The Plaza Theatre was remodeled and redecorated at a cost of $25,000 in 1940, as described in an illustrated article in Boxoffice Magazine of August 17 that year. The architect for the project was Larry P. Larsen.
An article in the August 17, 1940, issue of Boxoffice has a paragraph mentioning the Rose Theatre and its owner-operator, F.R. Thompson. Mr. Thompson was celebrating his 59th birthday and had recently completed construction of a new house for himself and his wife. Quoth Boxoffice writer Rene Clayton: “Mr. Thompson, who is a very fine architect if we are to judge by the Rose which he designed and built practically single-handed, designed and built the new Thompson home as well.”
The Georgia Theatre must be the project mentioned in the August 17, 1940, issue of Boxoffice. Headed “625-Seat Negro Theatre Planned in Memphis,” the item gave the location as the corner of Georgia and Mississippi avenues. Designed by architect Raymond B. Spencer, the new house was slated to cost $35,000.
The June 15, 1940, issue of Boxoffice said that the new State in Logansport had opened on June 8. It was operated by the Alliance Theatre Corporation, also operators of the Roxy and Paramount at Logansport.
A photo of the auditorium of the State Theatre illustrated an advertisement for American Avion Theatre Chairs in the August 17, 1940, issue of Boxoffice. There were 1074 seats in the State. The architect of the theater was Irving M. Karlin, Chicago.
The Orpheum Theatre in Ottawa was rebuilt in 1937, several years after it had been virtually destroyed by a fire. Three walls of the original building remained standing, and the side walls were incorporated into the new theater by architect Irving M. Karlin. The surviving facade wall was demolished. Karlin wrote an article about the project which was published in the October 16, 1937, issue of Boxoffice. The new Orpheum was designed in the Moderne style.
The State Theatre (its original name) was opened in 1950, before November 4, when an article about it, written by decorator Haans Teichert, appeared in Boxoffice Magazine. Designed by Cleveland architect George Ebeling and decorated by Rex M. Davis of the Teichert Studios, the State Theatre was originally operated by the Cuyahoga Falls Amusement Company, headed by Moe Horowitz of the Washington circuit. The Loew’s circuit did not acquire the State until 1968, according to an item in Boxoffice, March 17, 1969.
George Ebeling designed numerous theaters in Ohio between the late 1930s and his sudden death in 1951, and was for a time a member of the advisory board of Boxoffice Magazine’s Modern Theatre Planning Institute. Among theaters he designed were the Lake Theatre in Painesville, the Yorktown Theatre in Cleveland, the Mapletown Theatre in Cleveland, and the Mentor Drive-In at Mentor, Ohio.
Albert A. Weis took over the Grand Opera House in 1910, according to an item in the New York Times of June 28 that year. The article said that Weis controlled a circuit of theaters in Texas, Mississippi, and adjoining states.
The December 10, 1938, issue of Boxoffice said that a permit had been granted for the installation of a marquee at the Bibb Theatre.
In its October 15 issue, Boxoffice had reported on an unnamed theater nearing completion on 3rd Street in Macon. It was to have 800 seats. I think it must have been the Bibb. The article implied that the new theater was being built in an existing building, saying “…workmen have nearly completed removal of two upper floors to make room for the balcony.”
The November 25, 1963, issue of Boxoffice announced that the the Bibb Theatre was to undergo a $150,000 remodeling. Reconfiguration of the auditorium and seating would reduce the capacity of the house to 550 seats. The plans for the remodeling were drawn by the Atlanta architectural firm of Finch, Alexander, Barnes, Rothschild & Paschal.
The June 7, 1941, issue of Boxoffice said that Fred G. Weis had recently opened the Roxy Theatre in Savannah. The item said that the Roxy was located on the site of the Arcadia Theatre, a Lucas & Jenkins house which Weis had taken over early in 1941.
Though the phrasing of the June 7 item made it sound as though the Roxy was new construction, a February 8 Boxoffice item about the takeover had said that Weis and his partners, operating as F&W Theatres, intended to remodel the Arcadia and perhaps give it a new name. As four months would have been little time for demolition and rebuilding, it’s most likely that the Roxy was in the same building as the Arcadia, which would thus be an aka.
The September 11, 1948, issue of Boxoffice ran an article about the intention of Fred G. Weis to rebuild the Savannah Theatre. It said that Weis, son of impresario Albert A. Weis, had been operating the Savannah since 1920. This item also named Robert E. Collins and Carl E. Helfrich as the architects for the project.
