I’ve discovered that it was a different house called the Home Theatre that partly collapsed in 1912. A brief mention of the event in the December 20 issue of Chicago Commerce says that the collapse of the roof had taken place at the Home Theatre on Milwaukee Avenue. That means it must have been the house that later became the Wicker Park Theatre.
Street View is currently stuck on the wrong side of the courthouse square. The address 222 E. University Drive is on the south side of the street, one door west of 13th Avenue and sandwiched between two nondescript buildings housing a pool hall and a mortgage company. The theater building looked like it was vacant at the time Google’s camera went by. It’s a very distinctive brick building of rather Moorish appearance. I don’t know if it looked like that when it was the Juarez Theater. If it did, it had an awfully narrow entrance for a 600-seat house, and the theater itself was quite narrow, but very deep.
The finding aid for the Liebenberg & Kaplan papers at the University of Minnesota has several references to theater projects the firm undertook in Perry, Iowa, including an entry specifically naming the Perry Theatre, dated 1935-36. That was probably when the ground floor facade was modernized.
As some of the entries have no theater name attached, Liebenberg & Kaplan might have worked on the other indoor theater in Perry as well. As it turns out the other theater was indeed called the Foxy, at least for a while, the former Rex Theatre having been renamed about 1927.
There is also one entry for a Perry Outdoor Theatre in Perry, dated 1947, so the firm must also have drawn the plans for the drive-in that once operated there. Drive-ins.com says it was called the Corral Drive-In.
Here is a photo of the Hamilton Theatre. It, and two others, can be seen about a third of the way down this long web page about the Marshall-Matheson department store, which was once located next door to the theater. The commercial building that replaced both structures is now occupied by the Yonkers Public Library.
In its issue of January 3, 1928, The Film Daily had an item about the demise of the Hamilton Theatre:
“Yonkers, N. Y.— Strahan Theaters
Corp. have sold their lease of the Hamilton to the Ross Stores who are to erect a department store on the site. The lease had four and a half years to run, and $50,000 was paid to abrogate it.”
The January 3, 1928, issue of The Film Daily said that the Garfield Theatre had been opened. It said that the house had 1,300 seats, and had been built by Frank Porsinski, who would operate with a policy of four changes of program a week.
The streamline modern tower over the entrance seen in the 1948 photo must have been the result of a 1930s or 1940s remodeling. Google Street View shows that the tower has been removed. Southeast Carpet Company is no longer located in the Garfield Theatre building, so it the space is probably vacant, if the building is even still standing.
This theater was in operation as the Grand Opera House at least as early as 1908, when it was mentioned in issues of The Billboard. The building is recognizable in this postcard, which has a 1912 postmark on it. The ground floor has been altered, but the upper part of the building is largely unchanged, except for having been painted and having had the windows altered.
The Grand Theatre mentioned in the January 3, 1928, issue of The Film Daily is probably this house:
“Perry, Ia. — Youngclass & Latta,
owners of the Foxy and Grand here, have bought the Strand at Woodward. They are planning a circuit in this territory.”
The Grand Opera House was listed in the 1913-1914 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide as a ground-floor theater with 769 seats, but was not listed in the 1901 guide. I’m not sure if the other theater mentioned in the FD item was actually called the Foxy, or of that was a typo for Roxy.
A list of movie theaters in Canton that was published in the September 5, 1908, issue of The Billboard included the Dixie Theatre, but with the address No. 14 N. Market Street. Canton must have changed its numbering system at some point, converting one and two-digit addresses to three-digit addresses.
The list gives the seating capacity of the Dixie as 500, which was probably rounded up, but still a sizable house. The manager at the time was named P. H. Kane, and the house offered continuous shows. It was one of six movie houses listed in Canton.
The Dixie was also on a list of buildings inspected by the State of Ohio in 1907, but I’ve been unable to find any other references to it.
