The Algona Theatre was built for Central States Theatres to replace the second Call Theatre, on the same site, which had been destroyed by fire on December 21, 1950. An earlier Call Theatre (on a different site), which had opened as the Call Opera House in 1892 and was converted to a movie theater in 1916, had also been destroyed by fire, in 1937.
After the 1937 fire the owners of the original Call had leased and then purchased the State Theatre, which had opened in 1936, and renamed it the New Call Theatre. Later it was called simply the Call Theatre. This was the building which burned in 1950.
Boxoffice of July 21, 1951, said that a contest would be held to name the second Call’s replacement, then under construction, and apparently the unimaginative name Algona Theatre won.
The original Call Theatre should have its own Cinema Treasures page. As the Call Opera House it was listed in various issues of Julius Cahn’s theatrical guide with 600 seats, but no address was given.
I don’t know if the State/New Call should have its own page or not. One Boxoffice report soon after the 1950 fire said that the owners were considering the possibility of incorporating some of the old structure’s walls into the new building, but I don’t know if that was done or not. As it took so long to rebuild on the site, perhaps the Algona was an entirely new building.
It looks like the Yuba Theatre was operating before 1940, either in the current building or at another location. The October 19, 1946 issue of Boxoffice reported on the sale of the Yuba Theatre by Mr. and Mrs. V.C. Shattuck “…after fifteen years under their management.” The Shattucks, located in Truckee, operated a number of small town theaters in the region.
Unfortunately I’ve found no earlier references to the Yuba Theatre in Boxoffice, and only two later references, from 1957 and 1976. A couple of other web sites give 1940 as the construction date of the current Yuba Theatre, but it’s impossible to tell the actual age of the building from the photo on the theater’s Facebook page. The exterior is rustic and looks like it could date from the 19th century, but the region is full of faux-rustic buildings. Also, in a photo of the theater’s interior at Facebook the auditorium has wall sconces that look art moderne and could well date from 1940.
The last operator of the Liberty Theatre was Jess Levin’s General Theatrical Company, but from its opening in 1916 until 1955 it had been operated by John W. DiStasio. The announcement of DiStasio’s retirement and the sale of the Liberty to the Levin interests appeared in Boxoffice, October 29, 1955. The announcement of the final closing of the Liberty was published in Boxoffice of December 7, 1957.
The 1921 installation of the Robert-Morton organ was part of a remodeling that took place that year. The November 19 issue of The Music Trade Review said the Liberty would have its formal reopening on Thanksgiving Day.
The Grand Theatre’s marquee in the photo dated 1941 advertises “They Died With Their Boots On” which was made in 1941 but was not released outside New York City until January 1, 1942, according to IMDb. The Grand must have gotten it even later. Boxoffice of April 4, 1942, says “Blumenfeld circuit’s Grand in Sacramento will open May 1.”
Tom Spaulding’s NorCal Explorer (item about 2/3 of the way down the page) gives the actual opening date as May 15, 1942. A war-related delay, I’d imagine.
The web site I linked to two years ago is unchanged, still saying the Grand will be reopening soon. This is probably not a war-related delay.
The November 19, 1921, issue of The Music Trade Review reported that a Robert-Morton organ would be installed in the Pantages Theatre at Vancouver. I’m not sure if this was done then or not, as the PSTOS page for the Pantages says a Robert-Morton was installed in the house in 1925.
The Town Drive-In was designed by architect Ted Rogvoy, according to an item in Boxoffice, February 25, 1950. The article is illustrated by a small rendering.
The location of this theater, by the way, is Redford, not Redrod.
The Grand opened during the last week of December, 1937, according to an item in Boxoffice, January 1, 1938. The item said that the Grand was the second theater to open in Sheffield in three months, the Nu-Bee Theatre having opened in October, 1937. Prior to that, Sheffield had been without a movie house for fifteen years.
Owner-operator of the Grand was local physician F.H. Rodemeyer. The one-story, brick and tile building was 33x110, and the 300-seat auditorium was 74 feet long. The house was air conditioned.
