The Lyceum built in 1867 and remodeled to Leon Lempert’s design in the 1890s was completely destroyed by fire on March 6, 1904. But according to the April 9, 1904, issue of Real Estate Record and Builder’s Guide, the house was to be rebuilt:
“Fuller Claflin, 1133 Broadway. New York City, and B. C. Horn are making plans for a new Lyceum Theatre to replace the one recently burned in Elmira. Colonel D. C. Robinson is the owner of the property.”
The theaters page of the Plainfield Library’s online exhibit Plainfield: Lost But not Forgotten says that this house began as the Amphion Theatre, and then was known as Elkwood Hall and Washington Hall before becoming the Plainfield Theatre.
According to Andrew Craig Morrison’s book Theaters, the house reopened as the Plainfield Theatre on August 24, 1905, and the architect for the project was Fuller Claflin.
My surmise that the Duplex Theatre was designed by C. Howard Crane was wrong. According to the February 12, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World Fuller Claflin was the architect of the Duplex.
The Americus Theatre at 4026 Hamilton Avenue was mentioned in The Moving Picture World of February 12, 1916. George F. Hornung was the proprietor. There’s a photo of the Americus in Dann Woellert’s book Cincinnati’s Northside Neighborhood (Google Books preview,) and the caption says that the house was built in 1911 and demolished in the early 1950s.
meheuck: There was a Liberty Theatre opened at 3938 Spring Grove Avenue in 1909, but Woellert’s book says that it closed in 1929 and became the Liberty Chili Parlor. I don’t know if your dad is old enough to remember a theater that closed in 1929. The Liberty does not appear to be listed at Cinema Treasures yet.
The Avenue Theatre operated as a movie house as early as 1916, under the name Triangle Theatre. Here is the item announcing the policy change, from The Moving Picture World, January 22, 1916:
“The Avenue theater, at Woodward and Jefferson avenues, one of the oldest amusement places in the city and for the past three years playing stock, has been leased to the Triangle Theater Corporation by Frank Drew, capitalized at $1,000, the principal stockholders being Pliny P. Craft, Fred M. Randall and Kenneth H. Kolpein. The theater closed with stock at eleven o'clock Saturday night, Jan. 8, and 12 hours later reopened as an exclusive motion picture house playing Triangle films, downtown first run.
“The house manager appointed is James Rutherford, for the past seven months he was assistant manager and press agent of the Miles-Detroit theater. The name of the theater has been changed to the Triangle. Prices are 10 to 25 cents for matinees and 10 to 50 cents at night.”
I’ve found mentions of the Avenue Theatre from as early as 1902, but it could well have been operation much earlier, perhaps under a different name. The facade of the building was of an Italianate style that reached its peak of popularity in the 1870s, but could have been built as early as the 1850s. The ornate arched theater entrance and other details look as though they were made of cast iron rather than terra cotta.
Thanks for the time line on Fanchon & Marco’s St. Louis operations, JAlex. All I had was a few fragments I’ve picked up from various sources, some of which contradict each other.
And I’ll second Chuck’s call for a separate page for the first Washington Theatre. RetroMike’s comment of June 14 provides plenty of details for one.
The name of one of the architects is misspelled. It should be Edwin O. Kuenzli. The page of Copper Country Architects devoted to Demetrius F. Charlton and his partners credits Kuenzli, who headed the firm’s Milwaukee office, with the design of this theater. Charlton & Kuenzli also designed the Butler Theatre in Ishpeming, Michigan.
The June 3, 1916, issue of Electrical Review and Western Electrician said that the Butler Theatre was designed by the architectural firm of Charlton & Kuenzli, which had offices in Milwaukee and Marquette. Demetrius F. Charlton had designed the Ishpeming City Hall in 1889, prior to his association with Edwin O. Kuenzli.
In the 1915 Los Angeles City Directory, a house called the Columbia Theatre is listed at 2117 W. Jefferson. In the 1923, 1926 and 1927 directories, it’s listed as the address of the Palace Theatre. No directory for 1928 is available online, and I can’t find a theater listed for the address in the 1929 directory, but the 1932 directory lists the Home Theatre at 2117 W. Jefferson.
As the L.A. County Assessor’s office says that the Arlin’s building was built in 1930, something must have happened to the Columbia/Palace building around 1929, and the current building was built in 1930 to replace it.
I’m puzzled by the references to the “Franchon and Marco circuit” and then “Francon and Marco Circuit” in this theater’s description. If it is meant to read Fanchon and Marco, it can’t possibly be true that they had anything to do with the first Washington Theatre. Fanchon and Marco were teenagers (born 1892 and 1894 respectively) in 1910 when the first Washington was built, and living in California.
