The Majestic Theatre was an extensive rebuilding of the Utica Opera House, which had been built in 1871. When Sam Shubert took over the lease on the Opera House in 1900, he had the building largely gutted and expanded to create a space for a more modern theater. In addition to the new Majestic, the building housed a second-floor assembly room at the Washington Street corner of the structure, and this was converted into the Orpheum Theatre in 1901.
The December, 1900, issue of Engineering Review featured an article on the rebuilding project, focusing largely on the heating systems of the new theater. It noted that the architect for the project was Fuller Claflin, of the New York firm of J. B. McElfatrick & Son.
This page from the Oneida County Historical Society web site has details about the Majestic and Orpheum Theatres, as well as three early photos.
The Orpheum Theatre in Sheridan was listed in the 1913-1914 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide. The ground-floor house then had 530 seats in the orchestra, 176 in the balcony, and 84 in the gallery.
The Strand Theatre opened on December 17, 1917, and was designed by architect Frank W. Moore. It was built for Evanston exhibitor Arthur R. Bowen. Information about the Strand is included in a biographical sketch of Mr. Bowen that appears in volume 2 of the S.J. Clarke Publishing Company’s History of Wyoming, published in 1918 (scan from Google Books). Here are the passages relating to the Strand:
“Arthur R. Bowen is well known in theatrical circles, especially in western Wyoming, where for a number of years he has been identified with the Wyoming and Strand theatres, the latter a new venture which in architectural construction and equipment is equal to any theatre to be found in this section of the country. In the conduct of his places of amusement Mr. Bowen has displayed the most enterprising spirit and has kept in touch with the trend of progressiveness along that line.
“In 1917 he began the erection of the Strand theatre which opened December 17, 1917. It was built and equipped at a cost of fifty thousand dollars and is one of the most attractive and modern theatres to be found anywhere in the west. The architect was Frank W. Moore, of Salt Lake City, who is an expert in theatre building and who has combined in the Strand all of the latest conveniences and attractive designs known to the theatrical world. The Strand has a seating capacity of eight hundred, including main floor and balcony, with orchestra space and a large, commodious stage with ample dressing rooms for the use of traveling companies.”
The good news is that, though the historic interior of the Strand Theatre was destroyed, the building has been stabilized and will be restored, according to this page from the City of Evanston web site. The page does not say if the building will be reopened as a movie theater or not, but as Evanston has an operating four-screen house (the Cinemajik Valley 4 Cinemas) it seems likely that a restored Strand would have to be used for other purposes.
The Victory Theatre has had two different locations. The Photo lostmemory linked to shows the most recent location on J. C. Penney Drive, but the photo Don Lewis linked to shows the original location on Pine Street between Topaz and Sapphire.
All of the historic buildings on the block in Don’s photo have been demolished, the last of them, the Kemmerer Hotel on the corner of Pine and Sapphire, condemned and demolished as recently as 2004 when it was discovered that its stonework had grown unstable.
The fourth photo down this web page shows the original Victory Theatre, and says that in 2004 plans were first announced for a new Victory Theatre, but it doesn’t say whether or not anything came of those plans, or anything about when the Victory on Pine Street closed, and there’s no indication that the Victory on J. C. Penney is the house that was being planned in 2004, but I think it probably is.
I also think Don’s postcard might be from the late 1960s rather than the 1950s. Despite the prominent mid-50s car, a couple of the cars parked down the block look to me like post-tail fin era models from the late 60s.
There is a also strong possibility, which as yet I’ve been unable to confirm, that the Victory Theatre on Pine Street was actually the original Kemmerer Theatre, which opened in 1910 (I’ve found nothing about the Kemmerer Theatre on Antelope Street, which is listed at Cinema Treasures, but it was certainly not the original Kemmerer Theatre, as that neighborhood didn’t even exist in 1910.)