Does anybody have anything on the Nu-Bee Theatre? Heh. Nu-Bee. n00b!
Here’s a glimpse of the auditorium of the Carmen Theatre in Boxoffice, August 16, 1941. The caption says the house is a slightly smaller twin of of the Civic Theatre in Detroit, built the same year and designed by the same architect, Kenneth S. Frazier.
Boxoffice didn’t give the seating capacity in this particular item, but judging from the photos it doesn’t look as though it could have held the 1,490 seats currently listed above. Still, an item in the May 28, 1955 Boxoffice says that it had 1,500 seats. If it was enlarged some time after its opening I’ve been unable to find anything about such an event in Boxoffice.
The Civic was the subject of an article in Boxoffice, July 19, 1941. There are several photos. The architect of the Civic was Kenneth S. Frazier, who also designed the Carmen Theatre in Dearborn the same year.
The remodeling of the Dearborn in the 1930s was the first such job undertaken for Balaban & Katz by the Pereira brothers, according to the final paragraph of this article in Boxoffice, June 20, 1942. The Pereiras returned in that year to again remodel the house, which was then renamed the Surf Theatre. The article includes two photos of the marquee, but unfortunately none of the interior.
Boxoffice of September 16, 1939, said that Fox Intermountain Theatres had begun remodeling a building in Longmont for use as a theater. The project was to cost $60,000.
The December 9, 1939, issue of Boxoffice said that the new Fox in Longmont had opened December 5, with 710 seats. The July 19, 1941 issue of Boxoffice had an article about the new projection booth at the Fox in Longmont, installed when the house “…was being modernized recently.” There’s a small photo of the auditorium.
Also, I have to question the attribution of the design of the theater to the Skouras Brothers. Spyros Skouras certainly dictated the look of Fox theaters during this period, but I’ve never heard of any of the Skouras brothers actually being a designer. Spyros undoubtedly had a lot to say about the choice of architects and decorators for the various Fox houses built or remodeled during his tenure, but I’d be very surprised to learn that he or his brothers ever wielded the pencils themselves.
The 1941 item names George Frantz as chief of design and construction for Fox Theatres at the time of the Longmont project, and attributes the idea for the house’s suspended, circular projection booth to him. I don’t think Frantz was himself an architect. A few issues of Boxoffice refer to him as a “theatre engineer.” He apparently left the details of design to the various architects, such as Mel Glatz and Carl Moeller, who Fox either contracted with or employed in-house over the years.
A December 26, 1936, Boxoffice item about the plans to build this theater says that it was to be the second house in Walter Reade’s American Community Theatres project. The lot on which the theater was to be built was 90x278 feet.
Walter Reade announced the formation of the American Community Theatres Corporation in 1936, as reported in Boxoffice Magazine of October 10 that year (bottom center of left page.) Over the next few years the chain expanded rapidly.
It might be that all the early Community Theatres houses were designed in Thomas Lamb’s office. A January 8, 1938, Boxoffice item about the chain’s intention to build seven new theaters that year said that, following his return from a cruise, Reade would meet with Lamb “…to draw up plans.”
Boxoffice of December 26, 1936, ran an item saying that “…A. M. Ellis will operate the theatre in the 4800 block of Broad Street on which work was started this week.” The house was to seat 500, and the project was budgeted at $40,000.
The wording in Boxoffice being a bit vague, I thought this project was for an entirely new theater until I read the Cinema Treasures intro. Given the budget, this must have been a fairly extensive remodeling of the 1915 Broad Theatre. The architect for the remodeling was David Supowitz.
A couple of later issues of Boxoffice mention A. M. Ellis’s Broad Theatre when Ellis was involved in a clearance case against several major companies, including Warners, operators of the Logan Theatre down the street.
