Thanks, Jesse. If there was no room for expansion then it’s likely that whoever put the web site together for Vanney Associates simply recorded the wrong number of screens for the Anoka Theatre project. The only other explanation would be that an expansion was planned but never carried out.
Three photos on this web page show the General Custer Hotel when the theater entrance was in place. It was on North Main Street, in the building with the cornice and the balustraded parapet, not in the plainer building right on the corner.
The buildings at the intersection are all still standing in the Street View, which is dated 2008, but in the satellite view, which is dated 2013, the roofs of several look like they are being demolished. I’ve been trying to puzzle out of the building toward the center of the block, which also looks partly roofless, was actually the theater’s auditorium. As the theater entrance was under the second and third upper floor window bays at the south end of the hotel, the lobby would have led straight back to the south end of the building that might have been the auditorium, and I’m inclined to think that’s what it was.
This page of The Film Daily for February 17, 1929, features a photo showing part of the soffit of the Strand Theatre’s marquee and a fancy bracket at the side of the arched entrance. (Click on the + sign in the toolbar at lower right of the page to repeatedly enlarge the image. It can get pretty big before it goes pixely.)
Down the block there is a marquee that looks like it might say The Owl. Was that another theater, or some other business? California had a chain of Owl Drug Co. stores, but I don’t think they had stores in Cincinnati. It might also be a tobacconist’s shop touting Owl Cigars, a popular brand at one time.
The Rialto Theatre at Boone, Iowa, was mentioned in the January 13, 1929, issue of The Film Daily, so it must have been open by 1928 at the latest. This comment by IowaBackroads on our Boone Theatre page says that the Rialto Theatre was destroyed by a fire and was subsequently replaced by the Boone Theatre on the same site. CinemaTour’s Rialto page says that the fire took place on September 10, 1966.
Google Street View is currently set to the wrong block. The Luna-Lite Theatre was on West Fourth Street, probably just past the alley behind the seven-story bank building at Fourth and Washington Streets. It was almost across the street from the Lyric Theatre, which was at 116-118 W. Fourth, about where the driveway of the modern building with the maroon awnings is now.
This PDF listing theaters that have operated in Indiana lists a total of 19 houses in Marion, and two of them are called the Orpheum. One is listed simply as the Orpheum Theater, and the other as the Orpheum Theater; Luna-Lite Theater.
I have found references to a New Orpheum Theatre operating at Marion as part of the Gus Sun circuit in 1910, and I have also found an Orpheum Theater at Marion operating in 1922. As the Luna-Lite was mentioned in The Moving Picture World in 1916, my guess would be that it was the old Gus Sun house, renamed.
One reference to the other Orpheum is on this page at BoxRec, listing a match between local boxer Vaughn Treber and Joe Lohman at the Orpheum on August 7, 1922. The only other reference I can find is on this page, which says that the Denishawn Dance Company appeared at the Orpheum in Marion, Indiana, on November 30, 1923. It’s possible that the second Orpheum never operated as a movie theater.
This web page about four of Marion’s theaters says that the Lyric was located at 118 W. Fourth Street, across the street from the Luna-Lite Theatre, so the Lyric is the one we currently have listed with the wrong address. The page says the Lyric was demolished in 1952.
The Lyric Theatre was built in 1916 by the owners of the Luna-Lite Theatre. An item about the project appeared in the February 12 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Marion, Ind.—Incorporation papers have been filed in Indianapolis for the formation of the Washington Theater Company headed by B. F. Metcalf, of the Luna Lite theater, Marion, Indiana. Associated with Mr. Metcalf are a number of Marion capitalists. The stock in the company has been subscribed and negotiations have been closed for the site of the Mecca Club on West Fourth street where a $35,000 theater will be erected.”
“Mr. Metcalf has conducted the LunaLite theater in a most succesful way and had no trouble at all in financing the bigger theater.”
A 1916 program for the Lyric Theatre that was listed at auction site WorthPoint (link, probably temporary) says at the bottom of the front cover that the house was owned by the Washington Theatre Company, so there can be no mistake that it was the same house.
Broan: trade journals from the 1920s mention the Luna Lite and Lyric Theatres being in operation at the same time, so they were not the same theater. We’ve apparently just got the wrong address for one or the other of them, though I don’t know which.