The only place I’ve found anything about the original Kemmerer Theatre is a history of Wyoming published in 1918. It features a brief biography of George Whitten, original owner of the Kemmerer Theatre. Just in case the Victory is the same theater renamed, I’ll quote the relevant parts of the biography here:
“George Whitten is the genial proprietor of the New Kemmerer Theater and is one of the most popular and best known citizens of Lincoln county. He is a theatrical manager of many years' experience, having conducted various theaters and moving picture houses in many sections of the country through a period of fifteen years. This has given to him a knowledge of public wants and demands in this direction and he is giving Kemmerer the best attractions that can be secured in film productions. In the conduct of his business he displays a most enterprising spirit and puts forth every effort to please his patrons, so that success naturally follows.
“He… opened what is known as the New Kemmerer Theater in 1910. It is a modern moving picture and vaudeville house with a seating capacity of two hundred and eighty. It has all modern appointments and equipment and the building has been erected especially for theater purposes. Mr. Whitten is conducting a most attractive place of refined amusement, catering to the better class of patrons, and he produces the best pictures which have been put upon the screen, thus bringing before his audience the leading actors and actresses of the country, together with many films that bring one into touch with the places of interest and the scenes of beauty in other lands.”
Perhaps someone from Kemmerer will be able to confirm or disprove my surmise that George Whitten’s New Kemmerer Theater of 1910 became the Victory Theatre. I’ve exhausted the sources available on the Internet.
An ad for the Carey Roofing Company in the May, 1918, issue of The Architectural Forum lists the Rex Theatre in Wheeling as one of the building using its products. It also names the architect of the Rex as Edward Franzheim.
Given this theater’s location in the 400 block of Broadway Street, I’m almost certain that Rialto was a new name for the Kozy Theatre, which was operating in the 1910s.
The December 27, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World said that Rodney C. Davis and Rankin Kirkland intended to raze Davis’s 240-seat Kozy Theatre at 417 Broadway Street early the next year and replace it with a 500-seat house on the same site. I’ve found the Kozy Theatre mentioned as late as 1918, and what was probably the same house mentioned as the Cozy Theatre as late as 1925.
In the 1910s, Paducah also had a house called the Star Theatre, at 426 Broadway Street, almost across the street from the Kozy.
The Dream Theatre was being operated by Michael Switlow at least as early as 1913, when it was mentioned in the December 27 issue of The Moving Picture World. A combination movie-vaudeville house in Jeffersonville called the New Dream Theatre was listed in a report by the Indiana Department of Inspection published in 1911 and covering inspections made in 1910.
Google’s satellite and street views show that both sides of the 200 block of SW Adams Street have been redeveloped, so the building the Lyric Theatre was in is gone.
This is from the August 28, 1908, issue of The Moving Picture World: “Peoria is to have another moving picture theater under the management of V. Seaver, who will christen it the ‘Lyric.’ The new construction is to be at 227 Adams street.”
This was listed as the Selby Theatre in a 1915 guide book, The City of St.Paul and Vicinity (Google Books scan.) It must have returned to the name Oxford later, or else the Oxford Theatre that had the organ installed in 1921 was a different house.
A pencil drawing of the Gopher Theatre at Crookston, dated 1940, is listed among the papers of architects Liebenberg & Kaplan at the University of Minnesota library, so the firm probably did design the house.
The Gopher must have been in operation at least as late as 1963. A courtesy advertisement in the 1963 edition of the University of Minnesota Northwest School of Agriculture’s annual, The Aggie, reads “Compliments of Grand and Gopher Theaters.”
I think the Gopher has been either completely or partly demolished. 211 N. Broadway is currently listed as the location of an outfit called Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. I can' tell from Street View if the address is in the modern Bremer Bank building on the corner of 2nd Street, or the smaller building next door. The smaller building looks old enough to have been around in the 1940s, but it isn’t deep enough to have accommodated a 700-seat theater. It’s possible that this was the front of the theater but that the rear part of the auditorium was demolished and the rest of it converted into offices. Either way, the Gopher Theatre is gone. I guess the magic of the “Magic Fountain” wasn’t strong enough to save the place.