Well, so far that’s three to zero against the Boxoffice photos being of this Rogers Theatre. If they depict the Rogers Avenue Rogers, though, then the attribution of the design of that theater to Charles Sandblom must be wrong. Boxoffice often got some details wrong (that’s why I discounted their reported seating capacity of 600 in that article), but I don’t think they’d make a mistake about who sent them photos for publication, and the text of that article is quite clear that the photos were supplied by architect William Hohauser.
I wonder if maybe the Rogers on Broadway was an early Sandblom design, and that’s where the confusion came from? He was working independently (after leaving Thomas Lamb’s office) as early as 1921. On the other hand, from the descriptions above it doesn’t sound as though this Rogers Theatre had any architecture to speak of, and that makes it less likely to have been a Sandblom design. In fact the descriptions (wooden seats, sawdust on the floor) sound like it might have been a survivor from the nickelodeon days.
See this page from Boxoffice, January 11, 1936, for photos of the Symphony Theatre after it was remodeled that year. The project was designed by architect William I. Hohauser, who also wrote the article the photos illustrate.
There are two additional photos on the following page, showing the auditorium.
That information from the National Register of Historic Places interesting. I was not aware that Alexander Curlett had ever designed a theater. It must have been a solo work, too, as his father William Curlett, his former partner, had died in 1914.
The Rialto must have been his last, or nearly the last, project he designed before he formed his partnership with Claud Beelman, as everything else I’ve seen of his from 1920 to 1928 is attributed to Curlett & Beelman. The impression I’ve gotten from various sources has been that Aleck Curlett was the less talented member of that firm, but the Rialto is a pretty impressive building. Maybe he had more to do with the designs of the great Curlett & Beelman projects of the 1920s than I’ve been led to believe.
Now I’m wondering if some of the still-unattributed theaters around the southwest from the late 1910s might have been of his design.
If somebody wants to add the Community Theatre, it was a Thomas Lamb design. A brief item about Reade’s intention to build the house appeared in Boxoffice, December 26, 1936. The item is on the left page, about the middle of the middle column.
An August 7, 1937, Boxoffice item says this about the Congress Theatre: “Within a week after the opening of his new Community here, Walter Reade announced that he has purchased for $200,000 cash the Congress Theatre and office building which, when he takes possession late this fall, will give him two first-run theatres in this famed city of horse racing.”
The Dale Theatre was under construction when it was mentioned in Boxoffice, July 3, 1937. Later issues indicate an opening sometime between August and October that year. It was built for Harry Brandt.
Looking at the photos linked in the previous two comemnts, I fancy the Dale has a strong similarity to the Kent Theatre that was opened in Brooklyn during the same era. Harry Brandt was a partner in the Kent Theatre, which was designed by Charles Sandblom. Could the Dale be another Sandblom design? Boxoffice isn’t telling.
Perhaps someone who was in the Rogers Theatre at some time could look at the two top photos on the right-hand page of this scan of Boxoffice from November 11, 1936. I know the place might have been redecorated by the time anyone posting here saw it, but maybe somebody can confirm the location anyway.
As there were two theaters called the Rogers in Brooklyn, I’m not sure which of them these photos depict, though their accompanying text in Boxoffice says that the house depicted was designed by architect William I. Hohauser, and Cinema Treasures says that the other Rogers Theatre was designed by Charles Sandblom, so the Broadway location is more likely the one in the photos.
So, if the pictures do depict the Rogers Theater on Broadway, the architect for the remodeling in 1936 was William Hohauser.
Two interior photos of the Central as it appeared on completion (or after a remodeling- the article doesn’t say) in 1936 are at the bottom of this page of Boxoffice, November 11, 1936. If the lobby and foyer were typical of the house, I’d say it was of Art Moderne design.
A May 15, 1937, Boxoffice item says that RKO had taken over the Central at Yonkers from Herman Sussman. A June 24, 1939, item says that RKO had dropped the Central and the house had been picked up by Harry Brandt. I believe Harry Brandt later controlled the Trans-Lux circuit.
