The Ute 70 Theatre was designed by Mel C. Glatz, in association with architect Maynard Rorman, according to a history of Cooper Theatres that was once available on the Cooper Foundation’s web site (it has since been removed.)
In 1909 this theater, then being operated as the Majestic by the Shubert organization, was converted for a while into a combination movie and vaudeville house. The article about the Majestic in the June 12, 1909, issue of The Moving Picture World is worth quoting in its entirety for the glimpse it offers of the early days of movie exhibition in large theaters:
“The conversion of the Majestic Theater into a moving picture house is an event of first rate importance, for the Majestic, which is situated on Columbus Circle, is pretty well in the heart of New York City and it is a high-class theater, ranking with the best. Presumably the Shuberts, not wishing the house to remain dark in the Summer, are trying an experiment at the Majestic in giving exhibitions of moving pictures sandwiched between chunks of vaudeville. The result of the experiment will, of course, be watched with interest. If it succeeds, then we may expect other Broadway and uptown theaters to follow suit.
“The Majestic is a very large theater and it takes a great number of people to fill it. It is also a beautiful theater. Its situation is unrivaled for tapping a vast section of New York’s population. A little while ago, when writing about a neighboring moving picture house, I suggested that the district of Columbus Circle is one in which a first-class moving picture theater could be profitably placed. I wonder if the Shuberts have adopted my suggestion? If they have and they read this column, they will probably be glad of a few hints as to how to run their theater on a profit-paying basis.
“When I visited the house the other day there was a fair-sized audience. The programme consisted of vaudeville, songs, moving and talking pictures. The vaudeville was just tolerated. It is true that I was present in the afternoon, when things are generally flat and dull, but the audience was sufficiently large to enable me to form an opinion as to how they regarded this innovation at the Majestic. Their interest is chiefly centered in the pictures. These, however, I was sorry to observe, were a month or two old. Nevertheless, the Biograph and Pathe subjects attracted great attention, and, more remarkable still, a phenomenon in the moving picture theater, occasionally elicited considerable applause.
“It is a moot point whether the Majestic is not too large a house for moving pictures—the people at the back of it are a long way from them. Still, the enterprise of the Shuberts should not find any difficulty in filling the place. What is wanted, of course, is less vaudeville, or none at all, and more pictures. Not old subjects, but the very latest releases. Then the manager might try the effect of a little orchestral music, instead of the simple unaccompanied piano.
“Experience shows that the Keith & Proctor houses are successful with moving pictures alone, and there is no reason why the Majestic should not be as successful. Between Columbus Circle and 125th street, on the West Side, there are a large number of people who would, no doubt, be constant visitors to the house if a suitable program of pictures were provided. Then, of course, there is always a floating population of New York City in search of cheap entertainment.
“Evidently, then, the theater magnates of New York City are seriously considering the moving picture as a moneymaking proposition. Let them go about the business on the lines I have indicated and they will be successful. Half-and-half measures are worse than useless. A half-million of people in New York City daily want good pictures. This is probably a larger number than all the visitors to the vaudeville and theater houses combined and it is worth while catering for, in a liberal, intelligent and generous way.”
A Rex Theatre was in operation in Battle Creek prior to 1913, when it burned on January 13. The house was rebuilt, and for some years thereafter was under the operation of the partnership of Lipp & Cross.
The Post Theatre was considerably more than a vaudeville house in its early years. It was Battle Creek’s leading theater. Its ample stage was designed to accommodate the road shows of major productions, and the house continued to present such fare even after becoming a part-time movie theater. It even supported its own stock company for a while, and also presented musical programs such as a 1924 concert by Paul Whiteman’s orchestra which included the first local performance of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”
The Post Theatre opened on March 13, 1902, with Nat Goodwin and Maxine Elliot staring in a performance of H. V. Esmond’s play When We Were Twenty-one. The Post was mentioned in movie trade publications at least as early as 1915. Berenice Bryant Lowe’s Tales of Battle Creek says that the Post Theatre showed its last movie in 1948 and was demolished seven years later.