There’s a photo of the entrance of a large theater in the December 24, 1921, issue of Exhibitors Trade Review, and the caption identifies it as the Crystal Palace Theatre in Sydney. Could it be the Paris Theatre? It can be seen at lower left of this scan at the Internet Archive (click the + sign at lower right of the page to make it bigger.)
The Castle Theatre is still open as a live music venue. There is an official web site, and the house has at least one event per week booked through January, with other events scheduled into March.
The February 19, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World ran an article about the opening of the Castle Theatre, which can be read in this Google Books scan. The theater was built by C. U. Williams, a Bloomington businessman who, along with being involved in various other enterprises, was a well-known publisher of picture postcards.
The Castle Theatre was part of the headquarters building of C. U. Williams & Son, and was originally operated under lease by William R. Lyon (or Lyons) and Delmar Schnepp. In 1923 the Castle was taken over by Clarence Irvin, who had been operating other theaters in Bloomington for more than a decade.
Many sources on the Internet claim that the Castle was originally a Balaban & Katz house, but it appears that B&K only became involved in the operation later. I’ve found references to the Castle being a B&K house by 1927. It was still being operated by B&K in 1949 according to this list on the Balaban & Katz Foundation’s web site.
The Irvin Theatre, according to entries on this web page, was under construction in April, 1915. That same year, the November issue of The International Confectioner listed the Irvin Theatre Candy Shop at Bloomington in its new businesses section. The theater most likely opened about the same time.
The July 22, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the owner of the Irvin Theatre, Clarence E. Irvin, had closed his older Princess Theatre, which had been located at 412 N. Main Street.
Clarence Irvin operated several other theaters in Bloomington at various times, including the Castle and the Illini. He eventually entered into various arrangements with both the Midwest Theatres circuit and Publix Great States Theatres.
The AKA should be spelled Chatterton. Here is a web page with pretty much the same information about the Chatterton Opera House/Illini Theatre that is in RobertEndres earlier comment, but with the additional information that the Chatterton was designed by local architect George H. Miller.
An Architectural Guidebook to San Francisco and the Bay Area by Susan Dinkelspiel Cerny says that this house opened in 1911 as a nickelodeon called the Sunset Theatre, and was in operation as the Superba until 1924. The architect was Bernard J. Joseph.
Bernard J. Jospeh had been in a partnership with architect G. Albert Lansburgh from 1906 to 1908, and collaborated with him on a number of projects even after Lansburgh had established his own practice, including the Orpheum Theatre on O'Farrell Street, opened in 1909.
The official web site of the Strand Theatre has moved to this URL.
Delaware (where, incidentally, director Vincente Minnelli was born in 1903) has always been a small town, and the Strand has probably been its only large theater. Thus, the item headed “Fine New House at Delaware, O.” in the January 8, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World must have been about the Strand. The item said the new theater was under construction and was expected to open about April 1 (the Strand’s official web site says it actually opened on April 10.) The Strand Theatre was designed by Columbus architect Fred W. Elliot.
The January 8, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World ran an item in its San Francisco column saying that plans for the Royal Theatre Company’s new house on California Street near Polk had been completed, but the architect the item named was Bernard J. Joseph.
Does anyone know why Joseph’s plans were abandoned for those of the Reid Brothers, or why the theater’s entrance was placed around the corner on Polk Street instead of on California Street?
The book I cited in my previous comment also has a nice photo of Fuller Claflin (scroll up a bit in the Google Books scan.) You can also read the earlier parts of his biographical sketch, which covers the history of his family in North America. The Claflins were an interesting lot.