A Boxoffice Magazine item of June 24, 1939, contains the terse line “The Penn Newsreel on 34th St. has been demolished.” I wonder if the building itself was knocked down, or if it was merely gutted and converted to some other use? It sounds from the description in the Times that the part of the theater on 35th Street at least had been newly built. It seems unlikely that a new building would have been destroyed unless the site was wanted by a developer for a much larger building.
Boxoffice of May 22, 1948, said that construction was underway on two new drive-ins at Herrin. The one being built for the Marlow Amusement Corporation was designed by the Evansville architectural firm of Warweg & Hagel.
A small photo of the lobby of the Beach Cliff appears in a carpeting ad in Boxoffice, October 1, 1949. As this was thirteen years after the Beach Cliff opened (see my previous comment) the house must have been newly re-carpeted.
A photo of the Ross Theatre’s auditorium appeared in a May 6, 1950, Boxoffice article about theater seating.
The Ross Theatre was built by Will Ross, an Evansville builder and real estate developer. The July 17, 1948, issue of Boxoffice reported that Settos Theatre Company had taken a twenty-year lease on the house, then under construction.
The Ross Theatre opened at Christmas, 1949, according to a Boxoffice item of August 26, 1950. After less than a year of operation by the Settos chain, Will Ross, dissatisfied with Settos management, arranged to have the lease transferred to the local Premier circuit, operated by Isadore and Jesse Fine. This item said that the Ross had 1,006 seats, including those in the cry room.
Premier operated the Ross for quite some time, but by 1965 the house, along with the Washington Theatre and the Family Drive-In were being operated by Cinema Theatres, a local company headed by Ted Graulich. In 1971, as reported in the March 15 issue of Boxoffice, all three theaters were renamed, The Ross becoming the Cinema 1. In the issue of February 26, 1973, Boxoffice reported that all three theaters were having their original names restored to prevent confusion with a twin Cinema 1 and Cinema 2 which had opened in Evansville. The Ross Theatre was then to be called Ross-Cinema 1.
The Algona Theatre was built for Central States Theatres to replace the second Call Theatre, on the same site, which had been destroyed by fire on December 21, 1950. An earlier Call Theatre (on a different site), which had opened as the Call Opera House in 1892 and was converted to a movie theater in 1916, had also been destroyed by fire, in 1937.
After the 1937 fire the owners of the original Call had leased and then purchased the State Theatre, which had opened in 1936, and renamed it the New Call Theatre. Later it was called simply the Call Theatre. This was the building which burned in 1950.
Boxoffice of July 21, 1951, said that a contest would be held to name the second Call’s replacement, then under construction, and apparently the unimaginative name Algona Theatre won.
The original Call Theatre should have its own Cinema Treasures page. As the Call Opera House it was listed in various issues of Julius Cahn’s theatrical guide with 600 seats, but no address was given.
I don’t know if the State/New Call should have its own page or not. One Boxoffice report soon after the 1950 fire said that the owners were considering the possibility of incorporating some of the old structure’s walls into the new building, but I don’t know if that was done or not. As it took so long to rebuild on the site, perhaps the Algona was an entirely new building.
It looks like the Yuba Theatre was operating before 1940, either in the current building or at another location. The October 19, 1946 issue of Boxoffice reported on the sale of the Yuba Theatre by Mr. and Mrs. V.C. Shattuck “…after fifteen years under their management.” The Shattucks, located in Truckee, operated a number of small town theaters in the region.
Unfortunately I’ve found no earlier references to the Yuba Theatre in Boxoffice, and only two later references, from 1957 and 1976. A couple of other web sites give 1940 as the construction date of the current Yuba Theatre, but it’s impossible to tell the actual age of the building from the photo on the theater’s Facebook page. The exterior is rustic and looks like it could date from the 19th century, but the region is full of faux-rustic buildings. Also, in a photo of the theater’s interior at Facebook the auditorium has wall sconces that look art moderne and could well date from 1940.
Yuba Theatre Facebook page.
