The April 1, 1916, issue of Motography had this item about the Bijou Dream Theatre:
“The Bijou Dream, one of Philadelphia’s first motion picture theaters, has closed after ten years of profitable existence because its location, 1205 Market street, is wanted by an expanding 5 and 10-cent store.”
Here is another 1916 reference to a theater to be built at this intersection, this from the April 1 issue of Motography:
“Theater at Germantown avenue and Venango street, Philadelphia; to Ketchem & McQuade. One story, brick, stone, concrete and terra cotta. For J. Effwager. Cost, $125,000. The Hoffman Company, architects.”
Are we sure that the Strand’s opening year was 1914?
The Majestic Theatre was listed at 215 S. Pruett Street in the 1916 Paragould City Directory. There was also a Majestic Air Dome at 120 W. Emerson Street, which was probably the site where the Capitol Theatre was later built. Block (or Black) & Whitsitt were the proprietors of both theaters. They also operated the Grand Theatre at 218 S. Pruett.
The February 24, 1915 issue of The Insurance Press reported a fire causing $5,700 damage at the Majestic Theatre in Paragould. That’s the earliest mention of the Majestic I’ve found so far.
The photo of the Orpheum matches a photo of a Waterloo house called the Plaza Theatre that was operating in 1915. It suffered a fire in 1921, according to the November 30 issue of The Insurance Press that year.
The Plaza Theatre was designed by architect Mortimer Cleveland in the Prairie style, though the eclectic interior had some Italian and Egyptian decorative elements.
The Mary Jane Theatre was operating by June 15, 1933, per the local newspaper item I cited in my 2:21 PM comment September 24. Whoever captioned the old photo in the book CSWalczak linked to must have gotten the year of that name change wrong.
An article about the Park Theater in the Amherst News-Times of June 13, 2000, can be found at this link. Advertisements for the Park Theater can be found in issues of the same newspaper during the late 1910s-early 1920s.
During the early 1930s this house was called the Colonial Theatre. A renaming contest was held in 1930, and the winner was announced in the June 19 issue of the Amherst News-Times. The same publication’s issue of March 2, 1933, said that the Colonial Theatre would be closed for one week for remodeling. I can’t find it mentioned in the paper after that date, so that was probably when the name was changed to Mary Jane Theatre.
The Empire Theatre is advertised in the November 8, 1917, issue of the Amherst Times. The Mary Jane Theatre is mentioned in the June 15, 1933, issue of the Amherst News-Times.
The address 248 Park Avenue turns out to have been the location of Amherst’s other silent era movie house, the Park Theatre, which operated from ca.1915 to ca.1923.
The Empire and the Mary Jane were the same theater according to the September-October, 2008, issue of The Grindstone, the newsletter of the Amherst Historical Society. 253 Church Street is the correct address. After it was called the Mary Jane, the house became the Amherst Theatre. Page 8 of The Grindstone has a photo from the mid-1950s>.
Today’s Amherst Cinema is almost directly across the street from the site of the Empire/Mary Jane/Amherst Theatre. The Cinema must be newer than its Cinema Treasures description currently says it is. The old theater lasted at least long enough to have its picture taken with that mid-1950s Pontiac parked nearby.
The entry for architect Raymond F. Smith in the 1970 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory lists the Almeda Theatre in Houston as one of his works, dated 1939.
The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to confirms Leon Seligson as architect of the Cinema East, as does his entry in the 1970 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory. Seligson also designed the Kon-Tiki Theatre in Trotwood, Ohio.
The entry for Columbus architect Leon Seligson in the 1970 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory lists the Kon-Tiki Theatre among his works for 1968. Seligson also designed the Cinema East in Whitehall, Ohio.
The entry for architect Sydney Schenker in the 1970 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory lists the Loew’s Theatre in Natick as one of his projects.
The Coral Theatre and its sister house the Arlington were the subject of this article in Boxoffice of April 25, 1942. The scan of the magazine is a bit blurry, but two photos of the Coral show the original appearance of the facade and the auditorium. Judging from the 1983 photo linked in Lost Memory’s comment of May 16, 2009, the building was later expanded (as was the Arlington, in 1962.) Originally, both houses had almost identical exteriors.