Fanchon and Marco would not have built the second Washington Theatre either, as in 1923 they were still producing packaged stage shows, primarily for theaters on the west coast, and had not yet gone into direct operation of theaters (though it’s possible that their older brother Rube had begun building the Los Angeles area circuit he operated, South Side Theatres, by that time.)
As far as I’ve been able to determine, the Fanchon & Marco circuit began its partnership with Harry Arthur in 1934, when rapidly expanding F&M took a long-term lease on the St. Louis Fox Theatre, which Arthur had taken over a few years earlier when William Fox went broke. That was when Arthur joined F&M as general manager of their St. Louis operations. He did not acquire the circuit at that time, so much as the circuit acquired him along with the lease on the Fox.
Arthur might have taken complete control of F&M’s Midwestern operations later, as Fanchon Simon and Marco Wolf concentrated more on their other activities and their Los Angeles area theaters, but I haven’t found much information about that period of the company’s history.
Here’s a fresh link to the first page of the article about the Goodhand Theatre in Boxoffice of December 4, 1954 (the article continues on the two subsequent pages.) The magazine says the architect’s name was Wate Porter, but I think it must have been Wade Porter, who was listed in the 1962 AIA directory as having his office in Cheyenne, Wyoming
This appears to be the correct spelling of the name of one of the architects of this theater: Didrik A. Omeyer. Somehow the NRHP document slipped an inapposite apostrophe into his surname. He was apparently of Norwegian ancestry, not Irish, and so was his partner Martin P. Thori. Their firm was located in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The records of New Orleans architects Edward B. Silverstein and Associates and its predecessor firms, held by the Southeastern Architectural Archive, at Tulane University, include 13 sheets for the People’s Theatre at Greenville. They are dated 1919, and attribute the design to architect J. Rice Scott.
There are a couple of small photos of the Roy Theatre on this web page. The building doesn’t look especially rustic to me. It’s a rather typical small town commercial building, though it’s been gussied up with three painted windows to make it look like it has a second floor.
A somewhat compromised photo of the auditorium of the Ritz Theatre illustrated an ad for the American Seating Company on this page of Motion Picture Times, September 8, 1928. The caption credits the theater’s architect, Roy E. Lane.
The September 8, 1928, issue of Motion Picture Times said that the Arcadia Theatre in Ranger had opened on August 24. The article featured one photo, and said that the new house, operated by Dent Theatres, had a Reuter organ.
The monthly Stone & Webster Journal had the following item in the Fort Madison section of its July, 1919 issue:
“The new moving picture theater called the ‘Strand’ was formally opened on July 1st. This new theater is modern in every respect and is reported to be one of the finest picture houses west of Chicago, having a seating capacity of nearly 1,000.”
The August 11, 1928, issue of Motion Picture Times published remarks from the manager and publicity director of the Strand and Orpheum Theatres in Fort Madison, accompanied by a small photo of the entrance to the Strand looking as though it had been decorated to publicize a particular movie.
O.F.Paulson Co., currently listed in the Firm field, is a construction company. The Iowa Theatre was designed by George Fisher, an Omaha architect who was at one time partnered with Louis Mendelssohn and Harry Lawrie.
The August 11, 1928, issue of Motion Picture Times has an article about the Iowa Theatre, with three photos.
Since the photo linked in an earlier comment shows a different Colonial Theatre, I’m pleased to have found a photo of the Woodward Avenue Colonial on this page of Motion Picture Times, August 4, 1928.
Chuck, the building with the “Rapides” vertical sign on it isn’t the theater. It’s on the side of the street with even-numbered addresses, but the Paramount had an odd-numbered address. The theater was across the street and down the block a bit, and it has been gone for about two decades now.
From the configuration of show windows and the deco detailing, the building with the Rapides sign looks like it might have been a dime store or a department store. Whatever it was originally, it is now the Rapides Foundation Building (the vertical sign has a side attachment with “Foundation” in smaller letters,) which runs all the way to 4th Street. Google doesn’t have street views for the Johnston Street or 4th Street sides of the building, but there’s a decent bird’s-eye at Bing Maps.
droben must have been thinking of “Days of Heaven,” which opened at the Music Box in mid-October, 1978. This was one of the few theaters showing the 70mm version of the movie.
The Favrot of Favrot & Livaudais, architects of the Rapides Opera House, was Charles A. Favrot. His partner was Louis A. Livaudais. Favrot’s son, H. Mortimer Favrot, worked in the office of Favrot & Livaudais until 1934, when he formed the firm of Favrot & Reed with Alan C. Reed. Favrot & Reed went on to design at least three theaters.