The last operator of the Liberty Theatre was Jess Levin’s General Theatrical Company, but from its opening in 1916 until 1955 it had been operated by John W. DiStasio. The announcement of DiStasio’s retirement and the sale of the Liberty to the Levin interests appeared in Boxoffice, October 29, 1955. The announcement of the final closing of the Liberty was published in Boxoffice of December 7, 1957.
The 1921 installation of the Robert-Morton organ was part of a remodeling that took place that year. The November 19 issue of The Music Trade Review said the Liberty would have its formal reopening on Thanksgiving Day.
The Grand Theatre’s marquee in the photo dated 1941 advertises “They Died With Their Boots On” which was made in 1941 but was not released outside New York City until January 1, 1942, according to IMDb. The Grand must have gotten it even later. Boxoffice of April 4, 1942, says “Blumenfeld circuit’s Grand in Sacramento will open May 1.”
Tom Spaulding’s NorCal Explorer (item about 2/3 of the way down the page) gives the actual opening date as May 15, 1942. A war-related delay, I’d imagine.
The web site I linked to two years ago is unchanged, still saying the Grand will be reopening soon. This is probably not a war-related delay.
The November 19, 1921, issue of The Music Trade Review reported that a Robert-Morton organ would be installed in the Pantages Theatre at Vancouver. I’m not sure if this was done then or not, as the PSTOS page for the Pantages says a Robert-Morton was installed in the house in 1925.
The Town Drive-In was designed by architect Ted Rogvoy, according to an item in Boxoffice, February 25, 1950. The article is illustrated by a small rendering.
The location of this theater, by the way, is Redford, not Redrod.
The Music Trade Review of September 30, 1916, said “The $100,000 Casino theatre at Narragansett Pier, has just been opened by John Hannon.”
The Grand opened during the last week of December, 1937, according to an item in Boxoffice, January 1, 1938. The item said that the Grand was the second theater to open in Sheffield in three months, the Nu-Bee Theatre having opened in October, 1937. Prior to that, Sheffield had been without a movie house for fifteen years.
Owner-operator of the Grand was local physician F.H. Rodemeyer. The one-story, brick and tile building was 33x110, and the 300-seat auditorium was 74 feet long. The house was air conditioned.
Does anybody have anything on the Nu-Bee Theatre? Heh. Nu-Bee. n00b!
Here’s a glimpse of the auditorium of the Carmen Theatre in Boxoffice, August 16, 1941. The caption says the house is a slightly smaller twin of of the Civic Theatre in Detroit, built the same year and designed by the same architect, Kenneth S. Frazier.
Boxoffice didn’t give the seating capacity in this particular item, but judging from the photos it doesn’t look as though it could have held the 1,490 seats currently listed above. Still, an item in the May 28, 1955 Boxoffice says that it had 1,500 seats. If it was enlarged some time after its opening I’ve been unable to find anything about such an event in Boxoffice.
The Civic was the subject of an article in Boxoffice, July 19, 1941. There are several photos. The architect of the Civic was Kenneth S. Frazier, who also designed the Carmen Theatre in Dearborn the same year.
The remodeling of the Dearborn in the 1930s was the first such job undertaken for Balaban & Katz by the Pereira brothers, according to the final paragraph of this article in Boxoffice, June 20, 1942. The Pereiras returned in that year to again remodel the house, which was then renamed the Surf Theatre. The article includes two photos of the marquee, but unfortunately none of the interior.
Boxoffice of September 16, 1939, said that Fox Intermountain Theatres had begun remodeling a building in Longmont for use as a theater. The project was to cost $60,000.
The December 9, 1939, issue of Boxoffice said that the new Fox in Longmont had opened December 5, with 710 seats. The July 19, 1941 issue of Boxoffice had an article about the new projection booth at the Fox in Longmont, installed when the house “…was being modernized recently.” There’s a small photo of the auditorium.
