“Historic Signs of Savannah,” by Justin Gunther (Google Books preview,) says that the Roxy Theatre was demolished to make way for a Woolworth store that was opened in 1954.
“Historic Signs of Savannah,” by Justin Gunther (Google Books preview,) says that the Avon Theatre was built in 1944. A smaller theater originally called the Folly and later the Band Box was demolished to provide space for its entrance building, and its auditorium was on a lot fronting on State Street. The Avon closed in 1970, and the auditorium has been demolished, but the entrance building, now a restaurant, still sports the Avon’s semicircular marquee.
The architectural firm responsible for the Empire Theatre was Mauran, Russell & Crowell (John Lawrence Mauran, Ernest John Russell, and William DeForrest Crowell.) Quite a few Internet sources give Crowell’s surname as Crowe, but reliable period sources such as Western Architect invariably say Crowell.
A biography of architect John Lawrence Mauran indicates that this theater was designed toward the end of the period when he was a partner in Mauran, Russell & Garden (with Ernest John Russell and Edward G. Garden,) and before the successor firm of Mauran, Russell & Crowell was formed (note correct spelling of William DeForrest Crowell’s surname.) Garden left the firm in 1909, the year this theater would have been designed, and Crowell became a partner in 1911, the year after the theater opened.
The Georgia Historical Society site doesn’t specifically say that the Palace opened in 1910, only that Oliver Hardy remained in Milledgeville and worked at the Palace when his mother left town in 1910, and that the Palace was the town’s first movie theater. Unless there is some other source that provides firm 1910 opening date for the Palace, we have to consider the possibility that the theater might have been in operation for some time before Oliver Hardy became its manager.
In fact it seems very unlikely that Milledgeville would not have gotten its first movie house until 1910. It was a good-sized town by 1900, with over 4000 people, and had actually been Georgia’s capital city from 1804 until 1868.
If the Palace did open as late as 1910, it probably wasn’t Milledgeville’s first movie theater. The September 19, 1908, issue of The Moving Picture World had this item: “Milledgeville, Ga.—F. W. Butts has leased a store in the Elks Building and will install a moving picture show.”
Perhaps Mr. Butts' project never got off the ground, or perhaps his theater’s existence was very brief and has been forgotten by local historians. I’ve been unable to find any other information about the Elks Building except for a Wikipedia article about the Twin Lakes Library System, which says that Milledgeville’s first library opened in the vacant Elks Building in 1938, but it indicates that the building was located on Hancock Street, so Mr. Butts' 1908 project must not have been the Palace Theatre.
Naughtius: The theater at 20th and Farnam is the former Paramount, known as the Astro from 1962 until it closed as a movie theater, and now restored and reopened as the Rose Blumkin Performing Arts Center.
The architect of the Big Nickel Theatre was John Wilson Siddall. I will upload a photo of the facade as it originally appeared in 1913, from the trade journal Construction.
A one-storey annex of the Telephone Company building now occupies the site of the State Theatre. David B. Owens' book “Conneaut” (Google Books Preview says that the State was closed and demolished in 1966. The address of the original telephone building is 228 State Street, so the adjacent theater’s address would have been approximately 224 State.
An aerial photo on page 67 of Owens' book shows that the State Theatre had a stage house, while the Ohio Theatre at the east end of the block did not. The State was probably the older of the two theaters. Page 74 of the book has both exterior and interior photos of the State Theatre.
The Ohio Theatre has been demolished. The book “Conneaut,” by David B. Owens, says that it was torn down in 1960 and replaced by a drive-in restaurant. Today the site is occupied by a filling station.
Owens' book (Google Books preview) has an undated aerial photo that shows the relationship between the Ohio and the State Theatre down the block. The State had a stage tower, and the Ohio did not, but the auditoriums looked to be about the same size.
I ought to have mentioned that the photo in the book is the same one Don linked to in the first comment. The significant information is that in the caption that reveals the address.
