission to issue $50,000 worth of stock for the erection of a new picture house here. Incorporators are George Delis, A. G. Cinstant and Angelo Alex. The new theater will be one of a chain of houses controlled by Southwestern New York Theater Corp.”
Another item said that National Theatre Supply Co. of Cleveland was equipping the new McKinley Theatre at Niles, Ohio, with Super Simplex projectors, Magnarc lamp houses, generators and a Walker screen. The November 6 issue of the same publication said that RCA sound equipment had been purchased for the McKinley Theatre. The November 23 issue listed the McKinley among theaters that had recently been opened.
In light of this, I’m still unable to eliminate the possibility that the Robins Theatre was originally the first McKinley Theatre. If I could find a source indicating that the McKinley Theatre of 1937 was an older house being reopened, that would do it, but so far everything I’ve found suggests that it was a new theater. It would also help if we could find a source giving the opening date, or at least the opening year, or perhaps the name of the architect, of the Robins Theatre.
Shorty, do you have any details about the McKinley Theatre, such as how long it was in operation, how big it was, and what it looked like? It should be given its own page at Cinema Treasures.
205 W. Main Street is currently the location of Knuckleheads, a bar and restaurant with live music. (Google Street View has its numbers a block off, showing this location as being in the 100 block.)
In 1937, Clifford Niles and his son Charles operated three theaters in Anamosa, according to an item in The Film Daily of November 15. The names of the theaters were not given, but the Circle must have been one of them, along with the Niles. I’ve been unable to find the name of the third theater.
Arby is correct. The Colonial Theatre has been demolished, along with every other building on the east side of Liberty Street between 4th and 5th Streets, including the State Theatre.
This 1960 photo shows the Colonial Theatre sporting a banner under its marquee reading “4 Big Features,” so it was definitely not a first run house at that time.
The FDY’s address had to have been wrong, Ken. Not only does the third photo I linked to in my previous comment show the Hollywood Theatre in the same block as the Colonial Theatre (at 427 N. Liberty), but the address 512 N.Liberty would be under the footprint of the large government building (probably the Post Office) which is on the northwest corner of 5th and Liberty, and looks like it was built no later than the 1930s.
The Hollywood Theatre was at 411 N. Liberty, and both it and the nearby Colonial Theatre have been demolished.
This article from the Wake Forest Gazette says that M. E. Joyner opened the Collegiate Theatre in 1936. It was burned and rebuilt in 1939, and was closed 1956.
The Forest Theatre was on South White Street, not Main Street, which is where the town’s old business district is. The book Wake Forest University says that the Forest and Collegiate Theatres were across the street from each other, so the Collegiate was on White Street too. There are photos of the Collegiate’s box office and the Forest’s auditorium (Google Books preview.)
According to a document about Iowa’s opera houses from the NRHP,the original architect of the Grand Opera House in Dubuque was Willoughby J. Edbrooke. He also designed the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, Colorado, and was co-architect of the Tabor Grand Opera House in Denver..
Harry W. J. Edbrooke was not involved in the design of the Tabor Grand Opera House. He was only 18 years old when it was built. His father, Willoughby J. Edbrooke, was one of the architects, and his uncle Frank E. Edbrooke served as supervising architect.
Harry Edbrooke was not the architect of the Wheeler Opera House. He was only 16 years old when it was built. It was actually designed by his father, Willoughby J. Edbrooke. Construction was probably supervised by W.J.’s brother, Frank E. Edbrooke, who performed that office for the Tabor Grand Opera House in Denver and later established his own practice in Denver.
An NRHP document about Iowa theaters says that the Grand Opera House at Perry was built in 1903, and was designed by a Chicago architect listed only as Col. E. Young. I’ve been unable to find anything else about him on the Internet.
The earlier Waterloo Theatre at 511-513 Lafayette Avenue did exist. It was designed by Chicago theater architect Sidney Lovell, and was built in 1907. I’ve been unable to discover whether or not it ever operated as a movie house, but it was dismantled in 1936.
