This web page from the Ohio County Public Library says that the Court Theatre opened in September, 1902 and closed in 1982.
What may have been the high point in the Court’s history came rather late, when it hosted the world premier of the 1971 movie “The Fool’s Parade,” which was set in West Virginia in the 1920s and partly filmed in nearby Moundsville. Stars, including Jimmy Stewart, Kurt Russell and Strother Martin attended the event, as told in this article from 2016.
I have finally found an interior photo of the Court’s auditorium, but it is a very sad one, as it is a recent shot showing the gutted space in use as a paring garage. It is on this Facebook page.
Cotrill’s Opera House is an upstairs theater. The ground floor of the building has always been configured for retail uses, but the auditorium is undergoing renovation for theatrical use, and has been since 1978. Since 1981 the project has been under the management of a non-profit organization called Alpine Heritage Preservation Incorporated, who own the building. It has been a very long process, as the town is small and has limited resources, but steady progress has been made.
The organization’s official web site has a history of the theater and the restoration project. There are also several historical photos on the site’s history page.
There is a mistake in the news clipping Ron Pierce cited. The architect was Emery T. Epling, who is also credited with the design of Lewiston’s Roxy (originally Theatorium) Theatre.
“Lost Gary, Indiana” by Jerry Davich says that the Broadway was Gary’s first theater. Gary was founded by the U.S. Steel Corporation in 1906, and the town built up very rapidly when the steel mill opened, so the theater probably opened that year. By 1908, the Broadway was listed at Broadway near 8th Avenue in the city directory, one of three theaters listed.
Capsule movie reviews submitted by C. C. Johnson of the A-Muse-U
Theatre in Melville, Louisiana, appeared in multiple issues of Moving Picture World in the latter half of 1922, beginning with the August 5 issue. By January 6, 1923, the reviews from the A-Muse-U were being submitted by a new manager, H. H. Hedberg. By November, 1923 Hedberg was spelling the theater name as Amuse-U, a form that persisted at least through December, 1927.
The story is behind a paywall, but the January 16, 2020 issue of the McDowell News said that a recent college graduate named Jake Laurent had bought the House Theatre and planned to restore it for use as a live music venue. I’ve found no more recent news of the project, and fear that the timing might have been fatal to it, the announcement having been made shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Mentioned in the trade journals a few times in the late 1910s simply as the Grand Theatre, and advertised as such in the weekly Marion Progress, this house closed in October, 1920, replaced by its owners with the new Oasis Theatre. The original owner of the house, R. C. Davis, had operated a Grand Theatre at Shelby before opening the Marion house.
The April 30, 1914 issue of the Progress said that Davis had rented the storefront next door to the newspaper’s office and expected to have the new theater open within “a few days.” The first ad I’ve found for the Grand, showing the six-reel production “The Last Days of Pompeii” appeared in the May 21 issue of the Progress, which said the showing was scheduled for the following night.
Marion had one earlier movie theater, called the Savoy, opened on January 27, 1912. It was the only house listed at Marion in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but it might have closed even before the Grand opened, as the last mention of it I’ve found in the newspaper was on February 26, 1914.
The Oasis Theatre was a replacement for the Grand Theatre. The October 7, 1920 issue of the weekly Marion Progress carried a notice from the operators of the Grand that they hoped to have their new theater, to be called the Oasis, opened on October 13. The Oasis was advertised in the October 14 issue of the paper, so it’s likely they met their date. Advertisements for the Grand no longer appeared after that.
The latest advertisement for the Oasis I’ve found was in the January 16, 1947 issue of the Marion Progress. The newspaper was a weekly, so the Oasis might have closed anytime between the 16th and the 22nd, as only the Marion Theatre advertised in the January 23rd edition, although the ad for the Oasis on the 16th listed programs through the following Thursday (the day the paper was published.) In its last years the Oasis was run by the House family, owners of the Marion Theatre and, after 1950, the new House Theatre.
Elderly local residents reminiscing about the Oasis in the 1930s and 1940s say that it was nicknamed “the rat hole” and ran mostly westerns and movies without big name stars.