A Grand Theatre in Marion was the smaller of two houses listed for that city (the other was the Indiana Theatre) in the 1906-1907 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide. The Grand was a ground-floor house with over 700 seats. It the older of the two theaters as well, as I’ve found it mentioned as early as 1895. One later By 1916, when one magazine item referred to it as “…a ramshackle old place….”, it was being operated as a movie house with the name Royal Grand Theatre.
The August 6, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World reported that the operators of the Royal Grand, brother and sister Dolly and Howard Spurr, had been arrested for showing movies on Sunday in violation of a city ordinance. The August 19 issue reported that the Spurrs had been found guilty and had each been fined ten dollars, but were appealing the court’s decision.
This might or might not have been the same theater that was in operation as the Royal Grand in later years. The July 14, 1917, issue of The American Contractor said that preliminary plans were being drawn by architect H. G. Bowstead for a theater for the Royal Grand Realty Company of Marion, Indiana. I’ve been unable to discover if this project was carried out or, if it was, that it was the Royal Grand itself and not one of the other theaters in Marion that were operated by the Spurrs, but it’s possible that the orginal Grand was entirely replaced. The Music Trade Review said that the Royal Grand Theater Company would build a new theater on the site of the AME church on Fifth Street.
The November 8, 1919, issue of Motion Picture News published a letter from Dolly Spurr, who was by then operating the Lyric and Indiana Theatres as well as the Royal Grand. The letter mentioned that she was still unable to show movies on Sunday, so that battle was apparently lost.
The 1925 Yearbook of Motion Pictures lists a Marion Theatre Company operating five houses at Marion; the Luna Lite, Lyric, Indiana, Royal Grand, and Marion Theatres. The company also operated the Isis Theatre at Kokomo.
The January 2, 1925, issue of the Kokomo Tribune said that the Royal Grand Theatre at Marion had suffered $25,000 damage from a fire, most of the loss the result smoke and water which damaged the theater’s furnishings and decorations.
The Royal Grand Theatre is mentioned in the oral history of Milford Freeman, a Marionite who talked about growing up in the town in the 1930s and 1940s, so the house apparently operated into the 1940s, at least.
Here is a photo of Main Street in Marshalltown, probably from the late 1930s, with the Strand Theatre at left. The facade does look more like something from the 1910s than from the 1920s, so most likely this was the theater that was being outfitted in 1915. It probably opened late that year or in early 1916.
I’ve found a reference to a Strand Theatre in Marshalltown being outfitted in 1915. Owners of the theater ordered 714 opera chairs from the Progressive Seating Company of Chicago on November 3, 1915. No address was given for the theater, so I don’t know if it was this same Strand or not.
The Harvester Theatre was still in operation as late as 1932, when the January 30 issue of Motion Picture Herald reported that Frank Leino had been named its manager.
1215 Whitley Avenue is now the home of the Discount Variety Store, but the facade still shows a bit of Art Deco detailing that must survive from the time the building housed the Corcoran Theatre.
Boxoffice of January 6, 1951, noted that both the Corcoran and Lake Theatres in Corcoran were owned by Robert Lippert.
This derive-in was set to open shortly, according to Boxoffice of January 6, 1951. However, records of a court case involving Michael A. Parker, developer of the project, and one of the contractors, suggest that there might have been a delay, but I’ve been unable to discover how long it might have been. The drive-in appears to have been opened before the end of 1951, in any case.
Boxoffice said that the new theater would be Arizona’s largest drive-in, and the first in the state with two screens. It was to be called the Twin Drive-In. CinemaTour gives the Acres Drive-In the aka’s Acres of Fun Drive-In, Peso Drive-In, El Peso Drive-In, and Twin Open Air Drive-In… though why a drive-in’s operator would specify in its name that it was both a drive-in and “open air” I can’t say.
The January 6, 1951, issue of Boxofrfice reported that the Coliseum Theatre in Seattle had reopened following a $250,000 remodeling job that had begun the previous August. Much of the theater’s original detailing, designed in 1915 by architect B. Marcus Priteca, had been removed, as had the dome over the theater’s entrance. The architect who was responsible for this desecration of B. Marcus Priteca’s work was… well, B. Marcus Priteca. I guess that’s one of the perils of having a long career as a theater architect.
This web page from the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce tells about the conversion of the Belvedere Theatre into offices. It gives the wrong opening year, though- 1955. It also says that the house was originally built for African American audiences, but doesn’t cite a source. The caption of the 1951 Boxoffice photo I linked to didn’t say anything about it being an African American house, and that’s something the magazine usually noted in those days.
This Blogger post has scans of a couple of ads from the Belvedere Theatre, about third of the way down. The last comment on the page, by John McElwee, also has information about the Belvedere from a former patron who attended the house around the time it opened (the page is formated to have pale type on a black background and is virtually unreadable. Try left-clicking your mouse and highlighting the text as though to copy it, and it should become readable.
Actually, it looks as though the bowling alley now occupies four buildings, including the Columbia Theatre, so the theater’s space now houses about one quarter of the bowling alley.
This theater had a long history before the neighborhood became predominantly Chinese, and had no connection to Chinatown for its first few decades. In 1926, Chinatown was still a small enclave lying mostly east of Alameda Street where Union Station was later built, but extending west to Los Angeles Street at the Plaza. In the 1930s and 1940s, China City along North Spring and New High Streets and New Chinatown along North Broadway and North Hill Street were developed
Even as late as the beginning of the 1960s the neighborhood around this theater was predominantly Mexican American, but it had previously housed a mixture of various European ethnic groups. Ethnic Chinese became the dominant group in the neighborhood after immigration restrictions were relaxed in 1965, and the Asian American population of California began to expand rapidly for the first time since the 19th century.
As the Alpine Theatre and Carmen Theatre, this house was always listed in the moving picture theaters section of the city directories. It had no fly tower, so any live performances would have been limited in scope. Many neighborhood theaters did have small stages suitable for occasional live performances, and this theater probably had one, but I’m sure that vaudeville was never a regular feature of the house. It was a neighborhood movie house, like hundreds of others throughout the city.
This article from the Clinton Times & Courier cites local historian Terrence Ingano’s claim that the Philbin Theatre was the original name of the house that later became the Strand. It was opened in 1924, he said, but that doesn’t jibe with the 1920 listing of the Strand I cited earlier, unless there were two theaters called the Strand in Clinton, and the name was moved to the Philbin at some point.
An item in the December 16, 1922, issue of The American Contractor says that P. J. Philbin was the president of the Clinton Theatre Company. A 1909 Moving Picture World item said that the Star Theatre would open in the Philbin Block in Clinton about the middle of August. Apparently Mr. Philbin was Clinton’s early theater magnate.
I suspect that there was only theone theater in Danvers, and when Bown changed the name from Elm to Danvers sometine after 1922, FDY just never cleared its records of the old name. The Film Daily itself refers to the burned house as the Elm twice and as the Danvers once, but Motion Picture News only refers to it as the Danvers Theatre.
The fire in Danvers was reported by Motion Picture News on March 13, 1926, in this item:
“The Danvers Theatre, Danvers, Mass., destroyed by fire early in the year, is to be rebuilt at once. Plans have been prepared and contracts will all be let within the next few days for the structure. Louis Brown of Danvers is the owner and will manage the house. It will be 70 by 100 feet, will contain but one floor, no balcony, and will cost about $75,000.”
Another item appeared in the April 10 issue of the same publication:
“Louis Brown, owner of the Danvers (Mass.) Theatre, which was destroyed by fire early in the winter, has awarded contracts to William A. Berry of Boston for the immediate construction of a new theatre in that town. The structure will occupy the site of the former theatre and will be ready for occupancy, early in the fall.”
The Film Daily had reported the fire earlier, in a brief item in the January 21 issue:
“Theater Destroyed by Fire
“Danvers, Mass. — Loss estimated at $70,000 was caused by fire which started in the boiler room of the Elm, following an explosion.”
The March 30 issue of the Daily had a rather extravagant estimate of the cost of replacing the theater. I suspect that somebody mistakenly added an extra zero:
“New $850,000 Danvers Theater
“Danvers, Mass. — The Danvers theater is to be built by Louis Brown to replace the structure burned during winter. The work will cost $850,000.”
The September 4 issue of Motion Picture News noted delays in the project:
“Work is being pushed forward on the new Danvers Theatre in Danvers, Mass., which will replace the one destroyed by fire in the early summer. Manager Brown had hoped to occupy it the early part of September, but it may be a month later before it is ready. Meanwhile, the programs are being given in the Peabody Institute Hall, a few blocks distant.”
Louis Brown did not fare well during the depression. The January 17, 1931, issue of The Film Daily reported that he had filed a petition for bankruptcy. Later issues of the magazine indicate that the Orpheum was then taken over by Allen B. Newhall, operator of the Union Hill Theatre in Gloucester.
Does anyone know what became of the Rex Theatre in Clovis? The January 17, 1931, issue of The Film Daily reported that Hardwick Bros. had recently opened the new, 800-seat Rex at Clovis. Could Rex be a forgotten aka for one of the theaters theaters in Clovis that is already listed, or was it a different house that has been lost?
The Middlesex Theatre should be marked as demolished. It’s clear from comparing the current satellite and street views with the LOC photos lostmemory linked to on September 24, 2008, that the auditorium is gone. The Tuscany Grill only occupies the theater’s surviving entrance building. Move Street View a couple of clicks to the right and compare with this historic photo when the auditorium was still standing.
The Facebook page of the Markham Group, an insurance agency in Ayer, has a photo of the Playhouse taken in 1943. A comment on the photo says that the Playhouse was destroyed by a fire in 1962.
Thanks, Jesse. If there was no room for expansion then it’s likely that whoever put the web site together for Vanney Associates simply recorded the wrong number of screens for the Anoka Theatre project. The only other explanation would be that an expansion was planned but never carried out.
Three photos on this web page show the General Custer Hotel when the theater entrance was in place. It was on North Main Street, in the building with the cornice and the balustraded parapet, not in the plainer building right on the corner.
The buildings at the intersection are all still standing in the Street View, which is dated 2008, but in the satellite view, which is dated 2013, the roofs of several look like they are being demolished. I’ve been trying to puzzle out of the building toward the center of the block, which also looks partly roofless, was actually the theater’s auditorium. As the theater entrance was under the second and third upper floor window bays at the south end of the hotel, the lobby would have led straight back to the south end of the building that might have been the auditorium, and I’m inclined to think that’s what it was.
This page of The Film Daily for February 17, 1929, features a photo showing part of the soffit of the Strand Theatre’s marquee and a fancy bracket at the side of the arched entrance. (Click on the + sign in the toolbar at lower right of the page to repeatedly enlarge the image. It can get pretty big before it goes pixely.)
Down the block there is a marquee that looks like it might say The Owl. Was that another theater, or some other business? California had a chain of Owl Drug Co. stores, but I don’t think they had stores in Cincinnati. It might also be a tobacconist’s shop touting Owl Cigars, a popular brand at one time.
The Rialto Theatre at Boone, Iowa, was mentioned in the January 13, 1929, issue of The Film Daily, so it must have been open by 1928 at the latest. This comment by IowaBackroads on our Boone Theatre page says that the Rialto Theatre was destroyed by a fire and was subsequently replaced by the Boone Theatre on the same site. CinemaTour’s Rialto page says that the fire took place on September 10, 1966.
Google Street View is currently set to the wrong block. The Luna-Lite Theatre was on West Fourth Street, probably just past the alley behind the seven-story bank building at Fourth and Washington Streets. It was almost across the street from the Lyric Theatre, which was at 116-118 W. Fourth, about where the driveway of the modern building with the maroon awnings is now.
This PDF listing theaters that have operated in Indiana lists a total of 19 houses in Marion, and two of them are called the Orpheum. One is listed simply as the Orpheum Theater, and the other as the Orpheum Theater; Luna-Lite Theater.
I have found references to a New Orpheum Theatre operating at Marion as part of the Gus Sun circuit in 1910, and I have also found an Orpheum Theater at Marion operating in 1922. As the Luna-Lite was mentioned in The Moving Picture World in 1916, my guess would be that it was the old Gus Sun house, renamed.
One reference to the other Orpheum is on this page at BoxRec, listing a match between local boxer Vaughn Treber and Joe Lohman at the Orpheum on August 7, 1922. The only other reference I can find is on this page, which says that the Denishawn Dance Company appeared at the Orpheum in Marion, Indiana, on November 30, 1923. It’s possible that the second Orpheum never operated as a movie theater.
This web page about four of Marion’s theaters says that the Lyric was located at 118 W. Fourth Street, across the street from the Luna-Lite Theatre, so the Lyric is the one we currently have listed with the wrong address. The page says the Lyric was demolished in 1952.
The Lyric Theatre was built in 1916 by the owners of the Luna-Lite Theatre. An item about the project appeared in the February 12 issue of The Moving Picture World:
A 1916 program for the Lyric Theatre that was listed at auction site WorthPoint (link, probably temporary) says at the bottom of the front cover that the house was owned by the Washington Theatre Company, so there can be no mistake that it was the same house.Broan: trade journals from the 1920s mention the Luna Lite and Lyric Theatres being in operation at the same time, so they were not the same theater. We’ve apparently just got the wrong address for one or the other of them, though I don’t know which.
I’ve found the Luna Lite Theatre mentioned in The Moving Picture World as early as 1916.
A Grand Theatre in Marion was the smaller of two houses listed for that city (the other was the Indiana Theatre) in the 1906-1907 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide. The Grand was a ground-floor house with over 700 seats. It the older of the two theaters as well, as I’ve found it mentioned as early as 1895. One later By 1916, when one magazine item referred to it as “…a ramshackle old place….”, it was being operated as a movie house with the name Royal Grand Theatre.
The August 6, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World reported that the operators of the Royal Grand, brother and sister Dolly and Howard Spurr, had been arrested for showing movies on Sunday in violation of a city ordinance. The August 19 issue reported that the Spurrs had been found guilty and had each been fined ten dollars, but were appealing the court’s decision.
This might or might not have been the same theater that was in operation as the Royal Grand in later years. The July 14, 1917, issue of The American Contractor said that preliminary plans were being drawn by architect H. G. Bowstead for a theater for the Royal Grand Realty Company of Marion, Indiana. I’ve been unable to discover if this project was carried out or, if it was, that it was the Royal Grand itself and not one of the other theaters in Marion that were operated by the Spurrs, but it’s possible that the orginal Grand was entirely replaced. The Music Trade Review said that the Royal Grand Theater Company would build a new theater on the site of the AME church on Fifth Street.
The November 8, 1919, issue of Motion Picture News published a letter from Dolly Spurr, who was by then operating the Lyric and Indiana Theatres as well as the Royal Grand. The letter mentioned that she was still unable to show movies on Sunday, so that battle was apparently lost.
The 1925 Yearbook of Motion Pictures lists a Marion Theatre Company operating five houses at Marion; the Luna Lite, Lyric, Indiana, Royal Grand, and Marion Theatres. The company also operated the Isis Theatre at Kokomo.
The January 2, 1925, issue of the Kokomo Tribune said that the Royal Grand Theatre at Marion had suffered $25,000 damage from a fire, most of the loss the result smoke and water which damaged the theater’s furnishings and decorations.
The Royal Grand Theatre is mentioned in the oral history of Milford Freeman, a Marionite who talked about growing up in the town in the 1930s and 1940s, so the house apparently operated into the 1940s, at least.
Here is a photo of Main Street in Marshalltown, probably from the late 1930s, with the Strand Theatre at left. The facade does look more like something from the 1910s than from the 1920s, so most likely this was the theater that was being outfitted in 1915. It probably opened late that year or in early 1916.
I’ve found a reference to a Strand Theatre in Marshalltown being outfitted in 1915. Owners of the theater ordered 714 opera chairs from the Progressive Seating Company of Chicago on November 3, 1915. No address was given for the theater, so I don’t know if it was this same Strand or not.
The Harvester Theatre was still in operation as late as 1932, when the January 30 issue of Motion Picture Herald reported that Frank Leino had been named its manager.
1215 Whitley Avenue is now the home of the Discount Variety Store, but the facade still shows a bit of Art Deco detailing that must survive from the time the building housed the Corcoran Theatre.
Boxoffice of January 6, 1951, noted that both the Corcoran and Lake Theatres in Corcoran were owned by Robert Lippert.
This derive-in was set to open shortly, according to Boxoffice of January 6, 1951. However, records of a court case involving Michael A. Parker, developer of the project, and one of the contractors, suggest that there might have been a delay, but I’ve been unable to discover how long it might have been. The drive-in appears to have been opened before the end of 1951, in any case.
Boxoffice said that the new theater would be Arizona’s largest drive-in, and the first in the state with two screens. It was to be called the Twin Drive-In. CinemaTour gives the Acres Drive-In the aka’s Acres of Fun Drive-In, Peso Drive-In, El Peso Drive-In, and Twin Open Air Drive-In… though why a drive-in’s operator would specify in its name that it was both a drive-in and “open air” I can’t say.
The January 6, 1951, issue of Boxofrfice reported that the Coliseum Theatre in Seattle had reopened following a $250,000 remodeling job that had begun the previous August. Much of the theater’s original detailing, designed in 1915 by architect B. Marcus Priteca, had been removed, as had the dome over the theater’s entrance. The architect who was responsible for this desecration of B. Marcus Priteca’s work was… well, B. Marcus Priteca. I guess that’s one of the perils of having a long career as a theater architect.
This web page from the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce tells about the conversion of the Belvedere Theatre into offices. It gives the wrong opening year, though- 1955. It also says that the house was originally built for African American audiences, but doesn’t cite a source. The caption of the 1951 Boxoffice photo I linked to didn’t say anything about it being an African American house, and that’s something the magazine usually noted in those days.
This Blogger post has scans of a couple of ads from the Belvedere Theatre, about third of the way down. The last comment on the page, by John McElwee, also has information about the Belvedere from a former patron who attended the house around the time it opened (the page is formated to have pale type on a black background and is virtually unreadable. Try left-clicking your mouse and highlighting the text as though to copy it, and it should become readable.
Actually, it looks as though the bowling alley now occupies four buildings, including the Columbia Theatre, so the theater’s space now houses about one quarter of the bowling alley.
This theater had a long history before the neighborhood became predominantly Chinese, and had no connection to Chinatown for its first few decades. In 1926, Chinatown was still a small enclave lying mostly east of Alameda Street where Union Station was later built, but extending west to Los Angeles Street at the Plaza. In the 1930s and 1940s, China City along North Spring and New High Streets and New Chinatown along North Broadway and North Hill Street were developed
Even as late as the beginning of the 1960s the neighborhood around this theater was predominantly Mexican American, but it had previously housed a mixture of various European ethnic groups. Ethnic Chinese became the dominant group in the neighborhood after immigration restrictions were relaxed in 1965, and the Asian American population of California began to expand rapidly for the first time since the 19th century.
As the Alpine Theatre and Carmen Theatre, this house was always listed in the moving picture theaters section of the city directories. It had no fly tower, so any live performances would have been limited in scope. Many neighborhood theaters did have small stages suitable for occasional live performances, and this theater probably had one, but I’m sure that vaudeville was never a regular feature of the house. It was a neighborhood movie house, like hundreds of others throughout the city.
This article from the Clinton Times & Courier cites local historian Terrence Ingano’s claim that the Philbin Theatre was the original name of the house that later became the Strand. It was opened in 1924, he said, but that doesn’t jibe with the 1920 listing of the Strand I cited earlier, unless there were two theaters called the Strand in Clinton, and the name was moved to the Philbin at some point.
An item in the December 16, 1922, issue of The American Contractor says that P. J. Philbin was the president of the Clinton Theatre Company. A 1909 Moving Picture World item said that the Star Theatre would open in the Philbin Block in Clinton about the middle of August. Apparently Mr. Philbin was Clinton’s early theater magnate.
I suspect that there was only theone theater in Danvers, and when Bown changed the name from Elm to Danvers sometine after 1922, FDY just never cleared its records of the old name. The Film Daily itself refers to the burned house as the Elm twice and as the Danvers once, but Motion Picture News only refers to it as the Danvers Theatre.
The fire in Danvers was reported by Motion Picture News on March 13, 1926, in this item:
Another item appeared in the April 10 issue of the same publication:The Film Daily had reported the fire earlier, in a brief item in the January 21 issue:The March 30 issue of the Daily had a rather extravagant estimate of the cost of replacing the theater. I suspect that somebody mistakenly added an extra zero:The September 4 issue of Motion Picture News noted delays in the project:Louis Brown did not fare well during the depression. The January 17, 1931, issue of The Film Daily reported that he had filed a petition for bankruptcy. Later issues of the magazine indicate that the Orpheum was then taken over by Allen B. Newhall, operator of the Union Hill Theatre in Gloucester.Does anyone know what became of the Rex Theatre in Clovis? The January 17, 1931, issue of The Film Daily reported that Hardwick Bros. had recently opened the new, 800-seat Rex at Clovis. Could Rex be a forgotten aka for one of the theaters theaters in Clovis that is already listed, or was it a different house that has been lost?
The Middlesex Theatre should be marked as demolished. It’s clear from comparing the current satellite and street views with the LOC photos lostmemory linked to on September 24, 2008, that the auditorium is gone. The Tuscany Grill only occupies the theater’s surviving entrance building. Move Street View a couple of clicks to the right and compare with this historic photo when the auditorium was still standing.
The Facebook page of the Markham Group, an insurance agency in Ayer, has a photo of the Playhouse taken in 1943. A comment on the photo says that the Playhouse was destroyed by a fire in 1962.
The Wells Theatre was advertised in the Anniston Star in 1918.