Winnipeg Theatres gives the address of the Elite Theatre as 527-529 Main Street, and gives it the AKA Unique Theatre.
According to the book Embattled Shadows: A History of Canadian Cinema, 1895-1939, by Peter Morris, the Unique Theatre was opened in the fall of 1903 by John Schuberg. It was located in space that had been occupied by a funeral parlor in a building called the Cement Block (try researching that name on Google!) The first move shown at the Unique was Edwin S. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery.
The earliest reference I can find to the name Elite Theatre in Winnipeg comes from January, 1909, when the Elite was the site of a religious meeting, according to the February issue of Unitarian Word and Work.
Winnipeg Theatres says that this house opened around 1910 as the Columbia Theatre, and became the Fox in 1935. I found an article about the Columbia Theatre in the April 6, 1912, issue of Electrical Review and Western Electrician, which noted that the house was the latest movie theater to be opened in Winnipeg (page 663 of the Google Books scan.)
I’ve found a period source which adds a missing piece to the early history of the Bijou Theatre as told here and at Theatres of Winnipeg. The source is the 1913 edition of Western Law Reporter (Canada), which gives a synopsis of a 1912 court case involving events that took place in 1910. The details of the case are not relevant, but the following sentences are:
“On the 21st April following the date of the contract, the lessees of the Empress Theatre vacated the premises and removed all their plant (excepting the drop curtain, which did not fit the new building) to another building, in another street in Winnipeg. The new building was given the name “Empress Theatre,” and the building vacated was afterwards known as the “Bijou.” The Empress, both in the old and in the new building, was what is generally known as a vaudeville show, while the Bijou was run as a moving picture show.”
As the Empress, this house was part of the Sullivan & Considine vaudeville circuit, which used the name Empress for most of its theaters. The Bijou joined the circuit in 1908, when the October 3 issue of The Billboard said:
“Mr. and Mrs. Frank Fairchilds are touring Western Canada and meeting with great success. They are playing a new circuit formed by J. M. Nash of the Bijou Theatre, Winnipeg, and booked through the Sullivan and Considine office.”
The Bijou probably adopted the name Empress shortly after joining the Sullivan & Considine circuit, so must have had the name for less than two years, until it was moved to the former Dominion Theatre in 1910.
An article about the Fotoplayer pipe organ installed in the New Mission Theatre can be seen in this PDF file of a page from the August 12, 1916, issue of The Music Trade Review. There are two small photos of the theater, showing the front and the auditorium. The auditorium photo shows the house before the balcony was added in 1918. American Photo Player Co., makers of the Fotoplayer organ, were based in Berkeley, California.
Having both North Sacramento and Old North Sacramento as locations for these theaters is not exactly what I had in mind. The two names refer to the same place; a single district of the City of Sacramento, which was once a separate incorporated city called North Sacramento, but which was dissolved and subsequently annexed to Sacramento itself in 1964. Both theaters ended up inside the corporate limits of the City of Sacramento, so should be listed as being in Sacramento, with North Sacramento (or Old North Sacramento) listed only as the district.
The book Independence, by Richard N. Piland and Marietta Wilson Boenker (Google Books preview), says that the Electric Theatre was in the building at 215 North Main from the 1910s into the 1940s. This building is currently occupied by the Knitcraft yarn shop. I’ve been unable to find the Electric Theatre mentioned in any of the early trade journals.
The Plaza might be the theater mentioned in this item from the January 2, 1924, issue of The Film Daily: “Independence, Mo. — Work has begun on the new theater on Lexington St. A. E. Elliot is behind the project.”
Although it was published more than a year earlier, this item from the August 3, 1922, issue of Manufacturers Record also might be about the Plaza:
“Mo., Independence—Elliott Theater Corp., A. E. Elliott, Prest., Grand Ave., Kansas City, will erect $65,000 motion-picture theater; 2 stories and basement; 40x164 ft.; brick and terra cotta; stone trim; to seat 1200; R. E. Peden Co., Archt, 945 New York Life Bldg., Kansas City.”