This item from the January 14, 1937 issue of Film Daily must be about the Roxy:
“Sweet Home, Ore.— The first motion picture theater to be erected here will be opened early in March by George Gessler, who has let contract to Western Theatre Equipment Co., Portland, to fully equip the 450-seat house.”
As of 1953, both the Roxy and the Rio were being operated by Jesse E. Jones.
The recent opening of the Mond Theatre at Redmond was noted in the October 22, 1949 issue of Boxoffice. Operated by its builder, L. C. Dawley, who occupied a three room apartment on the second floor, the Mond was a concrete block building, 50x100 feet, and initially seated 338, though it was planned to eventually accommodate 500 seats.
An article in the April 7, 2010 issue of the Williamson Herald said that the Franklin Theatre was built in 1937. The original seating capacity was 725. Plans for the LEED-certified renovation and expansion in 2010-2011 were by the Nashville firm Hastings Architecture Associates, with the lead architect on the project being Chuck Gannaway.
The Dixie operated in two different locations in the 1910s. The opening of the second Dixie was noted in this item from a June, 1914 issue of Moving Picture World:
“The Dixie Theater Company, of Russellville, Ky., according to Manager George B. Edwards, will be ready to open on June 25. This house is a great deal larger than the old Dixie theater and has about double the seating capacity. The first pictures to be shown in the new house will be Paul Rainey’s ‘African Pictures.’”
A later issue of the same journal had more to say about the new house:
“Arthur Mitchell, the popular manager of the Dixie theater, of Russellville, Ky., is striving hard to give his patrons the best to be had in the moving picture line. He recently ran the ‘Adventures of Kathleen’ in his new house. This house has been fitted up with electrical fans and made commodious in every way. The last installment was a seven-piece orchestra which furnishes music on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights. The orchestra has become very popular and the house has been packed on the musical nights- It is more than probable that its use will be continued.”
Arthur Mitchell continued to operate the Dixie for more than a decade, contributing capsule movie reviews to MPW and its successors through the 1920s and at least as late as 1930. By 1941, there was an R. T. Mitchell operating the Dixie, Perhaps Arthur’s son, who was mentioned in the July 9 issue of Film Daily as a witness in an anti-trust case, testifying about attempts by the Crescent Amusement Company, beginning in 1935, to take control of the Dixie, the chain threatening to build a competing house in Russellville if Mitchell didn’t sell to them.
I’ve been unable to find the addresses of either location of the Dixie, but an item posted on the web site of The Logan Journal on November 29, 2015, mentions the second Dixie in passing and says that it was located on E. 4th Street.
The only theater name connected with Harvard that I’ve found in the trade journals from the 1920s is the Lyric, mentioned in Moving Picture World in February and March, 1924, when it was renamed Paramount. The Paramount is listed in the 1926, 1927 and 1928 editions of Film Daily Year Book, and the Harvard Theatre first appears in the 1928 edition, after which it is the only house listed. It might be that the Lyric was the proposed house mentioned in the September 8, 1923 MPW item datelined Harvard which said “E. M. Fetterman plans to erect moving picture theatre here.”
Plans to build the El Capitan Theatre were noted in Boxoffice as early as the issue of January 15, 1949, which said that El Rio Theatre owners John Marhege and Phillip Fidel would begin construction on a site in the new Riverside business section being developed by C. H. Yates. The original plans called for a steel and concrete block building in the Pueblo style with a seating capacity of 500.
Though construction was to start by January 20, the next mention of the project in Boxoffice did not appear until the issue of April 9, 1949, which described plans for a Quonset hut building with the theater and an adjacent 12-lane bowling alley. This item said that construction was underway. The house was to have 450-500 seats.
As the El Capitan did not open until 1951, and ended up with only 130 seats, plans were obviously changed drastically. Both Boxoffice items attributed the design of the theater to architect Leo J. Wolgamood, but I’ve been unable to discover if he stuck around to design the much diminished theater that was ultimately built.