According to a document prepared for the NRHP covering the history of Iowa opera houses from 1835 to 1940, the Midland Theatre was one of two Iowa houses designed by a St. Louis architect named George Johnston. He also designed the Grand Opera House at Muscatine, built around 1903. I’ve been unable to find any other information about George Johnston on the Internet.
According to a document prepared for the NRHP covering the history of Iowa opera houses from 1835 to 1940, the Grand Opera House in Muscatine was one of two Iowa houses designed by a St. Louis architect named George Johnston. He also designed the Midland Theatre in Fort Dodge, built in 1900. I’ve been unable to find any other information about George Johnston on the Internet.
As the earlier photo links are all dead, here are some photos of the Grand Opera House:
Exterior, October, 1901, which was probably around the time it opened.
Auditorium, around 1905.
A street scene with the Grand at right, taken in 1911.
Another exterior view from around 1910.
An exterior view from 1930.
The architect of the Grand Opera House in Story City was James S. Cox of Estherville, Iowa. He also designed the Windsor Theatre in Hampton, Iowa, which was built the same year as the Story City house.
The Windsor Theatre in Hampton was designed by Estherville, Iowa, architect James S. Cox. Cox also designed the Story Grand Opera House in Story City, Iowa, which was also built in 1913.
The Plymouth Theatre was still listed in the Plymouth city directory in 1962, the most recent edition available on the Internet. It was the only theater listed.
The Clayton looks like it would have been built in the 1950s. I wonder if it was a replacement for the Clay Theatre, which was about a block east?
Here is a Street View of 419 E. Main Street, since Google Maps insists on fetching a view of E. 2nd Street instead.
The 2nd Street view does show the back of the building, though, if you swing it around to the opposite side of the street from where it is currently fixed. The Clay was awfully narrow for a theater with 350 seats, and they’d have had a hard time squeezing a CinemaScope screen into that space.
Here is another vintage photo of the Mars Theatre from Mars Theater District’s Facebook photo album. The movies Above and Beyond and Battle Zone, displayed on posters above the marquee, were both released in 1952.
The Street View currently on display dates from 2007, four years before the Mars Theatre building suffered a major fire which is depicted on this web page. The Mars Theatre opened in 1931, and closed in the 1950s.
An outfit called Mars Theatre District maintains a a Facebook page with numerous photos of the renovations which have been undertaken since the fire. There is also this vintage photo showing the Mars Theatre sometime around 1940.
I’ve been unable to find a Clay Theatre in Clayton, but I did find a Clayton Theatre, operating in the 1950s at 321 E. Main Street. DocSouth’s Going to the Show lists several theaters at Clayton, but the Clay is not among them, nor is the Clayton, though two are listed as “Name Unknown”. Three are listed as being on Railroad Street, which does not appear on Google Maps. I wonder if Main Street used to be called Railroad Street?
When the Ritz Theatre opened in 1942, the Lyric was renamed the Rodeo Theatre and operated until about 1948 with a policy of western movies.
This web page (which I believe you need a Google account to see) says that the Ritz Theatre was twinned. This was probably done around 1970, when the building was remodeled, losing its sleek, Streamline Modern Vitrolite to a skin of that fake stone which was so popular during that architecturally challenged decade. The Ritz closed in 1982, a couple of years after the Quin Theaters opened in the East Sylva Shopping Center.
The page has a downloadable digital model of the Ritz which you can apparently print out, cut, and assemble. I haven’t bothered to do so as I don’t have a printer.
Here is a photo of the Ritz from September 3, 1942, with a group of Army recruits posing in front of it.