There are no theaters on Lexington Avenue but the Plaza, and satellite views show its building to be about 40x164 feet.
An item in the January 29, 1916, issue of The Music Trade Review says that the “Grove” Theatre (perhaps a typo for “Globe”) at 5th and Los Angeles Streets had been reopened by Silverman & Kramer as the Jewel Theatre. I don’t know how long the operation lasted. There are no Los Angeles city directories for the years 1916 through 1922 available online. The 1923 directory lists the Jewel Theatre on Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles, but no theater at 5th and Los Angeles Streets.
North Sacramento was a separate incorporated city for forty years, but has been a district of the City of Sacramento since 1964. That’s where it should be listed, with North Sacramento as the district.
Also, the Grand Theatre is currently listed in “Old North Sacramento,” which is the same neighborhood.
An inventory of historic buildings in Beckley prepared for the NRHP in 1994 gives the address of the Beckley Theatre as 411-417 W. Neville Street. It was built in 1935, and was designed by the Huntington, West Virginia, architectural firm Meanor & Handloser.
The Arcadia Publishing Company book Beckley, by Fran Klaus, says that the Beckley Theatre closed in 1982, and was demolished in 1997. The site is now part of a parking lot.
The 1921 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide lists a Beckley Theatre in Beckley, so this house must have been at least the second to have the name.
An inventory of historic buildings in Beckley prepared for the NRHP in 1994 indicates that the Lyric Theatre was on what was by then a vacant lot at 300 Neville Street.
The document actually says 310 Neville, but this is a typo, as another building, still standing today, is also listed as 310 Neville. The document also gives the name Lyric/Palace Theatre, but other sources show that the Palace was on Kanawha Street, and opened before the Lyric. Unless the Lyric was renamed very late in its history, it wasn’t ever called the Palace.
A timeline of Beckley history on this web page says that the Lyric Theatre on Neville Street opened in 1920 and showed its last movie in 1967, but the Arcadia Publishing Company book Beckley, by Fran Klaus, says that the theater closed in 1959.
An article about Acousti-Celotex, a recently-developed acoustical tile product, appeared in the December 14, 1929, issue of Movie Age, and was illustrated by a photo of the Mesa Theatre’s auditorium.
I’ve discovered that it was a different house called the Home Theatre that partly collapsed in 1912. A brief mention of the event in the December 20 issue of Chicago Commerce says that the collapse of the roof had taken place at the Home Theatre on Milwaukee Avenue. That means it must have been the house that later became the Wicker Park Theatre.
Street View is currently stuck on the wrong side of the courthouse square. The address 222 E. University Drive is on the south side of the street, one door west of 13th Avenue and sandwiched between two nondescript buildings housing a pool hall and a mortgage company. The theater building looked like it was vacant at the time Google’s camera went by. It’s a very distinctive brick building of rather Moorish appearance. I don’t know if it looked like that when it was the Juarez Theater. If it did, it had an awfully narrow entrance for a 600-seat house, and the theater itself was quite narrow, but very deep.
There are several photos of the Venetian Theatre at this post from the weblog of the Racine Post.
The finding aid for the Liebenberg & Kaplan papers at the University of Minnesota has several references to theater projects the firm undertook in Perry, Iowa, including an entry specifically naming the Perry Theatre, dated 1935-36. That was probably when the ground floor facade was modernized.
As some of the entries have no theater name attached, Liebenberg & Kaplan might have worked on the other indoor theater in Perry as well. As it turns out the other theater was indeed called the Foxy, at least for a while, the former Rex Theatre having been renamed about 1927.
There is also one entry for a Perry Outdoor Theatre in Perry, dated 1947, so the firm must also have drawn the plans for the drive-in that once operated there. Drive-ins.com says it was called the Corral Drive-In.