The re-opening of the American Theatre (I don’t know if American was a mistake or if the theater was actually called that for a time) was noted in the September 23, 1950 issue of Boxoffice. The house had undergone a $75,000 remodeling. New seats, carpeting, lighting and stage drapes had been installed, along with a new foyer and new restrooms. Seating capacity had been increased from 808 to 822. Outside, a new marquee had been installed on the updated façade. The house was owned by the local Rialto Theatres company, but among the guests at the opening was Charles P. Skouras, president of the National Theatres company.
The September 3, 1950 issue of Boxoffice had a brief item noting that the publicly-owned Scera Theatre in Orem, Utah, had recently reopened following an extensive remodeling for its ninth anniversary. Improvements included plush carpeting, chandeliers, and a display of tropical plants. Profits from the theater, which was run by a nine-member board elected by the community, with three members elected to three-year terms each year, were used to finance public events and the development of public recreational facilities.
This item is from the January 19, 1967 issue of the Wallowa County Chieftain: “Purchase of the McLean Theater building in Wallowa was authorized by the Wallowa Grange on Friday evening and work will begin soon to convert the building into a modern hall for the Wallowa Grange.”
The auditorium walls are still standing, but the interior has been converted to ground floor retail space and a second floor with offices has been inserted into it.
Something has arisen. I have found sources attributing the design of the Lyceum to architect J. M. Wood. In fact, one web site, drypigment.net, has two articles by the same author, one of which attributes the design to Fran Cox and the other of which attributes it to J. M. Wood. Neither article mentions both architects.
At this point I’m more inclined to go with Wood as the architect, as there is a period source, namely multiple editions of a promotional book from the Winslow Bros. Ornamental Iron and Bronze Company, containing lists of projects for which Winslow Bros. had supplied ornamental pieces, and all editions I’ve found attribute the house to Wood. So far I haven’t found any period sources attributing the work to Cox.
The history section of the Biltmore’s official web site says that the house opened on April 4, 1940, and was designed by the architectural firm of Webb, Blythe & Sproule. Note that the current operators of this live music venue have readopted the original name of the house. Although the original decoration of the interior is gone, work is ongoing to restore what remains of the façade and to recreate the original Streamlined/Art Deco look elsewhere.
This location appears to have been the first for the Okun Bros. Biltmore Theatres, Ltd. chain. It was followed by four other houses called the Biltmore, plus the Biltmore Savoy Theatre in Toronto.
Architect Edward Isaac Richmond (1908-1982) is best known as a prolific designer of high rise apartment buildings in Toronto during the post-war period. The firm he founded is still in operation.
The Biltmore in Kingston was the second house in the Okun Bros. Biltmore Theatres chain. The earlier Biltmore was opened at Oshawa in 1940, and four more houses were added to the chain in the post-war period.
The web site of the Biltmore Theatre in Oshawa lists the openings of the other houses in the Okun Bros. Biltmore chain, and says that the Kitchener house opened in December, 1949. It is very likely, though not yet confirmed, that the Kitchener Biltmore was designed by Toronto architect S. Devore, who designed the Biltmore and Savoy Theatres on Yonge Street in Toronto for the same chain (the Savoy’s façade is almost identical to that of the Kitchener Biltmore), and might also have designed the Biltmore in Sault Ste. Marie.
The Savoy was the second Yonge Street house for the Okun Bros. Biltmore Theatres, Ltd. chain, and the chain’s sixth theatre, when it opened on February 15, 1951. Early photos show the name “Biltmore Savoy” on the façade. Doug Taylor attributes the design of the house to Toronto architect S. Devore, who also designed the Yonge Street Biltmore and perhaps at least two other houses in the Biltmore chain during the same period.
The January 2, 1949 issue of Boxoffice carried a brief item noting the recent opening of the Okun Bros. new Biltmore Theatre at Soult Ste. Marie. Other houses then operated by the Biltmore Theatres Ltd. chain were Biltmores at Oshawa, Kingston, New Toronto, and the flagship house on Yonge Street in Toronto. A year later the chain would open the Biltmore at Kitchener and in 1951 the Savoy would open as their second house on Yonge Street. As far as I’ve been able to discover, that was the chain’s peak.