I’ve found a brief biography of architect Fuller Claflin in Volume 4 of History of Michigan, by Charles Moore, published in 1915. It doesn’t mention the Duplex Theatre, but the section dealing with his career as an architect up to 1915 is worth quoting in full, and this is as good a place as any to do so:
“Fuller Claflin, who was born at East Saginaw, now a part of the city of Saginaw, on January 29, 1872, was about nine years old when the family moved from Saginaw to Albion, and about four years later they all went out to California. His education was principally received in the public schools of Michigan and California. In 1890 he entered the office of a San Francisco architect, and architecture has been his study and practical work throughout his entire career. In 1892 he became a member of the firm of Wood and Lovell, San Francisco architects, who made a specialty of theatre construction. When that firm subsequently moved its headquarters to Chicago, Mr. Claflin was left in charge of all its Pacific coast business. In 1895 Mr. Claflin removed to New York city, and became a member of the firm of J. B. McElfatrick and Son, theatre architects, whose services were of national scope, extending to all states and cities. Mr. Claflin continued with that firm about five years, and eventually became a partner of E. C. Horn, a general contractor with offices in New York city. Together they built many theatres both as architects and contractors. Mr. Horn’s death terminated the partnership, but Mr. Claflin continued building theatres, and in 1909 established offices in Detroit. He has built theatres in many cities of the Union and in Canada, and has a very notable record in Michigan, made since he opened offices at Detroit. Among others in the last half dozen years he has built the Family, the Garrick, the Gayety, the New Empire and the Forest theatres in Detroit, and also erected the Gladmer Theatre at Lansing, which is one of the finest theatres of the state. Other theatres in many smaller cities have been constructed on plans drawn by Mr. Claflin, with the construction supervised from his office.”
The Majestic Theatre was an extensive rebuilding of the Utica Opera House, which had been built in 1871. When Sam Shubert took over the lease on the Opera House in 1900, he had the building largely gutted and expanded to create a space for a more modern theater. In addition to the new Majestic, the building housed a second-floor assembly room at the Washington Street corner of the structure, and this was converted into the Orpheum Theatre in 1901.
The December, 1900, issue of Engineering Review featured an article on the rebuilding project, focusing largely on the heating systems of the new theater. It noted that the architect for the project was Fuller Claflin, of the New York firm of J. B. McElfatrick & Son.
This page from the Oneida County Historical Society web site has details about the Majestic and Orpheum Theatres, as well as three early photos.
The Orpheum Theatre in Sheridan was listed in the 1913-1914 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide. The ground-floor house then had 530 seats in the orchestra, 176 in the balcony, and 84 in the gallery.
The Strand Theatre opened on December 17, 1917, and was designed by architect Frank W. Moore. It was built for Evanston exhibitor Arthur R. Bowen. Information about the Strand is included in a biographical sketch of Mr. Bowen that appears in volume 2 of the S.J. Clarke Publishing Company’s History of Wyoming, published in 1918 (scan from Google Books). Here are the passages relating to the Strand:
The good news is that, though the historic interior of the Strand Theatre was destroyed, the building has been stabilized and will be restored, according to this page from the City of Evanston web site. The page does not say if the building will be reopened as a movie theater or not, but as Evanston has an operating four-screen house (the Cinemajik Valley 4 Cinemas) it seems likely that a restored Strand would have to be used for other purposes.The Victory Theatre has had two different locations. The Photo lostmemory linked to shows the most recent location on J. C. Penney Drive, but the photo Don Lewis linked to shows the original location on Pine Street between Topaz and Sapphire.
All of the historic buildings on the block in Don’s photo have been demolished, the last of them, the Kemmerer Hotel on the corner of Pine and Sapphire, condemned and demolished as recently as 2004 when it was discovered that its stonework had grown unstable.
The fourth photo down this web page shows the original Victory Theatre, and says that in 2004 plans were first announced for a new Victory Theatre, but it doesn’t say whether or not anything came of those plans, or anything about when the Victory on Pine Street closed, and there’s no indication that the Victory on J. C. Penney is the house that was being planned in 2004, but I think it probably is.
I also think Don’s postcard might be from the late 1960s rather than the 1950s. Despite the prominent mid-50s car, a couple of the cars parked down the block look to me like post-tail fin era models from the late 60s.