Here is a photo of the Hamilton Theatre. It, and two others, can be seen about a third of the way down this long web page about the Marshall-Matheson department store, which was once located next door to the theater. The commercial building that replaced both structures is now occupied by the Yonkers Public Library.
In its issue of January 3, 1928, The Film Daily had an item about the demise of the Hamilton Theatre:
The Film Daily of January 3, 1928, said that the Signal Theatre in Baird, Texas, was being remodeled and enlarged at a cost of $7,000.
The January 3, 1928, issue of The Film Daily said that the Garfield Theatre had been opened. It said that the house had 1,300 seats, and had been built by Frank Porsinski, who would operate with a policy of four changes of program a week.
The streamline modern tower over the entrance seen in the 1948 photo must have been the result of a 1930s or 1940s remodeling. Google Street View shows that the tower has been removed. Southeast Carpet Company is no longer located in the Garfield Theatre building, so it the space is probably vacant, if the building is even still standing.
This theater was in operation as the Grand Opera House at least as early as 1908, when it was mentioned in issues of The Billboard. The building is recognizable in this postcard, which has a 1912 postmark on it. The ground floor has been altered, but the upper part of the building is largely unchanged, except for having been painted and having had the windows altered.
The Grand Theatre mentioned in the January 3, 1928, issue of The Film Daily is probably this house:
The Grand Opera House was listed in the 1913-1914 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide as a ground-floor theater with 769 seats, but was not listed in the 1901 guide. I’m not sure if the other theater mentioned in the FD item was actually called the Foxy, or of that was a typo for Roxy.Here’s a puzzling item from the January 3, 1928, issue of The Film Daily: “Portland, Ore. — The Geller opened on Foster Road just before Christmas.”
Did the magazine get the location wrong, or did Portland have more than one Geller Theatre?
A list of movie theaters in Canton that was published in the September 5, 1908, issue of The Billboard included the Dixie Theatre, but with the address No. 14 N. Market Street. Canton must have changed its numbering system at some point, converting one and two-digit addresses to three-digit addresses.
The list gives the seating capacity of the Dixie as 500, which was probably rounded up, but still a sizable house. The manager at the time was named P. H. Kane, and the house offered continuous shows. It was one of six movie houses listed in Canton.
The Dixie was also on a list of buildings inspected by the State of Ohio in 1907, but I’ve been unable to find any other references to it.
Winnipeg Theatres gives the address of the Elite Theatre as 527-529 Main Street, and gives it the AKA Unique Theatre.
According to the book Embattled Shadows: A History of Canadian Cinema, 1895-1939, by Peter Morris, the Unique Theatre was opened in the fall of 1903 by John Schuberg. It was located in space that had been occupied by a funeral parlor in a building called the Cement Block (try researching that name on Google!) The first move shown at the Unique was Edwin S. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery.
The earliest reference I can find to the name Elite Theatre in Winnipeg comes from January, 1909, when the Elite was the site of a religious meeting, according to the February issue of Unitarian Word and Work.
Winnipeg Theatres says that this house opened around 1910 as the Columbia Theatre, and became the Fox in 1935. I found an article about the Columbia Theatre in the April 6, 1912, issue of Electrical Review and Western Electrician, which noted that the house was the latest movie theater to be opened in Winnipeg (page 663 of the Google Books scan.)
Winnipeg Theatres gives the address of the Colonial Theatre as 634 Main Street.
I’ve found a period source which adds a missing piece to the early history of the Bijou Theatre as told here and at Theatres of Winnipeg. The source is the 1913 edition of Western Law Reporter (Canada), which gives a synopsis of a 1912 court case involving events that took place in 1910. The details of the case are not relevant, but the following sentences are:
As the Empress, this house was part of the Sullivan & Considine vaudeville circuit, which used the name Empress for most of its theaters. The Bijou joined the circuit in 1908, when the October 3 issue of The Billboard said:The Bijou probably adopted the name Empress shortly after joining the Sullivan & Considine circuit, so must have had the name for less than two years, until it was moved to the former Dominion Theatre in 1910.Theatres of Winnipeg says that this house opened as the Strand in 1914, and was renamed the Beacon in 1930.