It’s possible, but not yet confirmed, that the Sault Ste. Marie Biltmore was designed by Toronto architect S. Devore, who designed the Biltmore and Savoy on Yonge Street. The Sault house bears a strong resemblance to the two in Toronto, as well as to the Biltmore in Kitchener, which might also have been of Devore’s design.
This web page from the Ohio County Public Library says that the Court Theatre opened in September, 1902 and closed in 1982.
What may have been the high point in the Court’s history came rather late, when it hosted the world premier of the 1971 movie “The Fool’s Parade,” which was set in West Virginia in the 1920s and partly filmed in nearby Moundsville. Stars, including Jimmy Stewart, Kurt Russell and Strother Martin attended the event, as told in this article from 2016.
I have finally found an interior photo of the Court’s auditorium, but it is a very sad one, as it is a recent shot showing the gutted space in use as a paring garage. It is on this Facebook page.
Cotrill’s Opera House is an upstairs theater. The ground floor of the building has always been configured for retail uses, but the auditorium is undergoing renovation for theatrical use, and has been since 1978. Since 1981 the project has been under the management of a non-profit organization called Alpine Heritage Preservation Incorporated, who own the building. It has been a very long process, as the town is small and has limited resources, but steady progress has been made.
The organization’s official web site has a history of the theater and the restoration project. There are also several historical photos on the site’s history page.
There is a mistake in the news clipping Ron Pierce cited. The architect was Emery T. Epling, who is also credited with the design of Lewiston’s Roxy (originally Theatorium) Theatre.
“Lost Gary, Indiana” by Jerry Davich says that the Broadway was Gary’s first theater. Gary was founded by the U.S. Steel Corporation in 1906, and the town built up very rapidly when the steel mill opened, so the theater probably opened that year. By 1908, the Broadway was listed at Broadway near 8th Avenue in the city directory, one of three theaters listed.
Capsule movie reviews submitted by C. C. Johnson of the A-Muse-U Theatre in Melville, Louisiana, appeared in multiple issues of Moving Picture World in the latter half of 1922, beginning with the August 5 issue. By January 6, 1923, the reviews from the A-Muse-U were being submitted by a new manager, H. H. Hedberg. By November, 1923 Hedberg was spelling the theater name as Amuse-U, a form that persisted at least through December, 1927.
The story is behind a paywall, but the January 16, 2020 issue of the McDowell News said that a recent college graduate named Jake Laurent had bought the House Theatre and planned to restore it for use as a live music venue. I’ve found no more recent news of the project, and fear that the timing might have been fatal to it, the announcement having been made shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Mentioned in the trade journals a few times in the late 1910s simply as the Grand Theatre, and advertised as such in the weekly Marion Progress, this house closed in October, 1920, replaced by its owners with the new Oasis Theatre. The original owner of the house, R. C. Davis, had operated a Grand Theatre at Shelby before opening the Marion house.
The April 30, 1914 issue of the Progress said that Davis had rented the storefront next door to the newspaper’s office and expected to have the new theater open within “a few days.” The first ad I’ve found for the Grand, showing the six-reel production “The Last Days of Pompeii” appeared in the May 21 issue of the Progress, which said the showing was scheduled for the following night.
Marion had one earlier movie theater, called the Savoy, opened on January 27, 1912. It was the only house listed at Marion in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but it might have closed even before the Grand opened, as the last mention of it I’ve found in the newspaper was on February 26, 1914.
The Oasis Theatre was a replacement for the Grand Theatre. The October 7, 1920 issue of the weekly Marion Progress carried a notice from the operators of the Grand that they hoped to have their new theater, to be called the Oasis, opened on October 13. The Oasis was advertised in the October 14 issue of the paper, so it’s likely they met their date. Advertisements for the Grand no longer appeared after that.