There’s a 1920s photo of Main Street on page 71 of the book “Conneaut,” by David P. Owens, and it shows the Academy Theatre (Google Books preview.) It looks like a small nickelodeon-style house. The photo caption says that the building is still standing and is occupied by Gerdes Pharmacy. The Internet says that Gerdes Pharmacy is at 245 Main Street.
Perhaps someone with a long memory will recognize the photo a lower right on this page of the January 8, 1938, issue of Boxoffice. It illustrates an article about rubber mats for theater entrances, and shows the outer lobby of the Satuit Playhouse.
Mike, unless this house sat dark for a full year after being completed, you’re a year late on the opening date. Architect Edward Paul Lewin wrote a three-page article about the Times Theatre for Boxoffice, which appeared in the issue of April 30, 1938. It has several photos of the theater.
The January 8 issue of Boxoffice the same year had another article about the project, also penned by Lewin, which featured some of his renderings of the design.
The August 27, 1919, issue of The American Architect published an early announcement about the plans for the Victory Theatre, though it placed the site at Suffolk and Chestnut Streets rather than Suffolk and Walnut:
“HOLYOKE, MASS.—An up-to-date theater, seating 2420 people, which can stage vaudeville, moving pictures, a stock company or legitimate plays, is to be erected by the Victory Theater Co., of which Nathan Goldstein of Springfield, Mass., is president. This company has purchased the lot at the corner of Suffolk and Chestnut Sts. and will erect a $350,000 playhouse from the plans of Mowll & Rand, Unity Bldg., Boston. Mass. The building will also include a number of stores.”
Later notices in other publications reduced the cost of the project to $250,000, but Mowll & Rand were still listed as the architects.
The current restoration of the Victory Theatre is designed by the Providence, Rhode Island, firm DBVW Architects (Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels.) Their web site currently features a rendering of how the completed project will look, plus four current photos of the theater.
The Palm Theatre opened even earlier than the 1920s. One modern source says that it opened in December, 1913. The earliest reference I’ve found in trade publications of the period appears in the July 12, 1913 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“A new company will be formed In Rockford to operate a moving picture show at 105 West State Street. Charles Lamb, manager of the Grand Opera House, will be at the head of the company. The building will be remodeled and an arcade front will be placed. The construction is to be such that the theater can be reached in the summer time from the river front as well as from the State Street entrance.”
The July 26, 1913, issue of the same publication had the first mention of the theater’s name:
“Plans for the new Palm Theater in Rockford, which are now being prepared by Architect Frank A. Carpenter, calls for a departure from moving picture theaters in that city. The Arcade will have a soda fountain, a cigar stand and a candy booth. The operator and machine will be outside of the building, [in a] hut opening into the auditorium. It is also expected to have a roof garden 20x95 feet over the auditorium. The building, which is now occupied by an electric company, will be vacated about the middle of July. The theater will be financed by an organization known as the Palm Amusement Company, and will have a capital stock of $25,000.”
The August 2, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World had annother announcement:
“The Palm Amusement Company, of Bockford, has been incorporated, with a capital stock of $25,000, to do a general amusement business and to conduct a vaudeville show and music hall. The incorporators are: Charles Lamb, Fred B. Sterling and Fred E. Carpenter.”
In 1917, the Palm Theatre was expanded, as noted in this item from the August 1 issue of The American Contractor:
“Rockford, Ill.—Theater (rear add.): 35x50. Rockford. Archts. C. W. & Geo. L. Rapp, 69 W. Washington St., Chicago. Owner Palm Theater Co., care archts. Plans drawn.”
The September 1 issue of the same publication said that construction of the addition’s walls was underway.
Memory can be tricky. For years, I had a vivid memory of a particular theater in Los Angeles that turned out never to have existed. After discovering that my memory was false, I’ve realized that I’d rather forget the details of something real than remember something that never was real.
I’ve been searching the Internet for more information about theaters in Carthage, but have found very little. I found a reference to a Royal Theatre in Carthage in 1924, but no details about it.
The Delphus Theatre had a near neighbor, the Burlingame and Chaffee Opera House, spotlighted in this Carthage Press post, but that house closed in the 1890s and probably never ran movies.