An article about the Fotoplayer pipe organ installed in the New Mission Theatre can be seen in this PDF file of a page from the August 12, 1916, issue of The Music Trade Review. There are two small photos of the theater, showing the front and the auditorium. The auditorium photo shows the house before the balcony was added in 1918. American Photo Player Co., makers of the Fotoplayer organ, were based in Berkeley, California.
Having both North Sacramento and Old North Sacramento as locations for these theaters is not exactly what I had in mind. The two names refer to the same place; a single district of the City of Sacramento, which was once a separate incorporated city called North Sacramento, but which was dissolved and subsequently annexed to Sacramento itself in 1964. Both theaters ended up inside the corporate limits of the City of Sacramento, so should be listed as being in Sacramento, with North Sacramento (or Old North Sacramento) listed only as the district.
The book Independence, by Richard N. Piland and Marietta Wilson Boenker (Google Books preview), says that the Electric Theatre was in the building at 215 North Main from the 1910s into the 1940s. This building is currently occupied by the Knitcraft yarn shop. I’ve been unable to find the Electric Theatre mentioned in any of the early trade journals.
The Plaza might be the theater mentioned in this item from the January 2, 1924, issue of The Film Daily: “Independence, Mo. — Work has begun on the new theater on Lexington St. A. E. Elliot is behind the project.”
Although it was published more than a year earlier, this item from the August 3, 1922, issue of Manufacturers Record also might be about the Plaza:
There are no theaters on Lexington Avenue but the Plaza, and satellite views show its building to be about 40x164 feet.An item in the January 29, 1916, issue of The Music Trade Review says that the “Grove” Theatre (perhaps a typo for “Globe”) at 5th and Los Angeles Streets had been reopened by Silverman & Kramer as the Jewel Theatre. I don’t know how long the operation lasted. There are no Los Angeles city directories for the years 1916 through 1922 available online. The 1923 directory lists the Jewel Theatre on Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles, but no theater at 5th and Los Angeles Streets.
North Sacramento was a separate incorporated city for forty years, but has been a district of the City of Sacramento since 1964. That’s where it should be listed, with North Sacramento as the district.
Also, the Grand Theatre is currently listed in “Old North Sacramento,” which is the same neighborhood.
An inventory of historic buildings in Beckley prepared for the NRHP in 1994 gives the address of the Beckley Theatre as 411-417 W. Neville Street. It was built in 1935, and was designed by the Huntington, West Virginia, architectural firm Meanor & Handloser.
The Arcadia Publishing Company book Beckley, by Fran Klaus, says that the Beckley Theatre closed in 1982, and was demolished in 1997. The site is now part of a parking lot.
The 1921 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide lists a Beckley Theatre in Beckley, so this house must have been at least the second to have the name.
An inventory of historic buildings in Beckley prepared for the NRHP in 1994 indicates that the Lyric Theatre was on what was by then a vacant lot at 300 Neville Street.
The document actually says 310 Neville, but this is a typo, as another building, still standing today, is also listed as 310 Neville. The document also gives the name Lyric/Palace Theatre, but other sources show that the Palace was on Kanawha Street, and opened before the Lyric. Unless the Lyric was renamed very late in its history, it wasn’t ever called the Palace.
A timeline of Beckley history on this web page says that the Lyric Theatre on Neville Street opened in 1920 and showed its last movie in 1967, but the Arcadia Publishing Company book Beckley, by Fran Klaus, says that the theater closed in 1959.
An article about Acousti-Celotex, a recently-developed acoustical tile product, appeared in the December 14, 1929, issue of Movie Age, and was illustrated by a photo of the Mesa Theatre’s auditorium.