Also, I have to question the attribution of the design of the theater to the Skouras Brothers. Spyros Skouras certainly dictated the look of Fox theaters during this period, but I’ve never heard of any of the Skouras brothers actually being a designer. Spyros undoubtedly had a lot to say about the choice of architects and decorators for the various Fox houses built or remodeled during his tenure, but I’d be very surprised to learn that he or his brothers ever wielded the pencils themselves.
The 1941 item names George Frantz as chief of design and construction for Fox Theatres at the time of the Longmont project, and attributes the idea for the house’s suspended, circular projection booth to him. I don’t think Frantz was himself an architect. A few issues of Boxoffice refer to him as a “theatre engineer.” He apparently left the details of design to the various architects, such as Mel Glatz and Carl Moeller, who Fox either contracted with or employed in-house over the years.
A December 26, 1936, Boxoffice item about the plans to build this theater says that it was to be the second house in Walter Reade’s American Community Theatres project. The lot on which the theater was to be built was 90x278 feet.
Walter Reade announced the formation of the American Community Theatres Corporation in 1936, as reported in Boxoffice Magazine of October 10 that year (bottom center of left page.) Over the next few years the chain expanded rapidly.
It might be that all the early Community Theatres houses were designed in Thomas Lamb’s office. A January 8, 1938, Boxoffice item about the chain’s intention to build seven new theaters that year said that, following his return from a cruise, Reade would meet with Lamb “…to draw up plans.”
Boxoffice of December 26, 1936, ran an item saying that “…A. M. Ellis will operate the theatre in the 4800 block of Broad Street on which work was started this week.” The house was to seat 500, and the project was budgeted at $40,000.
The wording in Boxoffice being a bit vague, I thought this project was for an entirely new theater until I read the Cinema Treasures intro. Given the budget, this must have been a fairly extensive remodeling of the 1915 Broad Theatre. The architect for the remodeling was David Supowitz.
A couple of later issues of Boxoffice mention A. M. Ellis’s Broad Theatre when Ellis was involved in a clearance case against several major companies, including Warners, operators of the Logan Theatre down the street.
Well, so far that’s three to zero against the Boxoffice photos being of this Rogers Theatre. If they depict the Rogers Avenue Rogers, though, then the attribution of the design of that theater to Charles Sandblom must be wrong. Boxoffice often got some details wrong (that’s why I discounted their reported seating capacity of 600 in that article), but I don’t think they’d make a mistake about who sent them photos for publication, and the text of that article is quite clear that the photos were supplied by architect William Hohauser.
I wonder if maybe the Rogers on Broadway was an early Sandblom design, and that’s where the confusion came from? He was working independently (after leaving Thomas Lamb’s office) as early as 1921. On the other hand, from the descriptions above it doesn’t sound as though this Rogers Theatre had any architecture to speak of, and that makes it less likely to have been a Sandblom design. In fact the descriptions (wooden seats, sawdust on the floor) sound like it might have been a survivor from the nickelodeon days.
See this page from Boxoffice, January 11, 1936, for photos of the Symphony Theatre after it was remodeled that year. The project was designed by architect William I. Hohauser, who also wrote the article the photos illustrate.
There are two additional photos on the following page, showing the auditorium.
That information from the National Register of Historic Places interesting. I was not aware that Alexander Curlett had ever designed a theater. It must have been a solo work, too, as his father William Curlett, his former partner, had died in 1914.
The Rialto must have been his last, or nearly the last, project he designed before he formed his partnership with Claud Beelman, as everything else I’ve seen of his from 1920 to 1928 is attributed to Curlett & Beelman. The impression I’ve gotten from various sources has been that Aleck Curlett was the less talented member of that firm, but the Rialto is a pretty impressive building. Maybe he had more to do with the designs of the great Curlett & Beelman projects of the 1920s than I’ve been led to believe.
Now I’m wondering if some of the still-unattributed theaters around the southwest from the late 1910s might have been of his design.
If somebody wants to add the Community Theatre, it was a Thomas Lamb design. A brief item about Reade’s intention to build the house appeared in Boxoffice, December 26, 1936. The item is on the left page, about the middle of the middle column.