I’ve been unable to discover how old the Delta Theatre is, but it was altered and received a new front around 1938-1939, according to the records of the architects for the project, the Lake Charles, Louisiana, firm Dunn & Quinn. The house was then being operated by the Southern Amusement company.
The records of the Lake Charles, Louisiana, architectural firm Dunn & Quinn list an unnamed theater at Winnfield, designed for the Southern Amusement Company in 1947.
The Lyceum built in 1867 and remodeled to Leon Lempert’s design in the 1890s was completely destroyed by fire on March 6, 1904. But according to the April 9, 1904, issue of Real Estate Record and Builder’s Guide, the house was to be rebuilt:
The theaters page of the Plainfield Library’s online exhibit Plainfield: Lost But not Forgotten says that this house began as the Amphion Theatre, and then was known as Elkwood Hall and Washington Hall before becoming the Plainfield Theatre.
According to Andrew Craig Morrison’s book Theaters, the house reopened as the Plainfield Theatre on August 24, 1905, and the architect for the project was Fuller Claflin.
My surmise that the Duplex Theatre was designed by C. Howard Crane was wrong. According to the February 12, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World Fuller Claflin was the architect of the Duplex.
The Americus Theatre at 4026 Hamilton Avenue was mentioned in The Moving Picture World of February 12, 1916. George F. Hornung was the proprietor. There’s a photo of the Americus in Dann Woellert’s book Cincinnati’s Northside Neighborhood (Google Books preview,) and the caption says that the house was built in 1911 and demolished in the early 1950s.
meheuck: There was a Liberty Theatre opened at 3938 Spring Grove Avenue in 1909, but Woellert’s book says that it closed in 1929 and became the Liberty Chili Parlor. I don’t know if your dad is old enough to remember a theater that closed in 1929. The Liberty does not appear to be listed at Cinema Treasures yet.
The Avenue Theatre operated as a movie house as early as 1916, under the name Triangle Theatre. Here is the item announcing the policy change, from The Moving Picture World, January 22, 1916:
I’ve found mentions of the Avenue Theatre from as early as 1902, but it could well have been operation much earlier, perhaps under a different name. The facade of the building was of an Italianate style that reached its peak of popularity in the 1870s, but could have been built as early as the 1850s. The ornate arched theater entrance and other details look as though they were made of cast iron rather than terra cotta.Thanks for the time line on Fanchon & Marco’s St. Louis operations, JAlex. All I had was a few fragments I’ve picked up from various sources, some of which contradict each other.
And I’ll second Chuck’s call for a separate page for the first Washington Theatre. RetroMike’s comment of June 14 provides plenty of details for one.
The name of one of the architects is misspelled. It should be Edwin O. Kuenzli. The page of Copper Country Architects devoted to Demetrius F. Charlton and his partners credits Kuenzli, who headed the firm’s Milwaukee office, with the design of this theater. Charlton & Kuenzli also designed the Butler Theatre in Ishpeming, Michigan.
The June 3, 1916, issue of Electrical Review and Western Electrician said that the Butler Theatre was designed by the architectural firm of Charlton & Kuenzli, which had offices in Milwaukee and Marquette. Demetrius F. Charlton had designed the Ishpeming City Hall in 1889, prior to his association with Edwin O. Kuenzli.
In the 1915 Los Angeles City Directory, a house called the Columbia Theatre is listed at 2117 W. Jefferson. In the 1923, 1926 and 1927 directories, it’s listed as the address of the Palace Theatre. No directory for 1928 is available online, and I can’t find a theater listed for the address in the 1929 directory, but the 1932 directory lists the Home Theatre at 2117 W. Jefferson.
As the L.A. County Assessor’s office says that the Arlin’s building was built in 1930, something must have happened to the Columbia/Palace building around 1929, and the current building was built in 1930 to replace it.
This page of the City of Milwaukie’s web site mentions the Victory Theatre, and says it was built in 1945.
I’m puzzled by the references to the “Franchon and Marco circuit” and then “Francon and Marco Circuit” in this theater’s description. If it is meant to read Fanchon and Marco, it can’t possibly be true that they had anything to do with the first Washington Theatre. Fanchon and Marco were teenagers (born 1892 and 1894 respectively) in 1910 when the first Washington was built, and living in California.
Fanchon and Marco would not have built the second Washington Theatre either, as in 1923 they were still producing packaged stage shows, primarily for theaters on the west coast, and had not yet gone into direct operation of theaters (though it’s possible that their older brother Rube had begun building the Los Angeles area circuit he operated, South Side Theatres, by that time.)