The same post mentions a Grand Opera House, which opened in the 1890s at 4th and Lincoln. The Google Street View of that intersection doesn’t show anything resembling a theater standing there today. I’ve found references to it being in operation as late as 1908, so it’s possible that it lasted long enough to become a movie house for a while.
Given the slim pickings on the Internet, more information about the theaters in Carthage will probably have to wait until somebody with access to local sources turns up here. We’re always glad to have more contributors adding to the database.
All that’s left of the State Theatre is the lower part of one side wall. The front end of the wall, as seen at the left side of the photo lostmemory linked to, can still be picked out in Google Street View.
The Roanoke Theatre at 39th and Summit Streets was mentioned in the February 16, 1924, issue of The Reel Journal. The house had just been purchased by L. J. Lenhart, formerly of the Gladstone Theatre. Mr.Lenhart planned to expand the Roanoke by about 200 seats, remodel the front, and redecorate throughout.
In 1923-24, this house was operating as the Pershing Theatre, managed by Fred Meyn. Mr. Meyn wrote a letter to distributor Film Classics praising the Warner Brothers movies they distributed, which had been very popular at his theater. The letter was published in an ad for Film Classics in the January 19, 1924, issue of The Reel Journal.
The Royal Theatre was mentioned in the January 26, 1924, issue of The Reel Journal, which said that it was the only theater still operating in Hoisington following the closure of the Crystal Theatre, which was being dismantled for other uses.
It’s possible that the Royal was the proposed $40,000 theater mentioned in the June 1, 1916, issue of American Stone Trade: “Hoisington, Kan.—W. E. Hulse & Co., architects, Hutchinson Kan., preparing plans for theater building; $40,000: brick and stone.”
The Benton Theatre, at Independence and Benton Boulevards, was in operation at least as early as 1923. The Pathe Exchange in Kansas City received a letter from the theater’s operator, J. W. Watson, dated January 21, 1923, praising the Pathe serial “The Way of a Man.” The letter was published in the exchange’s advertisement in the February 2, 1924, issue of The Reel Journal.
The Casino was apparently a different theater from the Beyer. An NRHP form has a paragraph about an Excelsior Springs businessman named R. B. Christian, who was “…the owner/operator of the Casino and the Beyer Theaters.”
An Excelsior Springs house called the Beyer Theatre was mentioned in the February 2, 1924, issue of The Reel Journal. Its new manager, John Judd, had previously been associated with the Orpheum Theatre, also in Excelsior Springs.
This web page has three ads from the theater’s early days, and says that in 1924 it was called Byer’s Casino Theater.
“Historic Signs of Savannah,” by Justin Gunther (Google Books preview,) says that the Roxy Theatre was demolished to make way for a Woolworth store that was opened in 1954.
“Historic Signs of Savannah,” by Justin Gunther (Google Books preview,) says that the Avon Theatre was built in 1944. A smaller theater originally called the Folly and later the Band Box was demolished to provide space for its entrance building, and its auditorium was on a lot fronting on State Street. The Avon closed in 1970, and the auditorium has been demolished, but the entrance building, now a restaurant, still sports the Avon’s semicircular marquee.
The architectural firm responsible for the Empire Theatre was Mauran, Russell & Crowell (John Lawrence Mauran, Ernest John Russell, and William DeForrest Crowell.) Quite a few Internet sources give Crowell’s surname as Crowe, but reliable period sources such as Western Architect invariably say Crowell.
A biography of architect John Lawrence Mauran indicates that this theater was designed toward the end of the period when he was a partner in Mauran, Russell & Garden (with Ernest John Russell and Edward G. Garden,) and before the successor firm of Mauran, Russell & Crowell was formed (note correct spelling of William DeForrest Crowell’s surname.) Garden left the firm in 1909, the year this theater would have been designed, and Crowell became a partner in 1911, the year after the theater opened.
The Georgia Historical Society site doesn’t specifically say that the Palace opened in 1910, only that Oliver Hardy remained in Milledgeville and worked at the Palace when his mother left town in 1910, and that the Palace was the town’s first movie theater. Unless there is some other source that provides firm 1910 opening date for the Palace, we have to consider the possibility that the theater might have been in operation for some time before Oliver Hardy became its manager.
In fact it seems very unlikely that Milledgeville would not have gotten its first movie house until 1910. It was a good-sized town by 1900, with over 4000 people, and had actually been Georgia’s capital city from 1804 until 1868.
If the Palace did open as late as 1910, it probably wasn’t Milledgeville’s first movie theater. The September 19, 1908, issue of The Moving Picture World had this item: “Milledgeville, Ga.—F. W. Butts has leased a store in the Elks Building and will install a moving picture show.”
Perhaps Mr. Butts' project never got off the ground, or perhaps his theater’s existence was very brief and has been forgotten by local historians. I’ve been unable to find any other information about the Elks Building except for a Wikipedia article about the Twin Lakes Library System, which says that Milledgeville’s first library opened in the vacant Elks Building in 1938, but it indicates that the building was located on Hancock Street, so Mr. Butts' 1908 project must not have been the Palace Theatre.
Naughtius: The theater at 20th and Farnam is the former Paramount, known as the Astro from 1962 until it closed as a movie theater, and now restored and reopened as the Rose Blumkin Performing Arts Center.
The architect of the Big Nickel Theatre was John Wilson Siddall. I will upload a photo of the facade as it originally appeared in 1913, from the trade journal Construction.
A one-storey annex of the Telephone Company building now occupies the site of the State Theatre. David B. Owens' book “Conneaut” (Google Books Preview says that the State was closed and demolished in 1966. The address of the original telephone building is 228 State Street, so the adjacent theater’s address would have been approximately 224 State.
An aerial photo on page 67 of Owens' book shows that the State Theatre had a stage house, while the Ohio Theatre at the east end of the block did not. The State was probably the older of the two theaters. Page 74 of the book has both exterior and interior photos of the State Theatre.
The Ohio Theatre has been demolished. The book “Conneaut,” by David B. Owens, says that it was torn down in 1960 and replaced by a drive-in restaurant. Today the site is occupied by a filling station.
Owens' book (Google Books preview) has an undated aerial photo that shows the relationship between the Ohio and the State Theatre down the block. The State had a stage tower, and the Ohio did not, but the auditoriums looked to be about the same size.
I ought to have mentioned that the photo in the book is the same one Don linked to in the first comment. The significant information is that in the caption that reveals the address.
There’s a 1920s photo of Main Street on page 71 of the book “Conneaut,” by David P. Owens, and it shows the Academy Theatre (Google Books preview.) It looks like a small nickelodeon-style house. The photo caption says that the building is still standing and is occupied by Gerdes Pharmacy. The Internet says that Gerdes Pharmacy is at 245 Main Street.
Perhaps someone with a long memory will recognize the photo a lower right on this page of the January 8, 1938, issue of Boxoffice. It illustrates an article about rubber mats for theater entrances, and shows the outer lobby of the Satuit Playhouse.
Here is a fresh link to the 1938 Boxoffice article about glass blocks, which features two photos of the Webster Theatre.
A photo of the lobby of the Beach Cliff Theatre appeared as the frontispiece of the Modern Theatre section of Boxoffice of January 8, 1938.
Mike, unless this house sat dark for a full year after being completed, you’re a year late on the opening date. Architect Edward Paul Lewin wrote a three-page article about the Times Theatre for Boxoffice, which appeared in the issue of April 30, 1938. It has several photos of the theater.
The January 8 issue of Boxoffice the same year had another article about the project, also penned by Lewin, which featured some of his renderings of the design.
The August 27, 1919, issue of The American Architect published an early announcement about the plans for the Victory Theatre, though it placed the site at Suffolk and Chestnut Streets rather than Suffolk and Walnut:
Later notices in other publications reduced the cost of the project to $250,000, but Mowll & Rand were still listed as the architects.The current restoration of the Victory Theatre is designed by the Providence, Rhode Island, firm DBVW Architects (Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels.) Their web site currently features a rendering of how the completed project will look, plus four current photos of the theater.
The Palm Theatre opened even earlier than the 1920s. One modern source says that it opened in December, 1913. The earliest reference I’ve found in trade publications of the period appears in the July 12, 1913 issue of The Moving Picture World:
The July 26, 1913, issue of the same publication had the first mention of the theater’s name:The August 2, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World had annother announcement:In 1917, the Palm Theatre was expanded, as noted in this item from the August 1 issue of The American Contractor:The September 1 issue of the same publication said that construction of the addition’s walls was underway.Memory can be tricky. For years, I had a vivid memory of a particular theater in Los Angeles that turned out never to have existed. After discovering that my memory was false, I’ve realized that I’d rather forget the details of something real than remember something that never was real.
I’ve been searching the Internet for more information about theaters in Carthage, but have found very little. I found a reference to a Royal Theatre in Carthage in 1924, but no details about it.
The Delphus Theatre had a near neighbor, the Burlingame and Chaffee Opera House, spotlighted in this Carthage Press post, but that house closed in the 1890s and probably never ran movies.
The same post mentions a Grand Opera House, which opened in the 1890s at 4th and Lincoln. The Google Street View of that intersection doesn’t show anything resembling a theater standing there today. I’ve found references to it being in operation as late as 1908, so it’s possible that it lasted long enough to become a movie house for a while.
Given the slim pickings on the Internet, more information about the theaters in Carthage will probably have to wait until somebody with access to local sources turns up here. We’re always glad to have more contributors adding to the database.
All that’s left of the State Theatre is the lower part of one side wall. The front end of the wall, as seen at the left side of the photo lostmemory linked to, can still be picked out in Google Street View.
The Roanoke Theatre at 39th and Summit Streets was mentioned in the February 16, 1924, issue of The Reel Journal. The house had just been purchased by L. J. Lenhart, formerly of the Gladstone Theatre. Mr.Lenhart planned to expand the Roanoke by about 200 seats, remodel the front, and redecorate throughout.
In 1923-24, this house was operating as the Pershing Theatre, managed by Fred Meyn. Mr. Meyn wrote a letter to distributor Film Classics praising the Warner Brothers movies they distributed, which had been very popular at his theater. The letter was published in an ad for Film Classics in the January 19, 1924, issue of The Reel Journal.
The Royal Theatre was mentioned in the January 26, 1924, issue of The Reel Journal, which said that it was the only theater still operating in Hoisington following the closure of the Crystal Theatre, which was being dismantled for other uses.
It’s possible that the Royal was the proposed $40,000 theater mentioned in the June 1, 1916, issue of American Stone Trade: “Hoisington, Kan.—W. E. Hulse & Co., architects, Hutchinson Kan., preparing plans for theater building; $40,000: brick and stone.”
The Benton Theatre, at Independence and Benton Boulevards, was in operation at least as early as 1923. The Pathe Exchange in Kansas City received a letter from the theater’s operator, J. W. Watson, dated January 21, 1923, praising the Pathe serial “The Way of a Man.” The letter was published in the exchange’s advertisement in the February 2, 1924, issue of The Reel Journal.
The Casino was apparently a different theater from the Beyer. An NRHP form has a paragraph about an Excelsior Springs businessman named R. B. Christian, who was “…the owner/operator of the Casino and the Beyer Theaters.”
Here’s a web page with ads for the Casino Theatre.
The “Orpheum” mentioned in the 1924 Reel Journal item was probably the Orpheus Theatre in this ad.
An Excelsior Springs house called the Beyer Theatre was mentioned in the February 2, 1924, issue of The Reel Journal. Its new manager, John Judd, had previously been associated with the Orpheum Theatre, also in Excelsior Springs.
This web page has three ads from the theater’s early days, and says that in 1924 it was called Byer’s Casino Theater.