There is a also strong possibility, which as yet I’ve been unable to confirm, that the Victory Theatre on Pine Street was actually the original Kemmerer Theatre, which opened in 1910 (I’ve found nothing about the Kemmerer Theatre on Antelope Street, which is listed at Cinema Treasures, but it was certainly not the original Kemmerer Theatre, as that neighborhood didn’t even exist in 1910.)
The only place I’ve found anything about the original Kemmerer Theatre is a history of Wyoming published in 1918. It features a brief biography of George Whitten, original owner of the Kemmerer Theatre. Just in case the Victory is the same theater renamed, I’ll quote the relevant parts of the biography here:
Perhaps someone from Kemmerer will be able to confirm or disprove my surmise that George Whitten’s New Kemmerer Theater of 1910 became the Victory Theatre. I’ve exhausted the sources available on the Internet.The correct address of the Strand Theatre is 811 5th Street (5th and Jefferson.) The related websites link still needs to be updated as well.
An ad for the Carey Roofing Company in the May, 1918, issue of The Architectural Forum lists the Rex Theatre in Wheeling as one of the building using its products. It also names the architect of the Rex as Edward Franzheim.
Given this theater’s location in the 400 block of Broadway Street, I’m almost certain that Rialto was a new name for the Kozy Theatre, which was operating in the 1910s.
The December 27, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World said that Rodney C. Davis and Rankin Kirkland intended to raze Davis’s 240-seat Kozy Theatre at 417 Broadway Street early the next year and replace it with a 500-seat house on the same site. I’ve found the Kozy Theatre mentioned as late as 1918, and what was probably the same house mentioned as the Cozy Theatre as late as 1925.
In the 1910s, Paducah also had a house called the Star Theatre, at 426 Broadway Street, almost across the street from the Kozy.
Here is an updated link to the 1938 Boxoffice photo of the Robinson Grand’s marquee.
The Dream Theatre was being operated by Michael Switlow at least as early as 1913, when it was mentioned in the December 27 issue of The Moving Picture World. A combination movie-vaudeville house in Jeffersonville called the New Dream Theatre was listed in a report by the Indiana Department of Inspection published in 1911 and covering inspections made in 1910.
Google’s satellite and street views show that both sides of the 200 block of SW Adams Street have been redeveloped, so the building the Lyric Theatre was in is gone.
This is from the August 28, 1908, issue of The Moving Picture World: “Peoria is to have another moving picture theater under the management of V. Seaver, who will christen it the ‘Lyric.’ The new construction is to be at 227 Adams street.”
This was listed as the Selby Theatre in a 1915 guide book, The City of St.Paul and Vicinity (Google Books scan.) It must have returned to the name Oxford later, or else the Oxford Theatre that had the organ installed in 1921 was a different house.
A pencil drawing of the Gopher Theatre at Crookston, dated 1940, is listed among the papers of architects Liebenberg & Kaplan at the University of Minnesota library, so the firm probably did design the house.
The Gopher must have been in operation at least as late as 1963. A courtesy advertisement in the 1963 edition of the University of Minnesota Northwest School of Agriculture’s annual, The Aggie, reads “Compliments of Grand and Gopher Theaters.”
I think the Gopher has been either completely or partly demolished. 211 N. Broadway is currently listed as the location of an outfit called Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. I can' tell from Street View if the address is in the modern Bremer Bank building on the corner of 2nd Street, or the smaller building next door. The smaller building looks old enough to have been around in the 1940s, but it isn’t deep enough to have accommodated a 700-seat theater. It’s possible that this was the front of the theater but that the rear part of the auditorium was demolished and the rest of it converted into offices. Either way, the Gopher Theatre is gone. I guess the magic of the “Magic Fountain” wasn’t strong enough to save the place.
There’s a photo of the entrance of a large theater in the December 24, 1921, issue of Exhibitors Trade Review, and the caption identifies it as the Crystal Palace Theatre in Sydney. Could it be the Paris Theatre? It can be seen at lower left of this scan at the Internet Archive (click the + sign at lower right of the page to make it bigger.)