An August 7, 1937, Boxoffice item says this about the Congress Theatre: “Within a week after the opening of his new Community here, Walter Reade announced that he has purchased for $200,000 cash the Congress Theatre and office building which, when he takes possession late this fall, will give him two first-run theatres in this famed city of horse racing.”
The Dale Theatre was under construction when it was mentioned in Boxoffice, July 3, 1937. Later issues indicate an opening sometime between August and October that year. It was built for Harry Brandt.
Looking at the photos linked in the previous two comemnts, I fancy the Dale has a strong similarity to the Kent Theatre that was opened in Brooklyn during the same era. Harry Brandt was a partner in the Kent Theatre, which was designed by Charles Sandblom. Could the Dale be another Sandblom design? Boxoffice isn’t telling.
Perhaps someone who was in the Rogers Theatre at some time could look at the two top photos on the right-hand page of this scan of Boxoffice from November 11, 1936. I know the place might have been redecorated by the time anyone posting here saw it, but maybe somebody can confirm the location anyway.
As there were two theaters called the Rogers in Brooklyn, I’m not sure which of them these photos depict, though their accompanying text in Boxoffice says that the house depicted was designed by architect William I. Hohauser, and Cinema Treasures says that the other Rogers Theatre was designed by Charles Sandblom, so the Broadway location is more likely the one in the photos.
So, if the pictures do depict the Rogers Theater on Broadway, the architect for the remodeling in 1936 was William Hohauser.
Two interior photos of the Central as it appeared on completion (or after a remodeling- the article doesn’t say) in 1936 are at the bottom of this page of Boxoffice, November 11, 1936. If the lobby and foyer were typical of the house, I’d say it was of Art Moderne design.
A May 15, 1937, Boxoffice item says that RKO had taken over the Central at Yonkers from Herman Sussman. A June 24, 1939, item says that RKO had dropped the Central and the house had been picked up by Harry Brandt. I believe Harry Brandt later controlled the Trans-Lux circuit.
A Boxoffice Magazine item of June 24, 1939, contains the terse line “The Penn Newsreel on 34th St. has been demolished.” I wonder if the building itself was knocked down, or if it was merely gutted and converted to some other use? It sounds from the description in the Times that the part of the theater on 35th Street at least had been newly built. It seems unlikely that a new building would have been destroyed unless the site was wanted by a developer for a much larger building.
Boxoffice of May 22, 1948, said that construction was underway on two new drive-ins at Herrin. The one being built for the Marlow Amusement Corporation was designed by the Evansville architectural firm of Warweg & Hagel.
A small photo of the lobby of the Beach Cliff appears in a carpeting ad in Boxoffice, October 1, 1949. As this was thirteen years after the Beach Cliff opened (see my previous comment) the house must have been newly re-carpeted.
A photo of the Ross Theatre’s auditorium appeared in a May 6, 1950, Boxoffice article about theater seating.
The Ross Theatre was built by Will Ross, an Evansville builder and real estate developer. The July 17, 1948, issue of Boxoffice reported that Settos Theatre Company had taken a twenty-year lease on the house, then under construction.
The Ross Theatre opened at Christmas, 1949, according to a Boxoffice item of August 26, 1950. After less than a year of operation by the Settos chain, Will Ross, dissatisfied with Settos management, arranged to have the lease transferred to the local Premier circuit, operated by Isadore and Jesse Fine. This item said that the Ross had 1,006 seats, including those in the cry room.
Premier operated the Ross for quite some time, but by 1965 the house, along with the Washington Theatre and the Family Drive-In were being operated by Cinema Theatres, a local company headed by Ted Graulich. In 1971, as reported in the March 15 issue of Boxoffice, all three theaters were renamed, The Ross becoming the Cinema 1. In the issue of February 26, 1973, Boxoffice reported that all three theaters were having their original names restored to prevent confusion with a twin Cinema 1 and Cinema 2 which had opened in Evansville. The Ross Theatre was then to be called Ross-Cinema 1.