Polk’s 1914-1915 Richmond-Contra Costa County directory lists a New Orpheum Theatre in Crockett. That might be an early name for the American, but it could also be an early name for another theater, one which was called the Loring in the 1920s and at least into the late 1930s.
The Loring was in the 800 block of Loring Avenue, on a site that is now part of Rithel Park. If the Loring was not mentioned in 1941, it’s possible that something bad happened to it and the American was its replacement.
If the red brick building showing in Street View was the American Theatre, the building itself must be quite old. I’d guess late 19th or early 20th century. It might have been built for some other use and converted into a theater at any time prior to 1941.
As far as I’ve been able to determine, the only theaters operating in Crockett in the late 1930s were the Loring and the Columbia. That’s why I think the American might have opened only after the Loring closed.
The photo recently uploaded shows that the Columbia Theatre was a few doors down the street from the Granada Theatre. The Columbia’s building is still there, at 213 E. 2nd Street, and now houses a bowling alley called Columbia Recreation Lanes.
A 1914-1915 Polk directory for Contra Costa County lists a theater called the Columbio, located in Valona, which was a community that has since been absorbed into Crockett. It was almost certainly this theater. Columbio might have been a typo, or perhaps that actually was the theater’s name at that time.
The main part of the building the Columbia was in is certainly old enough to have been around in 1915. In fact it looks late Victorian. The modern addition which looks like it was built as a new entrance and lobby for the theater appears to date from the late 1940s or early 1950s.
This house might be found listed in later years as the Lanai Theatre. I don’t know if it ever showed movies under that name, but in 1969 as the Lanai Theatre it was the scene of concerts featuring notable Bay Area bands such as the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service.
Google Maps is apparently flummoxed by the fact that the 500 Block of West 5th Street no longer exists (it has been replaced by a freeway offramp along the same alignment.) The pin icon on Fountain Square is five blocks east of the the Pekin Theatre’s actual location.
Chuck, the Google Map on this page doesn’t show Cincinnati. It doesn’t even show Ohio. It shows a small Wisconsin town called Reedsville.
If you zoom in on the Google map of Cincinnati, you’ll find a small fragment of John Street still exists, buried inside the highway interchange, and running a block and a half north from 3rd Street. It no longer intersects with 5th Street.
Google Maps will probably never be able to find this theater’s location. 5th Street has been replaced by an offramp. The neighborhood is entirely gone.
But I find it inexplicable that Google Maps can’t even find downtown Cincinnati from the zip code on this page. It had no trouble finding Cincinnati for the Pekin Theatre page (even though the map there puts the pin icon on East 5th instead of West 5th, where the theater actually was. The Pekin was just down the block from the Lincoln.)
I also don’t know why the name of the Lincoln’s architectural firm isn’t showing. It was designed by Stewart & Stewart, already listed at Cinema Treasures as architects of the Nordland Theatre.
The Midland Theatre was listed in several issue of Julius Cahn’s Theatrical Guide in the early 1900s. It was a ground-floor house of 983 seats.
In 1909, the Midland was included on a list of theater fires that had occurred so far that year, published in the August 18 issue of The Insurance Press The Midland Theatre fire had taken place on February 1, and had resulted in a loss estimated at $50,000.
There are postcards dated “circa 1910” on various Internet sites that show the Midland Theatre, but I’ve been unable to discover whether or not the house was actually rebuilt following the 1909 fire.
This theater might be on the site of an earlier Osborne Theatre that was destroyed by fire on December 12, 1917, as reported in the January 5, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World. The address of the destroyed theater was not given, but the loss was estimated at $42,000.
The 2004 fire was not the first to strike this building. The January 5, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World reported that the new Lyric Theatre in Frostburg had been heavily damaged by a fire that swept through part of the town’s business district on the previous December 14.
The Rialto opened in 1926. The October 30 issue of The Reel World said that the house had opened the previous Thursday.
An item in an earlier issue of the same publication mentioned the project, and said that the architect of the Rialto was Edwin G. Kratz of Kansas City.
I also found the Savoy Theatre mentioned in a 1926 issue of The Moving Picture World. The operator’s name was William Leucht.
Aside from competition from the new Rialto, the demise of the Savoy Theatre might have been hastened by the advent of talking pictures. Equipping a theater for sound was costly, and beyond the means of many small operators. As a result, small, older theaters such as the Savoy closed by the thousands during the late 1920s.
The Rivoli is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures, unless it is listed under another name but missing the AKA Rivoli. I’ve found brief mentions of several other theaters in St. Joseph that are not yet listed, or perhaps are listed but missing their AKAs. A Star Theatre was mentioned in 1913, A Penn Theatre, a Royal Theatre, an Olive Theatre, a Park Theatre, and a Tootle Theatre were mentioned in the 1920s.
I’ve also found a couple of mentions of a house called the Tivoli, but I think these might have been typos for Rivoli.
The Cameo Theatre currently linked in the “Nearby Theaters” field is actually a duplicate listing for the Rialto.
The web page lostmemory linked to says that this house showed its last movie as the Rialto on April 26, 1958; operated as the Dex Theatre from December 31, 1965 until May 10, 1970; was the Cameo from September 28, 1970, until July 1, 1971; and was last operated as the Astro, from July 2, 1971, until January 20, 1972. As the Astro, it was an adult house from opening until December 17, 1971.
This theater’s building appears to be quite old. It could date from the 1920s or earlier, and its current simple facade is probably the result of a remodeling at some point. The south side neighborhood in which it is located is itself quite old, with many buildings dating from the late 19th and early 20th century. The St. Joseph stockyards, once the largest west of Chicago, were opened in this outlying area of the city in the late 19th century, and for several decades this was a thriving working class district, though not without its posher streets inhabited in part by the managers of the meat packing plants and other industrial enterprises located nearby.
The May 17, 1947, issue of The Billboard mentioned the Rialto Theatre, saying that a half-hour live broadcast of Bud Bailey’s Radio Jamboree, a country music show, was originating at the theater every Monday night. I’ve been unable to find any earlier mentions of the Rialto in any of the entertainment trade publications.
According to the caption of a photo on page 79 of the book “Bristol,” by George Stone (Google Books preview,) The State Theatre opened around 1940 in a building at 503 State Street, which would put it on the Virginia side of the street. The building had been occupied by a nickelodeon called the Eagle Picture Parlor during the silent era, and had later housed a billiard parlor. It doesn’t say when the State Theatre closed, but the building is still standing, now occupied by a Karate studio. It doesn’t look big enough to have held 750 seats, though.
The caption also says that there was a theater called the Isis next door to the Eagle (probably at 505 State Street.) The Isis operated at least into the 1920s. That building is also still standing.
Here is an article in The southwest Times that says the auditorium of the Dalton Theatre collapsed in 1982.
Early plans for Dalton and Richardson’s new theater at Pulaski were announced in the July 26, 1919, issue of The American Contractor. The announcement said that the lot on which the building would be erected was 81x180 feet. The project was to include a three-story office and commercial building as well as the theater. Only the office/commercial portion of the building is still standing. The larger part of the lot, where the theater once stood, is now an ill-kept parking lot.
From Google’s satellite view, it can be seen that the building is in the block of Washington just north of First Street, and adjacent to Peak Creek, the watercourse that runs through the town. That’s the 100 block of Washington, not the 200 block, so the correct address is most likely 106 N. Washington Avenue.
I wonder if the James C. Lombard & Co. mentioned in the NRHP data was a construction company, rather than an architectural firm? The notice in The American Contractor gave the name of the architect as John R. Forsythe, of Baltimore. I can’t find any other references to Lombard & Co. on the Internet, but Forsythe was a fairly well-known architect of the period, and is listed at Cinema Treasures as designer of the Pimlico Theatre in Baltimore. However, the nearly two-year gap between the announcement that Forsythe was drawing plans for the project and the actual opening of the theater might indicate that the original design was abandoned.
The AKA should be Towers Theatre, rather than Tower Theatre. The book Old Louisville, by David Dominé and Ronald Lew Harris, has a 1926 photo showing the plural name on the vertical sign.
This theater is mentioned in the January 2, 1909, issue of The Moving Picture World: “Bridgeport, Conn.—The Park City Moving Picture Theater, now under construction at the corner of Stratford and Newfield avenues, expects to open for business January 4, under the management of W. E. Victory.”
The Moore Theatre was never called the Orpheum, Old or otherwise. It presented Orpheum circuit vaudeville shows from 1916 or 1917 until 1927, but the theater’s name was never changed. The original Seattle Orpheum was an entirely different theater, opened in 1911 at Third Avenue and Madison Street. I’ve been unable to discover what became of the old Orpheum after the new Orpheum opened in 1927. It might have operated for awhile under another name, or it might have simply closed. By 1940, it was being used as storage space, and it was demolished in 1949.
404 Division Avenue South is the address listed for a house called Nichols' Theatre in the 1916 Grand Rapids Directory, and for the Rivoli Theatre in the 1922 directory.
The Ute 70 Theatre was designed by Mel C. Glatz, in association with architect Maynard Rorman, according to a history of Cooper Theatres that was once available on the Cooper Foundation’s web site (it has since been removed.)
The NRHP registration form for the Crest Theatre, available here as a PDF, includes several photos of the theater, as well as a detailed description.
The entry for architect Louis Henry Layton III in the 1970 directory of the AIA lists the Key Theatre in Washington, DC, as one of his works.
The entire even-numbered side of the 200 block of Central Avenue is now a parking lot. The Chief Theatre is gone.
In 1909 this theater, then being operated as the Majestic by the Shubert organization, was converted for a while into a combination movie and vaudeville house. The article about the Majestic in the June 12, 1909, issue of The Moving Picture World is worth quoting in its entirety for the glimpse it offers of the early days of movie exhibition in large theaters:
A Rex Theatre was in operation in Battle Creek prior to 1913, when it burned on January 13. The house was rebuilt, and for some years thereafter was under the operation of the partnership of Lipp & Cross.
The Post Theatre was considerably more than a vaudeville house in its early years. It was Battle Creek’s leading theater. Its ample stage was designed to accommodate the road shows of major productions, and the house continued to present such fare even after becoming a part-time movie theater. It even supported its own stock company for a while, and also presented musical programs such as a 1924 concert by Paul Whiteman’s orchestra which included the first local performance of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”
The Post Theatre opened on March 13, 1902, with Nat Goodwin and Maxine Elliot staring in a performance of H. V. Esmond’s play When We Were Twenty-one. The Post was mentioned in movie trade publications at least as early as 1915. Berenice Bryant Lowe’s Tales of Battle Creek says that the Post Theatre showed its last movie in 1948 and was demolished seven years later.
Polk’s 1914-1915 Richmond-Contra Costa County directory lists a New Orpheum Theatre in Crockett. That might be an early name for the American, but it could also be an early name for another theater, one which was called the Loring in the 1920s and at least into the late 1930s.
The Loring was in the 800 block of Loring Avenue, on a site that is now part of Rithel Park. If the Loring was not mentioned in 1941, it’s possible that something bad happened to it and the American was its replacement.
If the red brick building showing in Street View was the American Theatre, the building itself must be quite old. I’d guess late 19th or early 20th century. It might have been built for some other use and converted into a theater at any time prior to 1941.
As far as I’ve been able to determine, the only theaters operating in Crockett in the late 1930s were the Loring and the Columbia. That’s why I think the American might have opened only after the Loring closed.
The photo recently uploaded shows that the Columbia Theatre was a few doors down the street from the Granada Theatre. The Columbia’s building is still there, at 213 E. 2nd Street, and now houses a bowling alley called Columbia Recreation Lanes.
A 1914-1915 Polk directory for Contra Costa County lists a theater called the Columbio, located in Valona, which was a community that has since been absorbed into Crockett. It was almost certainly this theater. Columbio might have been a typo, or perhaps that actually was the theater’s name at that time.
The main part of the building the Columbia was in is certainly old enough to have been around in 1915. In fact it looks late Victorian. The modern addition which looks like it was built as a new entrance and lobby for the theater appears to date from the late 1940s or early 1950s.
This house might be found listed in later years as the Lanai Theatre. I don’t know if it ever showed movies under that name, but in 1969 as the Lanai Theatre it was the scene of concerts featuring notable Bay Area bands such as the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service.
Google Maps is apparently flummoxed by the fact that the 500 Block of West 5th Street no longer exists (it has been replaced by a freeway offramp along the same alignment.) The pin icon on Fountain Square is five blocks east of the the Pekin Theatre’s actual location.
Chuck, the Google Map on this page doesn’t show Cincinnati. It doesn’t even show Ohio. It shows a small Wisconsin town called Reedsville.
If you zoom in on the Google map of Cincinnati, you’ll find a small fragment of John Street still exists, buried inside the highway interchange, and running a block and a half north from 3rd Street. It no longer intersects with 5th Street.
Google Maps will probably never be able to find this theater’s location. 5th Street has been replaced by an offramp. The neighborhood is entirely gone.
But I find it inexplicable that Google Maps can’t even find downtown Cincinnati from the zip code on this page. It had no trouble finding Cincinnati for the Pekin Theatre page (even though the map there puts the pin icon on East 5th instead of West 5th, where the theater actually was. The Pekin was just down the block from the Lincoln.)
I also don’t know why the name of the Lincoln’s architectural firm isn’t showing. It was designed by Stewart & Stewart, already listed at Cinema Treasures as architects of the Nordland Theatre.
The Midland Theatre was listed in several issue of Julius Cahn’s Theatrical Guide in the early 1900s. It was a ground-floor house of 983 seats.
In 1909, the Midland was included on a list of theater fires that had occurred so far that year, published in the August 18 issue of The Insurance Press The Midland Theatre fire had taken place on February 1, and had resulted in a loss estimated at $50,000.
There are postcards dated “circa 1910” on various Internet sites that show the Midland Theatre, but I’ve been unable to discover whether or not the house was actually rebuilt following the 1909 fire.
This theater might be on the site of an earlier Osborne Theatre that was destroyed by fire on December 12, 1917, as reported in the January 5, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World. The address of the destroyed theater was not given, but the loss was estimated at $42,000.
The 2004 fire was not the first to strike this building. The January 5, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World reported that the new Lyric Theatre in Frostburg had been heavily damaged by a fire that swept through part of the town’s business district on the previous December 14.
The Rialto opened in 1926. The October 30 issue of The Reel World said that the house had opened the previous Thursday.
An item in an earlier issue of the same publication mentioned the project, and said that the architect of the Rialto was Edwin G. Kratz of Kansas City.
I also found the Savoy Theatre mentioned in a 1926 issue of The Moving Picture World. The operator’s name was William Leucht.
Aside from competition from the new Rialto, the demise of the Savoy Theatre might have been hastened by the advent of talking pictures. Equipping a theater for sound was costly, and beyond the means of many small operators. As a result, small, older theaters such as the Savoy closed by the thousands during the late 1920s.
The Rivoli is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures, unless it is listed under another name but missing the AKA Rivoli. I’ve found brief mentions of several other theaters in St. Joseph that are not yet listed, or perhaps are listed but missing their AKAs. A Star Theatre was mentioned in 1913, A Penn Theatre, a Royal Theatre, an Olive Theatre, a Park Theatre, and a Tootle Theatre were mentioned in the 1920s.
I’ve also found a couple of mentions of a house called the Tivoli, but I think these might have been typos for Rivoli.
The Cameo Theatre currently linked in the “Nearby Theaters” field is actually a duplicate listing for the Rialto.
The web page lostmemory linked to says that this house showed its last movie as the Rialto on April 26, 1958; operated as the Dex Theatre from December 31, 1965 until May 10, 1970; was the Cameo from September 28, 1970, until July 1, 1971; and was last operated as the Astro, from July 2, 1971, until January 20, 1972. As the Astro, it was an adult house from opening until December 17, 1971.
This theater’s building appears to be quite old. It could date from the 1920s or earlier, and its current simple facade is probably the result of a remodeling at some point. The south side neighborhood in which it is located is itself quite old, with many buildings dating from the late 19th and early 20th century. The St. Joseph stockyards, once the largest west of Chicago, were opened in this outlying area of the city in the late 19th century, and for several decades this was a thriving working class district, though not without its posher streets inhabited in part by the managers of the meat packing plants and other industrial enterprises located nearby.
The May 17, 1947, issue of The Billboard mentioned the Rialto Theatre, saying that a half-hour live broadcast of Bud Bailey’s Radio Jamboree, a country music show, was originating at the theater every Monday night. I’ve been unable to find any earlier mentions of the Rialto in any of the entertainment trade publications.
According to the caption of a photo on page 79 of the book “Bristol,” by George Stone (Google Books preview,) The State Theatre opened around 1940 in a building at 503 State Street, which would put it on the Virginia side of the street. The building had been occupied by a nickelodeon called the Eagle Picture Parlor during the silent era, and had later housed a billiard parlor. It doesn’t say when the State Theatre closed, but the building is still standing, now occupied by a Karate studio. It doesn’t look big enough to have held 750 seats, though.
The caption also says that there was a theater called the Isis next door to the Eagle (probably at 505 State Street.) The Isis operated at least into the 1920s. That building is also still standing.
The Columbia Theatre, opened in 1912 and closed in 1957, has been demolished.
Here is an article in The southwest Times that says the auditorium of the Dalton Theatre collapsed in 1982.
Early plans for Dalton and Richardson’s new theater at Pulaski were announced in the July 26, 1919, issue of The American Contractor. The announcement said that the lot on which the building would be erected was 81x180 feet. The project was to include a three-story office and commercial building as well as the theater. Only the office/commercial portion of the building is still standing. The larger part of the lot, where the theater once stood, is now an ill-kept parking lot.
From Google’s satellite view, it can be seen that the building is in the block of Washington just north of First Street, and adjacent to Peak Creek, the watercourse that runs through the town. That’s the 100 block of Washington, not the 200 block, so the correct address is most likely 106 N. Washington Avenue.
I wonder if the James C. Lombard & Co. mentioned in the NRHP data was a construction company, rather than an architectural firm? The notice in The American Contractor gave the name of the architect as John R. Forsythe, of Baltimore. I can’t find any other references to Lombard & Co. on the Internet, but Forsythe was a fairly well-known architect of the period, and is listed at Cinema Treasures as designer of the Pimlico Theatre in Baltimore. However, the nearly two-year gap between the announcement that Forsythe was drawing plans for the project and the actual opening of the theater might indicate that the original design was abandoned.
The AKA should be Towers Theatre, rather than Tower Theatre. The book Old Louisville, by David Dominé and Ronald Lew Harris, has a 1926 photo showing the plural name on the vertical sign.
This theater is mentioned in the January 2, 1909, issue of The Moving Picture World: “Bridgeport, Conn.—The Park City Moving Picture Theater, now under construction at the corner of Stratford and Newfield avenues, expects to open for business January 4, under the management of W. E. Victory.”
The Moore Theatre was never called the Orpheum, Old or otherwise. It presented Orpheum circuit vaudeville shows from 1916 or 1917 until 1927, but the theater’s name was never changed. The original Seattle Orpheum was an entirely different theater, opened in 1911 at Third Avenue and Madison Street. I’ve been unable to discover what became of the old Orpheum after the new Orpheum opened in 1927. It might have operated for awhile under another name, or it might have simply closed. By 1940, it was being used as storage space, and it was demolished in 1949.
The Superba Theatre is also listed in the 1916 city directory, at the same address.
404 Division Avenue South is the address listed for a house called Nichols' Theatre in the 1916 Grand Rapids Directory, and for the Rivoli Theatre in the 1922 directory.