The Castle Theatre is still open as a live music venue. There is an official web site, and the house has at least one event per week booked through January, with other events scheduled into March.
The February 19, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World ran an article about the opening of the Castle Theatre, which can be read in this Google Books scan. The theater was built by C. U. Williams, a Bloomington businessman who, along with being involved in various other enterprises, was a well-known publisher of picture postcards.
The Castle Theatre was part of the headquarters building of C. U. Williams & Son, and was originally operated under lease by William R. Lyon (or Lyons) and Delmar Schnepp. In 1923 the Castle was taken over by Clarence Irvin, who had been operating other theaters in Bloomington for more than a decade.
Many sources on the Internet claim that the Castle was originally a Balaban & Katz house, but it appears that B&K only became involved in the operation later. I’ve found references to the Castle being a B&K house by 1927. It was still being operated by B&K in 1949 according to this list on the Balaban & Katz Foundation’s web site.
The Irvin Theatre, according to entries on this web page, was under construction in April, 1915. That same year, the November issue of The International Confectioner listed the Irvin Theatre Candy Shop at Bloomington in its new businesses section. The theater most likely opened about the same time.
The July 22, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the owner of the Irvin Theatre, Clarence E. Irvin, had closed his older Princess Theatre, which had been located at 412 N. Main Street.
Clarence Irvin operated several other theaters in Bloomington at various times, including the Castle and the Illini. He eventually entered into various arrangements with both the Midwest Theatres circuit and Publix Great States Theatres.
The AKA should be spelled Chatterton. Here is a web page with pretty much the same information about the Chatterton Opera House/Illini Theatre that is in RobertEndres earlier comment, but with the additional information that the Chatterton was designed by local architect George H. Miller.
The Princess Theatre was mentioned in the December 17, 1921, issue of Exhibitors Trade Review. The manager of the theater was named A.C. Stalcup.
The Strand Theatre at Creston was mentioned in the December 17, 1921, issue of Exhibitors Trade Review.
An Architectural Guidebook to San Francisco and the Bay Area by Susan Dinkelspiel Cerny says that this house opened in 1911 as a nickelodeon called the Sunset Theatre, and was in operation as the Superba until 1924. The architect was Bernard J. Joseph.
Bernard J. Jospeh had been in a partnership with architect G. Albert Lansburgh from 1906 to 1908, and collaborated with him on a number of projects even after Lansburgh had established his own practice, including the Orpheum Theatre on O'Farrell Street, opened in 1909.
The official web site of the Strand Theatre has moved to this URL.
Delaware (where, incidentally, director Vincente Minnelli was born in 1903) has always been a small town, and the Strand has probably been its only large theater. Thus, the item headed “Fine New House at Delaware, O.” in the January 8, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World must have been about the Strand. The item said the new theater was under construction and was expected to open about April 1 (the Strand’s official web site says it actually opened on April 10.) The Strand Theatre was designed by Columbus architect Fred W. Elliot.
The January 8, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World ran an item in its San Francisco column saying that plans for the Royal Theatre Company’s new house on California Street near Polk had been completed, but the architect the item named was Bernard J. Joseph.
Does anyone know why Joseph’s plans were abandoned for those of the Reid Brothers, or why the theater’s entrance was placed around the corner on Polk Street instead of on California Street?
In the quote in my previous comment, B.C. Horn should read E.C. Horn. I copied and pasted without noticing the error in the scan.
The book I cited in my previous comment also has a nice photo of Fuller Claflin (scroll up a bit in the Google Books scan.) You can also read the earlier parts of his biographical sketch, which covers the history of his family in North America. The Claflins were an interesting lot.
I’ve found a brief biography of architect Fuller Claflin in Volume 4 of History of Michigan, by Charles Moore, published in 1915. It doesn’t mention the Duplex Theatre, but the section dealing with his career as an architect up to 1915 is worth quoting in full, and this is as good a place as any to do so: