The Scenic Temple was definitely in operation by 1908, as contemporary sources indicate that it was used as a dispensary distributing station during the Chelsea fire, which began on April 12 that year (see The Burning of Chelsea, published in 1908.)
Here is a link to the Scenic Temple listing in the 1908-1909 Cahn Guide. It notes that Chelsea still had no regular theaters, but there were two other movie houses in town; the Star and the Theatorium.
I wonder if the name “Stueal” on the 1909 building permit for this theater was actually “Wuest” written by someone with a sloppy hand? Stueal might be a real surname, although Ancestry.com’s immigration records find only one person of that name. The form on which it was found could have been a bureaucratic error, of course. I can’t find any other references on the Internet to anyone named Stueal, except in results from Cinema Treasures.
I’ve found several references to Gustav P. Wuest, though, in publications from the 1910s as well as in a couple of documents prepared for nominations of buildings to the National Register of Historic Places.
The Arcadia Press book Oakland, by Walter C. Kidney, attributes the design of the facade of the Schenley Theatre to Henry Hornbostel. As Hornbostel did design (or collaborate on) other buildings in the Schenley Park neighborhood, it’s possible that he did collaborate on the theater project as well.
The April 8, 1915, issue of Engineering News has an article with structural drawings of the Schenley Theatre and a description of its construction. The article also says that the Davis Theatre in Pittsburgh, then under construction, had been designed by the same architects and engineers.
In an item in the January 5, 1914, issue of the journal American Stone Trade, architect Henry Hornbostle, to whom two sources that I know of attribute the design of the Liberty, was said to have “approved” the plans of the Schenley Theatre, a project designed by the architectural firm of H.E. Kennedy & Company.
On the Sheridan Square Theatre page, a comment by Denis McNamara (probably this architectural historian, by the way) says that architect Edward J. Schulte, who was working in Kennedy’s firm during the period when these theaters were built, listed the Sheridan Square, Schenley, and Liberty on his resume.
Despite the source I cited in my earlier comment above, and the book about Hornbostel reviewed here, I’m now wondering what roles Hornbostel and Schulte each played in the design of the Liberty. Unfortunately, there is much more information about the Schenley than the Liberty on the Internet, so I’ve been unable to track down any references from the 1910s that would confirm Schulte’s involvement in the project.
I’ve found nothing published prior to 2002 that mentions Hornbostel in connection with the Liberty, either, and I still find it odd that so restrained a classicist as Horbostel would have designed a theater that, as described by the book review to which I linked, featured “…white, glazed terra cotta tiles framing an American flag composed of red, white and blue light bulbs.”
Additional information about the Schenley Theatre from the January 5, 1914, issue of American Stone Trade: “Ground was broken this week for the new Schenley Theater to be built by Harry Davis and John P. Harris in Forbes street, opposite the Hotel Schenley, from plans by the H. E. Kennedy Company of this city and approved by Architect Henry Hornbostle. The theater in many respects will be one of the most artistic in this city.”
This, coupled with the information from Denis McNamara about Edward Schulte (see my previous comment) leads me to question the attribution of the design of the Liberty Theatre to Henry Hornbostle. I’ll comment further on the Liberty page.
A comment by Denis McNamara on the Sheridan Square Theatre page says that architect Edward J. Schulte listed this theater on his resume as his work. He was employed by H.E. Kennedy & Co. at the time. The following item appears in the August 5, 1913, issue of the journal American Stone Trade: “Architects H. E. Kennedy & Company, of this city, are preparing plans for $200.000 theater to be known as the Schenley, and to be built for Harry Davis and John P. Harris, well known amusement men of Pittsburgh. It will be erected near the opening of Schenley Park.”
The November 8, 1913, issue of trade journal The Moving Picture World had this item: “The Cameraphone Co., of Pittsburgh, H. Beatty, General Mgr., has added two more houses to their string. Cameraphone, at Sharpsburgh, seating capacity 530; Cameraphone, 1600 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, seating capacity 500, all doing good business.”
Five theaters were opened under the name Cameraphone by T.M. Barnesdale in 1908. These included the Cameraphone in East Liberty and the Cameraphone “…on lower Fifth avenue….” in Downtown Pittsburgh (I think this latter must have been the house at 347 Fifth Avenue that later became the Cameo Theatre.) A third Cameraphone was on Carson Street on the south side, according to this article in the July 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World.
The East Liberty Cameraphone was taken over by a partnership of H.B. Kester and W.C. Beatty not long after it opened. The H. Beatty who was general manager of the Cameraphone Company in 1913 was most likely a relative of W.C. Beatty. Kester was apparently out of the partnership by 1913, though he still operated the East Liberty Cameraphone. The Cameraphone Company that operated this house was established in 1913, and its president was James B. Clark.
The East Liberty Cameraphone dates to 1908. It was one of five Cameraphone theaters that were opened that year by T.M. Barnesdale. Three of them, including the East Liberty house, presented early talking pictures. The experiment with sound soon failed, and the theater was taken over by H.B. Kester and W.C. Beatty, who operated it as a regular silent movie theater. The house opened with 400 seats, was expanded to 700 seats in 1910, and expanded again to 900 seats in 1914.
Trade journal The Moving Picture World had an article about Pittsburgh area exhibitors in its issue of July 15, 1916, and it included a section titled Kester and His Cameraphone. Kester operated the East Liberty Cameraphone at least as late as 1926, when it was mentioned in the Film Daily Yearbook.
Aerial views show that this entire block is now a parking lot. The Paramount has been demolished, as comments above note.
The listed seating capacity of 2,600 for this house must be wrong. From the photos of the theater it’s clear that this building couldn’t have held that many seats— probably not even half that number.
The various photos showing the side wall of the Paramount reveal that the building was quite old. It dated from no later than the early 20th century. This genealogy page refers to “The Old Marlowe Theater, that is now the State Theater….” The Marlowe Theatre was listed in the the 1904-1905 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide as a 1,050-seat, ground-floor house. This photo of the Marlowe’s auditorium (dated 1934 by the New York Public Library) makes an interesting comparison with the Paramount’s remodeled auditorium (that’s the same photo Chuck linked to above.) The interior was obviously gutted, either when it was remodeled as the Paramount or earlier, when it was renamed the State.
Volume 205 of the legal publication The Southwestern Reporter has information about a case involving the installation of a heating and ventilation system in the Lyric Theatre at Jackson, Tennessee. The initial contract for the system had been signed on July 9, 1913. Another case, in volume 203 of the same publication, involved a vacuum cleaning system installed in the house. It’s clear from the articles that the house was in operation during at least part of 1913, and most likely was built that year. A balcony is mentioned in one of the articles, so the Lyric was probably a good-sized theater, not just a small nickelodeon.
There are conflicting reports about the theaters in Warsaw, but this house should probably be listed as the Boice Theatre, with Centennial as an aka. It was built in either 1916 or 1917, became the Boice Theatre in 1955, and operated until 1973. A comment on this message board page says that the theater that was the Boice in the 1950s had once been the Centennial, and that it had been built in 1916. It suggests that the Centennial might have been closed for a long time before being reopened as the Boice, and the building might have had some other use in the meantime, but that’s not certain.
But then this 2005 Union-News article says that the Boice was “newly built” in 1955. I’m inclined to think that’s wrong, as the building on the corner today has the same form as the one in the picture Lost Memory linked to (though it’s been refaced with modern materials,) and that was clearly an old building with a stage house. The article also says the house was operated by the Boices until it was destroyed by a fire in 1973, but this 1968 article about Ralph and Gladys Boice says that they had by then retired from the theater business and had recently leased the Boice Theatre to a Roger Vores.
The Boices had begun operating the Strand Theatre on North Buffalo Street in 1931, according to the 1968 article. I’ve also come across a reference to a Bell Theatre in Warsaw, the name of which was changed to the New Grand in late 1915. A house called the Royal was operating in Warsaw at the same time (it’s possible that one or the other of these might have become the Strand.) The old Warsaw Opera House might have been operating as a movie theater at that time, too, as it was mentioned in same issue of The Motion Picture World, January 1, 1916. However, this page with a history of the Opera House doesn’t mention it being used for movies. The Opera House was destroyed by a fire in 1967. The same page gives the opening year of the Centennial as 1917, rather than 1916.
There was an Olympic Theatre in operation at Steubenville at least as early as 1916. In 1917, the Olympic’s operators were involved in a lawsuit over events that took place in the theater around August 1, 1916. A description of the case was published in the 1918 Ohio Circuit Court Reports. Given the old fashioned style of the building seen in the photo ken mc linked to above, the Olympic Theatre in the court case was probably this house.
Boxoffice of June 5, 1954, reported that the Esquire Theatre in Stockton was to be closed to make way for a new J.C. Penney department store. The item did not specify if the building was to be demolished, or merely adapted for the store.
The Esquire had been open less than eight years when it closed. A Boxoffice article of May 18, 1946, mentions in passing that the Esquire Theatre in Stockton was “nearly completed.” Work was delayed, though, and a short article in the December 14 issue that year announced that the Esquire had finally opened after thirteen months of construction.
The house had cost $200,000 to build and equip, and was Stockton’s fourth first run theater. Boxoffice gave the seating capacity as 1190, and described the auditorium as being decorated with fluorescent murals having a Chinese theme.
The 1954 article about the closing also said that Blumenthal Theatres was in negotiations to take over the recently closed State Theatre, and planned to move the Esquire name to that house. According to comments by ksutterfield on the State Theatre page (Nov 29, 2009, and Dec 1, 2009,) the State did become the second Esquire, and he worked at the house from 1960 to 1963.
Boxoffice of June 5, 1954, reported that the Blumenthal circuit’s Sierra Theatre in Stockton had recently been closed to make way for two stores. It didn’t say if the building was to be demolished, or merely converted to retail use.
The photos at the second link in my previous comment are now enlarging properly, so I guess they worked the bugs out of their program. One of the images is the original floor plan of the theater from the office of architect Herbert W. Simpson.
The official web site gives the address of the Athens Theatre as 414 Pollock Street. The zip code is 28560.
Correction: The misspelling of the architects name was in a later issue of Daily Bulletin of the Manufacturers Record. Unlike me, they got it right the first time. The correct name is Fred A. Henderich.
It turns out that Brick and Clay Record spelled the architect’s name wrong. The Jefferson Theatre was being designed by Fred A. Henderich, according to the Daily Bulletin of the Manufacturers Record, February 4, 1907. A quick Google search reveals that Henderich was one of St. Augustine’s leading architects during the first half of the 20th century, and several of his buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s too bad the Jefferson Theatre didn’t survive long enough to become one of them.
This page from the Wheeling Jamboree web site features photos of the various venues that hosted the show over the years. There is a view of the Virginia’s auditorium seen from the stage. The gallery (aka second balcony) was positively vertiginous.
The January 28, 1915, issue of trade journal Iron Age noted that the J.E. Moss Iron Works had closed a contract to supply 100 tons of structural steel for the new Rex Theatre at Wheeling.
A 1936 flood sent several feet of water along Market Street, nearly reaching the underside of the marquee of the Rex, as seen in a photo in “The Great Ohio River Flood of 1937” by James E. Casto (Google Books preview.)
From 1962 until 1965, the Rex was the venue from which station WWVA broadcast its weekly live music program, WWVA Jamboree. This web page features photos of the various venues that hosted the Jamboree over the years. The page also says that the Rex was known briefly as the Coronet Theatre, and that it was demolished in the early 1990s.
This history of radio station WWVA mentions the Virginia Theatre a few times. From 1934-1936, and from 1946-1962, the broadcasts of its live music show “WWVA Jamboree” originated from the Virginia. The following excerpt, dealing with events of 1962, indicates the age of the theater and its fate:[quote]“Meanwhile, in the Virginia Theatre, the Jamboree continued to enjoy a surging popularity with both radio listeners and visiting fans. All the while, however, an unseen ‘player’ was lurking in the wings, a questionable character known as ‘PROGRESS’, and its appearance spelled doom for the historic 54 year old theatre that had been home for the Jamboree since 1946. The Virginia was doomed for demolition and the Jamboree would be forced to seek a new location.
“Thus it was, that on a hot Saturday night in mid-July 1962, the old Virginia Theatre curtain fell for one final time on the Jamboree show, bringing to an end a truly memorable period in Jamboree history. The following week, the Jamboree show opened at the Rex Theatre, only a few blocks from the Virginia.”[/quote]80 12th St. is definitely the current address of the Board of Trade Building. As the Court was still operating in 1981, and the Virginia was demolished in (or shortly after) 1962, they can’t be the same theater, and yet quite a few sources on the Internet give 80 12th Street as the address for both the Board of Trade Building and the Virginia Theatre. In fact, the Virginia was next door to the Board of Trade Building, as seen in this photo (you’ll probably have to scroll down slightly) in the book “Wheeling,” by Seán Patrick Duffy and Paul Rinkes (the caption gives the opening year of the Virginia as 1908.) Most likely the addresses on the block were shifted after the Virginia was demolished.
At the bottom of this web page is a small photo of the Virginia Theatre, probably from the late 1940s or early 1950s. It’s a night shot, but you can make out part of the Board of Trade Building next door.
Here is an early postcard view of the Virginia Theatre with the upper portion of the Board of Trade Building brushed out. That was a common practice by postcard publishers, which makes postcards less than perfectly reliable as sources of historic information.
Three photos of the Pantages can be seen on this page at the University of Manitoba’s Winnipeg Buildings Index. Photos depicting the 1991 addition to the Pantages, as designed by Stechesen Katz Architects, are available on this page of the same site.
The Scenic Temple was definitely in operation by 1908, as contemporary sources indicate that it was used as a dispensary distributing station during the Chelsea fire, which began on April 12 that year (see The Burning of Chelsea, published in 1908.)
Here is a link to the Scenic Temple listing in the 1908-1909 Cahn Guide. It notes that Chelsea still had no regular theaters, but there were two other movie houses in town; the Star and the Theatorium.
I wonder if the name “Stueal” on the 1909 building permit for this theater was actually “Wuest” written by someone with a sloppy hand? Stueal might be a real surname, although Ancestry.com’s immigration records find only one person of that name. The form on which it was found could have been a bureaucratic error, of course. I can’t find any other references on the Internet to anyone named Stueal, except in results from Cinema Treasures.
I’ve found several references to Gustav P. Wuest, though, in publications from the 1910s as well as in a couple of documents prepared for nominations of buildings to the National Register of Historic Places.
The Arcadia Press book Oakland, by Walter C. Kidney, attributes the design of the facade of the Schenley Theatre to Henry Hornbostel. As Hornbostel did design (or collaborate on) other buildings in the Schenley Park neighborhood, it’s possible that he did collaborate on the theater project as well.
The April 8, 1915, issue of Engineering News has an article with structural drawings of the Schenley Theatre and a description of its construction. The article also says that the Davis Theatre in Pittsburgh, then under construction, had been designed by the same architects and engineers.
In an item in the January 5, 1914, issue of the journal American Stone Trade, architect Henry Hornbostle, to whom two sources that I know of attribute the design of the Liberty, was said to have “approved” the plans of the Schenley Theatre, a project designed by the architectural firm of H.E. Kennedy & Company.
On the Sheridan Square Theatre page, a comment by Denis McNamara (probably this architectural historian, by the way) says that architect Edward J. Schulte, who was working in Kennedy’s firm during the period when these theaters were built, listed the Sheridan Square, Schenley, and Liberty on his resume.
Despite the source I cited in my earlier comment above, and the book about Hornbostel reviewed here, I’m now wondering what roles Hornbostel and Schulte each played in the design of the Liberty. Unfortunately, there is much more information about the Schenley than the Liberty on the Internet, so I’ve been unable to track down any references from the 1910s that would confirm Schulte’s involvement in the project.
I’ve found nothing published prior to 2002 that mentions Hornbostel in connection with the Liberty, either, and I still find it odd that so restrained a classicist as Horbostel would have designed a theater that, as described by the book review to which I linked, featured “…white, glazed terra cotta tiles framing an American flag composed of red, white and blue light bulbs.”
Additional information about the Schenley Theatre from the January 5, 1914, issue of American Stone Trade: “Ground was broken this week for the new Schenley Theater to be built by Harry Davis and John P. Harris in Forbes street, opposite the Hotel Schenley, from plans by the H. E. Kennedy Company of this city and approved by Architect Henry Hornbostle. The theater in many respects will be one of the most artistic in this city.”
This, coupled with the information from Denis McNamara about Edward Schulte (see my previous comment) leads me to question the attribution of the design of the Liberty Theatre to Henry Hornbostle. I’ll comment further on the Liberty page.
A comment by Denis McNamara on the Sheridan Square Theatre page says that architect Edward J. Schulte listed this theater on his resume as his work. He was employed by H.E. Kennedy & Co. at the time. The following item appears in the August 5, 1913, issue of the journal American Stone Trade: “Architects H. E. Kennedy & Company, of this city, are preparing plans for $200.000 theater to be known as the Schenley, and to be built for Harry Davis and John P. Harris, well known amusement men of Pittsburgh. It will be erected near the opening of Schenley Park.”
The November 8, 1913, issue of trade journal The Moving Picture World had this item: “The Cameraphone Co., of Pittsburgh, H. Beatty, General Mgr., has added two more houses to their string. Cameraphone, at Sharpsburgh, seating capacity 530; Cameraphone, 1600 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, seating capacity 500, all doing good business.”
Five theaters were opened under the name Cameraphone by T.M. Barnesdale in 1908. These included the Cameraphone in East Liberty and the Cameraphone “…on lower Fifth avenue….” in Downtown Pittsburgh (I think this latter must have been the house at 347 Fifth Avenue that later became the Cameo Theatre.) A third Cameraphone was on Carson Street on the south side, according to this article in the July 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World.
The East Liberty Cameraphone was taken over by a partnership of H.B. Kester and W.C. Beatty not long after it opened. The H. Beatty who was general manager of the Cameraphone Company in 1913 was most likely a relative of W.C. Beatty. Kester was apparently out of the partnership by 1913, though he still operated the East Liberty Cameraphone. The Cameraphone Company that operated this house was established in 1913, and its president was James B. Clark.
The East Liberty Cameraphone dates to 1908. It was one of five Cameraphone theaters that were opened that year by T.M. Barnesdale. Three of them, including the East Liberty house, presented early talking pictures. The experiment with sound soon failed, and the theater was taken over by H.B. Kester and W.C. Beatty, who operated it as a regular silent movie theater. The house opened with 400 seats, was expanded to 700 seats in 1910, and expanded again to 900 seats in 1914.
Trade journal The Moving Picture World had an article about Pittsburgh area exhibitors in its issue of July 15, 1916, and it included a section titled Kester and His Cameraphone. Kester operated the East Liberty Cameraphone at least as late as 1926, when it was mentioned in the Film Daily Yearbook.
The 1941 Catalog of Copyright Entries from the Library of Congress includes a copyright issued to architect Victor A. Rigaumont for: “Alterations to Cameraphone theatre, 6202 Penn Ave., Th. Ward, Pittsburgh. © June 3,1941” There’s no indication of how extensive the alterations were.
Aerial views show that this entire block is now a parking lot. The Paramount has been demolished, as comments above note.
The listed seating capacity of 2,600 for this house must be wrong. From the photos of the theater it’s clear that this building couldn’t have held that many seats— probably not even half that number.
The various photos showing the side wall of the Paramount reveal that the building was quite old. It dated from no later than the early 20th century. This genealogy page refers to “The Old Marlowe Theater, that is now the State Theater….” The Marlowe Theatre was listed in the the 1904-1905 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide as a 1,050-seat, ground-floor house. This photo of the Marlowe’s auditorium (dated 1934 by the New York Public Library) makes an interesting comparison with the Paramount’s remodeled auditorium (that’s the same photo Chuck linked to above.) The interior was obviously gutted, either when it was remodeled as the Paramount or earlier, when it was renamed the State.