The latest advertisement for the Oasis I’ve found was in the January 16, 1947 issue of the Marion Progress. The newspaper was a weekly, so the Oasis might have closed anytime between the 16th and the 22nd, as only the Marion Theatre advertised in the January 23rd edition, although the ad for the Oasis on the 16th listed programs through the following Thursday (the day the paper was published.) In its last years the Oasis was run by the House family, owners of the Marion Theatre and, after 1950, the new House Theatre.
Elderly local residents reminiscing about the Oasis in the 1930s and 1940s say that it was nicknamed “the rat hole” and ran mostly westerns and movies without big name stars.
This item from the January 14, 1937 issue of Film Daily must be about the Roxy:
As of 1953, both the Roxy and the Rio were being operated by Jesse E. Jones.The recent opening of the Mond Theatre at Redmond was noted in the October 22, 1949 issue of Boxoffice. Operated by its builder, L. C. Dawley, who occupied a three room apartment on the second floor, the Mond was a concrete block building, 50x100 feet, and initially seated 338, though it was planned to eventually accommodate 500 seats.
davidcoppock: The owners of M&R Amusements were Ray Marks and Martin and Richard Rosenfeld.
An article in the April 7, 2010 issue of the Williamson Herald said that the Franklin Theatre was built in 1937. The original seating capacity was 725. Plans for the LEED-certified renovation and expansion in 2010-2011 were by the Nashville firm Hastings Architecture Associates, with the lead architect on the project being Chuck Gannaway.
The Dixie operated in two different locations in the 1910s. The opening of the second Dixie was noted in this item from a June, 1914 issue of Moving Picture World:
A later issue of the same journal had more to say about the new house:Arthur Mitchell continued to operate the Dixie for more than a decade, contributing capsule movie reviews to MPW and its successors through the 1920s and at least as late as 1930. By 1941, there was an R. T. Mitchell operating the Dixie, Perhaps Arthur’s son, who was mentioned in the July 9 issue of Film Daily as a witness in an anti-trust case, testifying about attempts by the Crescent Amusement Company, beginning in 1935, to take control of the Dixie, the chain threatening to build a competing house in Russellville if Mitchell didn’t sell to them.I’ve been unable to find the addresses of either location of the Dixie, but an item posted on the web site of The Logan Journal on November 29, 2015, mentions the second Dixie in passing and says that it was located on E. 4th Street.
The only theater name connected with Harvard that I’ve found in the trade journals from the 1920s is the Lyric, mentioned in Moving Picture World in February and March, 1924, when it was renamed Paramount. The Paramount is listed in the 1926, 1927 and 1928 editions of Film Daily Year Book, and the Harvard Theatre first appears in the 1928 edition, after which it is the only house listed. It might be that the Lyric was the proposed house mentioned in the September 8, 1923 MPW item datelined Harvard which said “E. M. Fetterman plans to erect moving picture theatre here.”
Plans to build the El Capitan Theatre were noted in Boxoffice as early as the issue of January 15, 1949, which said that El Rio Theatre owners John Marhege and Phillip Fidel would begin construction on a site in the new Riverside business section being developed by C. H. Yates. The original plans called for a steel and concrete block building in the Pueblo style with a seating capacity of 500.
Though construction was to start by January 20, the next mention of the project in Boxoffice did not appear until the issue of April 9, 1949, which described plans for a Quonset hut building with the theater and an adjacent 12-lane bowling alley. This item said that construction was underway. The house was to have 450-500 seats.
As the El Capitan did not open until 1951, and ended up with only 130 seats, plans were obviously changed drastically. Both Boxoffice items attributed the design of the theater to architect Leo J. Wolgamood, but I’ve been unable to discover if he stuck around to design the much diminished theater that was ultimately built.
The re-opening of the American Theatre (I don’t know if American was a mistake or if the theater was actually called that for a time) was noted in the September 23, 1950 issue of Boxoffice. The house had undergone a $75,000 remodeling. New seats, carpeting, lighting and stage drapes had been installed, along with a new foyer and new restrooms. Seating capacity had been increased from 808 to 822. Outside, a new marquee had been installed on the updated façade. The house was owned by the local Rialto Theatres company, but among the guests at the opening was Charles P. Skouras, president of the National Theatres company.
The September 3, 1950 issue of Boxoffice had a brief item noting that the publicly-owned Scera Theatre in Orem, Utah, had recently reopened following an extensive remodeling for its ninth anniversary. Improvements included plush carpeting, chandeliers, and a display of tropical plants. Profits from the theater, which was run by a nine-member board elected by the community, with three members elected to three-year terms each year, were used to finance public events and the development of public recreational facilities.
This item is from the January 19, 1967 issue of the Wallowa County Chieftain: “Purchase of the McLean Theater building in Wallowa was authorized by the Wallowa Grange on Friday evening and work will begin soon to convert the building into a modern hall for the Wallowa Grange.”
The auditorium walls are still standing, but the interior has been converted to ground floor retail space and a second floor with offices has been inserted into it.
Something has arisen. I have found sources attributing the design of the Lyceum to architect J. M. Wood. In fact, one web site, drypigment.net, has two articles by the same author, one of which attributes the design to Fran Cox and the other of which attributes it to J. M. Wood. Neither article mentions both architects.
At this point I’m more inclined to go with Wood as the architect, as there is a period source, namely multiple editions of a promotional book from the Winslow Bros. Ornamental Iron and Bronze Company, containing lists of projects for which Winslow Bros. had supplied ornamental pieces, and all editions I’ve found attribute the house to Wood. So far I haven’t found any period sources attributing the work to Cox.
The history section of the Biltmore’s official web site says that the house opened on April 4, 1940, and was designed by the architectural firm of Webb, Blythe & Sproule. Note that the current operators of this live music venue have readopted the original name of the house. Although the original decoration of the interior is gone, work is ongoing to restore what remains of the façade and to recreate the original Streamlined/Art Deco look elsewhere.
This location appears to have been the first for the Okun Bros. Biltmore Theatres, Ltd. chain. It was followed by four other houses called the Biltmore, plus the Biltmore Savoy Theatre in Toronto.
Architect Edward Isaac Richmond (1908-1982) is best known as a prolific designer of high rise apartment buildings in Toronto during the post-war period. The firm he founded is still in operation.
The Biltmore in Kingston was the second house in the Okun Bros. Biltmore Theatres chain. The earlier Biltmore was opened at Oshawa in 1940, and four more houses were added to the chain in the post-war period.
The web site of the Biltmore Theatre in Oshawa lists the openings of the other houses in the Okun Bros. Biltmore chain, and says that the Kitchener house opened in December, 1949. It is very likely, though not yet confirmed, that the Kitchener Biltmore was designed by Toronto architect S. Devore, who designed the Biltmore and Savoy Theatres on Yonge Street in Toronto for the same chain (the Savoy’s façade is almost identical to that of the Kitchener Biltmore), and might also have designed the Biltmore in Sault Ste. Marie.
The Savoy was the second Yonge Street house for the Okun Bros. Biltmore Theatres, Ltd. chain, and the chain’s sixth theatre, when it opened on February 15, 1951. Early photos show the name “Biltmore Savoy” on the façade. Doug Taylor attributes the design of the house to Toronto architect S. Devore, who also designed the Yonge Street Biltmore and perhaps at least two other houses in the Biltmore chain during the same period.
The January 2, 1949 issue of Boxoffice carried a brief item noting the recent opening of the Okun Bros. new Biltmore Theatre at Soult Ste. Marie. Other houses then operated by the Biltmore Theatres Ltd. chain were Biltmores at Oshawa, Kingston, New Toronto, and the flagship house on Yonge Street in Toronto. A year later the chain would open the Biltmore at Kitchener and in 1951 the Savoy would open as their second house on Yonge Street. As far as I’ve been able to discover, that was the chain’s peak.
It’s possible, but not yet confirmed, that the Sault Ste. Marie Biltmore was designed by Toronto architect S. Devore, who designed the Biltmore and Savoy on Yonge Street. The Sault house bears a strong resemblance to the two in Toronto, as well as to the Biltmore in Kitchener, which might also have been of Devore’s design.