Here is the list of theaters in Winston-Salem in 1926:
AMUZU THEATRE, 116 w 4th
AUDITORIUM, n Liberty cor 5th
BROADWAY THEATRE, 429 n Liberty
Dunbar Theatre, n Depot cor e 6th
ELMONT THEATRE, 411 n Liberty
GEM THEATRE (The), Waughtown, S'side
Hippodrome Theatre, Kimberly Park
Lafayette Theatre, 108 e 4th
PILOT THEATRE, 111 w 4th
Rex Theatre, 104 e 4th
The FDY did sometimes duplicate a listing if a theater had changed names recently, so it’s still possible that the Colonial was the Broadway renamed. Photos from 1926 or earlier would be helpful to determine if the Colonial was in the same building as the Broadway or a new one.
No showtimes are listed for the Goodhand Theatre on any of the listing web sites. I guess it’s been closed.
The 1926 Winston-Salem city directory lists a Broadway Theatre at 429 N. Liberty Street. I wonder if this was the same house as the Colonial, or if it was demolished to make way for the Colonial? The Broadway must have been a fairly important theater, as it is advertised several times in the directory.
Something must have happened to the Niles Theatre in 1936. The December 18, 1937, issue of The Film Daily ran this item:
Clifford Niles and his son Charles were operating three theaters in Anamosa in 1937, according to another issue of the same publication, though it didn’t give their names. One of them must have been the Circle, but I’ve been unable to find the name of the third.ShortyP: It’s probable that the McKinley Theatre on North Main Street was a later theater of the same name, and not the one built in 1921-22. The October 9, 1937, issue of The Film Daily had this item about a new theater in Niles:
Another item said that National Theatre Supply Co. of Cleveland was equipping the new McKinley Theatre at Niles, Ohio, with Super Simplex projectors, Magnarc lamp houses, generators and a Walker screen. The November 6 issue of the same publication said that RCA sound equipment had been purchased for the McKinley Theatre. The November 23 issue listed the McKinley among theaters that had recently been opened.In light of this, I’m still unable to eliminate the possibility that the Robins Theatre was originally the first McKinley Theatre. If I could find a source indicating that the McKinley Theatre of 1937 was an older house being reopened, that would do it, but so far everything I’ve found suggests that it was a new theater. It would also help if we could find a source giving the opening date, or at least the opening year, or perhaps the name of the architect, of the Robins Theatre.
Shorty, do you have any details about the McKinley Theatre, such as how long it was in operation, how big it was, and what it looked like? It should be given its own page at Cinema Treasures.
205 W. Main Street is currently the location of Knuckleheads, a bar and restaurant with live music. (Google Street View has its numbers a block off, showing this location as being in the 100 block.)
In 1937, Clifford Niles and his son Charles operated three theaters in Anamosa, according to an item in The Film Daily of November 15. The names of the theaters were not given, but the Circle must have been one of them, along with the Niles. I’ve been unable to find the name of the third theater.
Arby is correct. The Colonial Theatre has been demolished, along with every other building on the east side of Liberty Street between 4th and 5th Streets, including the State Theatre.
This 1960 photo shows the Colonial Theatre sporting a banner under its marquee reading “4 Big Features,” so it was definitely not a first run house at that time.
The FDY’s address had to have been wrong, Ken. Not only does the third photo I linked to in my previous comment show the Hollywood Theatre in the same block as the Colonial Theatre (at 427 N. Liberty), but the address 512 N.Liberty would be under the footprint of the large government building (probably the Post Office) which is on the northwest corner of 5th and Liberty, and looks like it was built no later than the 1930s.
The Hollywood Theatre was at 411 N. Liberty, and both it and the nearby Colonial Theatre have been demolished.
This article from the Wake Forest Gazette says that M. E. Joyner opened the Collegiate Theatre in 1936. It was burned and rebuilt in 1939, and was closed 1956.
The Forest Theatre was on South White Street, not Main Street, which is where the town’s old business district is. The book Wake Forest University says that the Forest and Collegiate Theatres were across the street from each other, so the Collegiate was on White Street too. There are photos of the Collegiate’s box office and the Forest’s auditorium (Google Books preview.)