Volume 205 of the legal publication The Southwestern Reporter has information about a case involving the installation of a heating and ventilation system in the Lyric Theatre at Jackson, Tennessee. The initial contract for the system had been signed on July 9, 1913. Another case, in volume 203 of the same publication, involved a vacuum cleaning system installed in the house. It’s clear from the articles that the house was in operation during at least part of 1913, and most likely was built that year. A balcony is mentioned in one of the articles, so the Lyric was probably a good-sized theater, not just a small nickelodeon.
There are three more photos of the Orpheum in this Flickr set.
From YouTube, here is a 57 second clip of Mark Gifford playing the Orpheum’s Barton organ, now installed at Springfield High School.
Like the other theaters built by Muvico since 1997, the Boynton Beach 14 was designed by the Baltimore architectural firm Development Design Group.
There are conflicting reports about the theaters in Warsaw, but this house should probably be listed as the Boice Theatre, with Centennial as an aka. It was built in either 1916 or 1917, became the Boice Theatre in 1955, and operated until 1973. A comment on this message board page says that the theater that was the Boice in the 1950s had once been the Centennial, and that it had been built in 1916. It suggests that the Centennial might have been closed for a long time before being reopened as the Boice, and the building might have had some other use in the meantime, but that’s not certain.
But then this 2005 Union-News article says that the Boice was “newly built” in 1955. I’m inclined to think that’s wrong, as the building on the corner today has the same form as the one in the picture Lost Memory linked to (though it’s been refaced with modern materials,) and that was clearly an old building with a stage house. The article also says the house was operated by the Boices until it was destroyed by a fire in 1973, but this 1968 article about Ralph and Gladys Boice says that they had by then retired from the theater business and had recently leased the Boice Theatre to a Roger Vores.
The Boices had begun operating the Strand Theatre on North Buffalo Street in 1931, according to the 1968 article. I’ve also come across a reference to a Bell Theatre in Warsaw, the name of which was changed to the New Grand in late 1915. A house called the Royal was operating in Warsaw at the same time (it’s possible that one or the other of these might have become the Strand.) The old Warsaw Opera House might have been operating as a movie theater at that time, too, as it was mentioned in same issue of The Motion Picture World, January 1, 1916. However, this page with a history of the Opera House doesn’t mention it being used for movies. The Opera House was destroyed by a fire in 1967. The same page gives the opening year of the Centennial as 1917, rather than 1916.
There is a brief article with a photo of the Franklin Theatre in The Moving Picture World, issue of March 4th, 1916.
There was an Olympic Theatre in operation at Steubenville at least as early as 1916. In 1917, the Olympic’s operators were involved in a lawsuit over events that took place in the theater around August 1, 1916. A description of the case was published in the 1918 Ohio Circuit Court Reports. Given the old fashioned style of the building seen in the photo ken mc linked to above, the Olympic Theatre in the court case was probably this house.
Boxoffice of June 5, 1954, reported that the Esquire Theatre in Stockton was to be closed to make way for a new J.C. Penney department store. The item did not specify if the building was to be demolished, or merely adapted for the store.
The Esquire had been open less than eight years when it closed. A Boxoffice article of May 18, 1946, mentions in passing that the Esquire Theatre in Stockton was “nearly completed.” Work was delayed, though, and a short article in the December 14 issue that year announced that the Esquire had finally opened after thirteen months of construction.
The house had cost $200,000 to build and equip, and was Stockton’s fourth first run theater. Boxoffice gave the seating capacity as 1190, and described the auditorium as being decorated with fluorescent murals having a Chinese theme.
The 1954 article about the closing also said that Blumenthal Theatres was in negotiations to take over the recently closed State Theatre, and planned to move the Esquire name to that house. According to comments by ksutterfield on the State Theatre page (Nov 29, 2009, and Dec 1, 2009,) the State did become the second Esquire, and he worked at the house from 1960 to 1963.
New Bern Civic Theatre is the name of the organization operating this house. The theater itself has returned to its original name, the Athens Theatre.
Boxoffice of June 5, 1954, reported that the Blumenthal circuit’s Sierra Theatre in Stockton had recently been closed to make way for two stores. It didn’t say if the building was to be demolished, or merely converted to retail use.