The Boxoffice article identifies the architect of the Coral Theatre as Frederick Stanton, and says that theater consultant David N. Sandine was the supervisor of the design on both projects. Both houses were decorated by the Hanns Teichert Studio.
When the Coral Theatre was remodeled and expanded in 1963, the architect for the project was Donald Thomas Smith, of the Chicago firm Smith & Neubek. The Coral is listed among Smith’s designs in his entry in the 1970 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory.
An article about the remodeling of the Mokan Theatre into the Giles Theatre appears on this page of Boxoffice, December 9, 1939. Unfortunately, it is not illustrated. The remodeling was designed by architect Joseph B. Shaughnessy, Sr., best known for the churches and parochial schools he designed in the Kansas City area.
One of the businesses currently occupying the surviving part of the Giles Theatre is a hookah bar called the Sahara Sheesha Lounge. This might be the only former theater in the United States that has a hookah bar in it. The space is not recognizable as a former theater.
Jeannette, by Terry Perich and John Howard, says that this house reopened as the Harris Theatre on October 4, 1933. It had originally opened as the Eagle Theatre on December 10, 1910.
The Eagle Theatre was originally operated by Oliver Kihchel in partnership with August Schmidt, the town’s police chief. In 1917, Kihchel and his wife, Bessie, took over sole operation of the house. In the mid-1920s, they took control of the Princess Theatre, then operated both houses until forced by financial problems to give up the Eagle to the Harris chain in 1933.
Prior to taking over the Princess Theatre in 1925, Oliver Kihchel operated a theater in Jeannette called the Eagle, opened in December, 1910.
The Princess Theatre was in operation at least as early as 1916, when it was mentioned in The Moving Picture World. It’s possible that the Princess was built to replace an opera house that burned in 1910.
There is an early postcard photo of the Princess on page 16 of Jeannette, by Terry Perich and Kathleen Perich.
CSWalczak: The Rapps of Rapp & Rapp were not related to the Rapps of Rapp, Zettle & Rapp (except perhaps through some distant common ancestor in Sweden), and I’ve never found any connection between the firms.
Rapp, Zettle & Rapp was a Cincinnati firm consisting of George W. Rapp, his son Walter Rapp, and partner John Zettle. George W. Rapp retired from the firm about the time the Woodward Theatre was built, and died in 1918 (obituary in The Western Architect, February, 1918.) The successor firm Zettel & Rapp was active into the early 1930s.
The theater architects, based in Chicago, were Cornelius W. Rapp and George Leslie Rapp. An older brother, Isaac Hamilton Rapp, practiced architecture in Trinidad, Colorado, beginning around 1890, and was later joined by another brother, William M. Rapp, to form the Trinidad firm of I. H. & W. M. Rapp. To add a bit of confusion, some sources also refer to this firm as Rapp and Rapp. The Colorado Rapps eventually established an office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as well, and were pioneers of the Pueblo Revival style.
Biographies of both the Chicago and Cincinnati Rapps can be found on this page of the Biographical Dictionary of Cincinnati Architects.
Information about I. H. and W. M. Rapp can be found in a biographical sketch of Isaac H. Rapp on this Google Documents page or in PDF format at this link.
I. H. and W. M. Rapp were the architects of the 1908 West Theatre in Trinidad. I’ve been unable to discover if they designed any other theaters.
By early 1916, a movie house called the Orpheum was operating on Jefferson Street between 3rd and 4th Streets. It had cost only $30,000 to build, so it was probably not a very big theater.
A 1917 article about Orpheum said that the Princess Amusement Company operated it, and the two other theaters in the area around 4th and Jefferson as well. The other theaters were called the Casino and the Columbia. No theater of these names are currently listed at Cinema Treasures, but any of them might have been the house that became the Rodeo.
Here is the 1917 article, which has two photos. Perhaps someone will recognize the building, though it was probably remodeled in later years.