As far as I’ve been able to determine, the Fanchon & Marco circuit began its partnership with Harry Arthur in 1934, when rapidly expanding F&M took a long-term lease on the St. Louis Fox Theatre, which Arthur had taken over a few years earlier when William Fox went broke. That was when Arthur joined F&M as general manager of their St. Louis operations. He did not acquire the circuit at that time, so much as the circuit acquired him along with the lease on the Fox.
Arthur might have taken complete control of F&M’s Midwestern operations later, as Fanchon Simon and Marco Wolf concentrated more on their other activities and their Los Angeles area theaters, but I haven’t found much information about that period of the company’s history.
Here’s a fresh link to the first page of the article about the Goodhand Theatre in Boxoffice of December 4, 1954 (the article continues on the two subsequent pages.) The magazine says the architect’s name was Wate Porter, but I think it must have been Wade Porter, who was listed in the 1962 AIA directory as having his office in Cheyenne, Wyoming
This appears to be the correct spelling of the name of one of the architects of this theater: Didrik A. Omeyer. Somehow the NRHP document slipped an inapposite apostrophe into his surname. He was apparently of Norwegian ancestry, not Irish, and so was his partner Martin P. Thori. Their firm was located in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The records of New Orleans architects Edward B. Silverstein and Associates and its predecessor firms, held by the Southeastern Architectural Archive, at Tulane University, include 13 sheets for the People’s Theatre at Greenville. They are dated 1919, and attribute the design to architect J. Rice Scott.
There are a couple of small photos of the Roy Theatre on this web page. The building doesn’t look especially rustic to me. It’s a rather typical small town commercial building, though it’s been gussied up with three painted windows to make it look like it has a second floor.
A somewhat compromised photo of the auditorium of the Ritz Theatre illustrated an ad for the American Seating Company on this page of Motion Picture Times, September 8, 1928. The caption credits the theater’s architect, Roy E. Lane.
The September 8, 1928, issue of Motion Picture Times said that the Arcadia Theatre in Ranger had opened on August 24. The article featured one photo, and said that the new house, operated by Dent Theatres, had a Reuter organ.
The monthly Stone & Webster Journal had the following item in the Fort Madison section of its July, 1919 issue:
The August 11, 1928, issue of Motion Picture Times published remarks from the manager and publicity director of the Strand and Orpheum Theatres in Fort Madison, accompanied by a small photo of the entrance to the Strand looking as though it had been decorated to publicize a particular movie.O.F.Paulson Co., currently listed in the Firm field, is a construction company. The Iowa Theatre was designed by George Fisher, an Omaha architect who was at one time partnered with Louis Mendelssohn and Harry Lawrie.
The August 11, 1928, issue of Motion Picture Times has an article about the Iowa Theatre, with three photos.
Since the photo linked in an earlier comment shows a different Colonial Theatre, I’m pleased to have found a photo of the Woodward Avenue Colonial on this page of Motion Picture Times, August 4, 1928.
Chuck, the building with the “Rapides” vertical sign on it isn’t the theater. It’s on the side of the street with even-numbered addresses, but the Paramount had an odd-numbered address. The theater was across the street and down the block a bit, and it has been gone for about two decades now.
From the configuration of show windows and the deco detailing, the building with the Rapides sign looks like it might have been a dime store or a department store. Whatever it was originally, it is now the Rapides Foundation Building (the vertical sign has a side attachment with “Foundation” in smaller letters,) which runs all the way to 4th Street. Google doesn’t have street views for the Johnston Street or 4th Street sides of the building, but there’s a decent bird’s-eye at Bing Maps.
droben must have been thinking of “Days of Heaven,” which opened at the Music Box in mid-October, 1978. This was one of the few theaters showing the 70mm version of the movie.
The Favrot of Favrot & Livaudais, architects of the Rapides Opera House, was Charles A. Favrot. His partner was Louis A. Livaudais. Favrot’s son, H. Mortimer Favrot, worked in the office of Favrot & Livaudais until 1934, when he formed the firm of Favrot & Reed with Alan C. Reed. Favrot & Reed went on to design at least three theaters.
I’ve been unable to discover how old the Delta Theatre is, but it was altered and received a new front around 1938-1939, according to the records of the architects for the project, the Lake Charles, Louisiana, firm Dunn & Quinn. The house was then being operated by the Southern Amusement company.
The records of the Lake Charles, Louisiana, architectural firm Dunn & Quinn list an unnamed theater at Winnfield, designed for the Southern Amusement Company in 1947.