The photos at the second link in my previous comment are now enlarging properly, so I guess they worked the bugs out of their program. One of the images is the original floor plan of the theater from the office of architect Herbert W. Simpson.
The official web site gives the address of the Athens Theatre as 414 Pollock Street. The zip code is 28560.
Correction: The misspelling of the architects name was in a later issue of Daily Bulletin of the Manufacturers Record. Unlike me, they got it right the first time. The correct name is Fred A. Henderich.
It turns out that Brick and Clay Record spelled the architect’s name wrong. The Jefferson Theatre was being designed by Fred A. Henderich, according to the Daily Bulletin of the Manufacturers Record, February 4, 1907. A quick Google search reveals that Henderich was one of St. Augustine’s leading architects during the first half of the 20th century, and several of his buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s too bad the Jefferson Theatre didn’t survive long enough to become one of them.
This page from the Wheeling Jamboree web site features photos of the various venues that hosted the show over the years. There is a view of the Virginia’s auditorium seen from the stage. The gallery (aka second balcony) was positively vertiginous.
The January 28, 1915, issue of trade journal Iron Age noted that the J.E. Moss Iron Works had closed a contract to supply 100 tons of structural steel for the new Rex Theatre at Wheeling.
From the Ohio County Public Library, here is a 1937 photo of the Rex.
A 1936 flood sent several feet of water along Market Street, nearly reaching the underside of the marquee of the Rex, as seen in a photo in “The Great Ohio River Flood of 1937” by James E. Casto (Google Books preview.)
From 1962 until 1965, the Rex was the venue from which station WWVA broadcast its weekly live music program, WWVA Jamboree. This web page features photos of the various venues that hosted the Jamboree over the years. The page also says that the Rex was known briefly as the Coronet Theatre, and that it was demolished in the early 1990s.
This history of radio station WWVA mentions the Virginia Theatre a few times. From 1934-1936, and from 1946-1962, the broadcasts of its live music show “WWVA Jamboree” originated from the Virginia. The following excerpt, dealing with events of 1962, indicates the age of the theater and its fate:[quote]“Meanwhile, in the Virginia Theatre, the Jamboree continued to enjoy a surging popularity with both radio listeners and visiting fans. All the while, however, an unseen ‘player’ was lurking in the wings, a questionable character known as ‘PROGRESS’, and its appearance spelled doom for the historic 54 year old theatre that had been home for the Jamboree since 1946. The Virginia was doomed for demolition and the Jamboree would be forced to seek a new location.
“Thus it was, that on a hot Saturday night in mid-July 1962, the old Virginia Theatre curtain fell for one final time on the Jamboree show, bringing to an end a truly memorable period in Jamboree history. The following week, the Jamboree show opened at the Rex Theatre, only a few blocks from the Virginia.”[/quote]80 12th St. is definitely the current address of the Board of Trade Building. As the Court was still operating in 1981, and the Virginia was demolished in (or shortly after) 1962, they can’t be the same theater, and yet quite a few sources on the Internet give 80 12th Street as the address for both the Board of Trade Building and the Virginia Theatre. In fact, the Virginia was next door to the Board of Trade Building, as seen in this photo (you’ll probably have to scroll down slightly) in the book “Wheeling,” by Seán Patrick Duffy and Paul Rinkes (the caption gives the opening year of the Virginia as 1908.) Most likely the addresses on the block were shifted after the Virginia was demolished.
Here’s a picture of the Virginia Theatre in 1937.
At the bottom of this web page is a small photo of the Virginia Theatre, probably from the late 1940s or early 1950s. It’s a night shot, but you can make out part of the Board of Trade Building next door.
Here is an early postcard view of the Virginia Theatre with the upper portion of the Board of Trade Building brushed out. That was a common practice by postcard publishers, which makes postcards less than perfectly reliable as sources of historic information.
Three photos of the Pantages can be seen on this page at the University of Manitoba’s Winnipeg Buildings Index. Photos depicting the 1991 addition to the Pantages, as designed by Stechesen Katz Architects, are available on this page of the same site.