The April 1, 1916, issue of Motography had this item about the Bijou Dream Theatre:
Here is another 1916 reference to a theater to be built at this intersection, this from the April 1 issue of Motography:
Are we sure that the Strand’s opening year was 1914?The Majestic Theatre was listed at 215 S. Pruett Street in the 1916 Paragould City Directory. There was also a Majestic Air Dome at 120 W. Emerson Street, which was probably the site where the Capitol Theatre was later built. Block (or Black) & Whitsitt were the proprietors of both theaters. They also operated the Grand Theatre at 218 S. Pruett.
The February 24, 1915 issue of The Insurance Press reported a fire causing $5,700 damage at the Majestic Theatre in Paragould. That’s the earliest mention of the Majestic I’ve found so far.
The photo of the Orpheum matches a photo of a Waterloo house called the Plaza Theatre that was operating in 1915. It suffered a fire in 1921, according to the November 30 issue of The Insurance Press that year.
The Plaza Theatre was designed by architect Mortimer Cleveland in the Prairie style, though the eclectic interior had some Italian and Egyptian decorative elements.
The March, 1921, issue of Iowa Engineer said that the Strand Theatre in Waterloo had opened in January of that year.
According to the Boxoffice articles Tinseltoes linked to, the architect for the 1941 remodeling of the Ken Theatre was Roy B. Blass.
The Mary Jane Theatre was operating by June 15, 1933, per the local newspaper item I cited in my 2:21 PM comment September 24. Whoever captioned the old photo in the book CSWalczak linked to must have gotten the year of that name change wrong.
An article about the Park Theater in the Amherst News-Times of June 13, 2000, can be found at this link. Advertisements for the Park Theater can be found in issues of the same newspaper during the late 1910s-early 1920s.
During the early 1930s this house was called the Colonial Theatre. A renaming contest was held in 1930, and the winner was announced in the June 19 issue of the Amherst News-Times. The same publication’s issue of March 2, 1933, said that the Colonial Theatre would be closed for one week for remodeling. I can’t find it mentioned in the paper after that date, so that was probably when the name was changed to Mary Jane Theatre.
The Empire Theatre is advertised in the November 8, 1917, issue of the Amherst Times. The Mary Jane Theatre is mentioned in the June 15, 1933, issue of the Amherst News-Times.
The address 248 Park Avenue turns out to have been the location of Amherst’s other silent era movie house, the Park Theatre, which operated from ca.1915 to ca.1923.
The Empire and the Mary Jane were the same theater according to the September-October, 2008, issue of The Grindstone, the newsletter of the Amherst Historical Society. 253 Church Street is the correct address. After it was called the Mary Jane, the house became the Amherst Theatre. Page 8 of The Grindstone has a photo from the mid-1950s>.
Here is the newsletter in PDF format and here it is as a Google Documents page.
Today’s Amherst Cinema is almost directly across the street from the site of the Empire/Mary Jane/Amherst Theatre. The Cinema must be newer than its Cinema Treasures description currently says it is. The old theater lasted at least long enough to have its picture taken with that mid-1950s Pontiac parked nearby.
The entry for architect Raymond F. Smith in the 1970 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory lists the Almeda Theatre in Houston as one of his works, dated 1939.
The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to confirms Leon Seligson as architect of the Cinema East, as does his entry in the 1970 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory. Seligson also designed the Kon-Tiki Theatre in Trotwood, Ohio.
The entry for Columbus architect Leon Seligson in the 1970 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory lists the Kon-Tiki Theatre among his works for 1968. Seligson also designed the Cinema East in Whitehall, Ohio.
The entry for architect Sydney Schenker in the 1970 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory lists the Loew’s Theatre in Natick as one of his projects.
The Coral Theatre and its sister house the Arlington were the subject of this article in Boxoffice of April 25, 1942. The scan of the magazine is a bit blurry, but two photos of the Coral show the original appearance of the facade and the auditorium. Judging from the 1983 photo linked in Lost Memory’s comment of May 16, 2009, the building was later expanded (as was the Arlington, in 1962.) Originally, both houses had almost identical exteriors.
The Boxoffice article identifies the architect of the Coral Theatre as Frederick Stanton, and says that theater consultant David N. Sandine was the supervisor of the design on both projects. Both houses were decorated by the Hanns Teichert Studio.
When the Coral Theatre was remodeled and expanded in 1963, the architect for the project was Donald Thomas Smith, of the Chicago firm Smith & Neubek. The Coral is listed among Smith’s designs in his entry in the 1970 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory.
An article about the remodeling of the Mokan Theatre into the Giles Theatre appears on this page of Boxoffice, December 9, 1939. Unfortunately, it is not illustrated. The remodeling was designed by architect Joseph B. Shaughnessy, Sr., best known for the churches and parochial schools he designed in the Kansas City area.
One of the businesses currently occupying the surviving part of the Giles Theatre is a hookah bar called the Sahara Sheesha Lounge. This might be the only former theater in the United States that has a hookah bar in it. The space is not recognizable as a former theater.
Jeannette, by Terry Perich and John Howard, says that this house reopened as the Harris Theatre on October 4, 1933. It had originally opened as the Eagle Theatre on December 10, 1910.
The Eagle Theatre was originally operated by Oliver Kihchel in partnership with August Schmidt, the town’s police chief. In 1917, Kihchel and his wife, Bessie, took over sole operation of the house. In the mid-1920s, they took control of the Princess Theatre, then operated both houses until forced by financial problems to give up the Eagle to the Harris chain in 1933.
Three vintage photos of the Harris-Manos Theatre can be seen on this page of the weblog The Haunted Lamp.
Prior to taking over the Princess Theatre in 1925, Oliver Kihchel operated a theater in Jeannette called the Eagle, opened in December, 1910.
The Princess Theatre was in operation at least as early as 1916, when it was mentioned in The Moving Picture World. It’s possible that the Princess was built to replace an opera house that burned in 1910.
There is an early postcard photo of the Princess on page 16 of Jeannette, by Terry Perich and Kathleen Perich.
CSWalczak: The Rapps of Rapp & Rapp were not related to the Rapps of Rapp, Zettle & Rapp (except perhaps through some distant common ancestor in Sweden), and I’ve never found any connection between the firms.
Rapp, Zettle & Rapp was a Cincinnati firm consisting of George W. Rapp, his son Walter Rapp, and partner John Zettle. George W. Rapp retired from the firm about the time the Woodward Theatre was built, and died in 1918 (obituary in The Western Architect, February, 1918.) The successor firm Zettel & Rapp was active into the early 1930s.
The theater architects, based in Chicago, were Cornelius W. Rapp and George Leslie Rapp. An older brother, Isaac Hamilton Rapp, practiced architecture in Trinidad, Colorado, beginning around 1890, and was later joined by another brother, William M. Rapp, to form the Trinidad firm of I. H. & W. M. Rapp. To add a bit of confusion, some sources also refer to this firm as Rapp and Rapp. The Colorado Rapps eventually established an office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as well, and were pioneers of the Pueblo Revival style.
Biographies of both the Chicago and Cincinnati Rapps can be found on this page of the Biographical Dictionary of Cincinnati Architects.
Information about I. H. and W. M. Rapp can be found in a biographical sketch of Isaac H. Rapp on this Google Documents page or in PDF format at this link.
I. H. and W. M. Rapp were the architects of the 1908 West Theatre in Trinidad. I’ve been unable to discover if they designed any other theaters.
Here is an article about the Crystal Theatre in the December 15, 1910, issue of the Chicago-based trade journal The Nickelodeon.
By early 1916, a movie house called the Orpheum was operating on Jefferson Street between 3rd and 4th Streets. It had cost only $30,000 to build, so it was probably not a very big theater.
A 1917 article about Orpheum said that the Princess Amusement Company operated it, and the two other theaters in the area around 4th and Jefferson as well. The other theaters were called the Casino and the Columbia. No theater of these names are currently listed at Cinema Treasures, but any of them might have been the house that became the Rodeo.
Here is the 1917 article, which has two photos. Perhaps someone will recognize the building, though it was probably remodeled in later years.
A 1906 publication lists the Mary Anderson Theatre as being operated by the Shuberts, so it was probably a legitimate house at that time.