The Weslin must be the unnamed theater mentioned in a June 24, 1939, Boxoffice article that said: “William N. Skirball will build an 800-seat house in Massillon according to plans by Architect John Eberson of New York. Located on Lincoln Way, the theatre will have the newest type of equipment throughout.”
The February 18, 1939, issue of Boxoffice said that work had begun on a new theater for Schwartz and Shulman in Painesville. The architect was George Ebeling, of Cleveland, who designed many other theatres in Ohio. The Lake was listed as one of Ebeling’s designs in his obituary in Boxoffice of November 21, 1951.
The Mapletown Theatre was designed by Cleveland architect George Ebeling, and was one of several theaters of his design listed in his obituary in the November 21, 1951, issue of Boxoffice.
The Varsity Theatre was opened by Paul Scott in 1929. In 1937, he sold the house to Interstate Theatres. Subsequently, he filed a lawsuit against Interstate, claiming that the chain’s unfair practices had caused him considerable losses. The suit was settled out of court, and Scott later became a district manager for Interstate.
I’ve been unable to discover when the Varsity got the modern facade it sported at the time of its demolition, but it reminds me a bit of the street-facing side wall of the Esquire in Chicago.
The Rio 6 Cinemas at Beeville opened in 2002, according to the September issue of Boxoffice that year.
An earlier Rio Theatre in Beeville had been opened by the Hall Brothers in 1935 to serve as a temporary replacement for the Rialto Theatre, which had been gutted by fire. The Hall’s Rio was still in operation at least as late as 1972.
The September 15, 1972, issue of Boxoffice featured an article about the 50th anniversary of the Rialto. The house opened on August 19, 1922, over a month after it had been completed. The delay was the result of a railroad strike which had stranded the Theater’s organ in a Cincinnati railyard. Henry Hall finally grew impatient and arranged for a ten-piece orchestra to substitute for the missing theater organ at the opening. The first movie shown in the new house was Douglas Fairbanks' “The Three Musketeers.”
The Boxoffice article gives a higher seat count at the time of the Rialto’s opening than the theater currently has, saying there were 526 opera chairs on the main floor and 200 additional seats in the balcony. Over 1300 tickets were sold for two shows on the opening night, at 10 and 25 cents.
The year after the Rialto opened, the Halls bought a competing Beeville house, the Mission Theatre, later renaming it the Rex. They operated the Rex until 1959. When the Rialto was gutted by fire in 1936, the Halls opened another theater called the Rio, intending it to be a temporary replacement until the Rialto was rebuilt, but Hall was still operating the Rio at least as late as 1972.
The Aquarius IV was designed for Trans-Texas Theatres by Austin architect Earl J. Nesbitt Jr., who I believe is still in practice at Austin.
An article about the Aquarius IV (the marquee, like the Boxoffice articles about the theater, featured the Roman numeral, not the Arabic number) published in the September 17, 1973, issue of Boxoffice, some months after the house had opened, gave the seating capacity as 1,606. Auditoriums I and IV each had 254 seats, auditorium II had 656, and auditorium III 442.
The June 7, 1947, issue of Boxoffice said: “J.E. Charbonneu, owner and operator of the Concord, Concord, N.H., for many years, has disposed of the property to Theresa Cantin, who has been booking and managing the house for some time. Charbonneau will retire from active business.”
E.L. Jack Johnston was operating the Mecca Theatre in 1931, when a letter he wrote in praise of Universal serials was published as part of an ad placed by Universal in the August 4, 1931, issue of Exhibitor’s Forum. Johnston died in 1964, and the brief obituary published in Boxoffice mentioned that he had once operated a theater at McAlester, but did not give the years of its operation.
Whenever the Mecca closed, Jack Johnston was gone from McAlester sometime before 1944. He ran a classified ad in the March 11 issue of Boxoffice that year, seeking employment as a theater manager and giving a P.O. Box address in Cordell, Oklahoma. The ad said he was currently employed in California but would be available April 2. Some years later he bought the Washita Theatre in Cordell, operating it until his death.
A small photo of the Star Theatre appeared in Boxoffice, May 15, 1948. The caption said it had opened in February, had 520 seats, and was operated by Chris Geoghegan, who had been operating the Colonial Theatre in South Hill for 15 years.
The address of the Sylacauga Tehatre was probably 100 N. Broadway Avenue. Google Maps has no trouble finding that spot. It looks like when the Street View truck went by, there was construction going on on the vacant lot where the theater used to be. In the background you can see a house on the next street which can also be seen in the after photo on this page (very near the bottom) at the Bamaboy’s web site.
For some reason, Google Maps insists on calling Sylacauga “Oak Grove, AL.”
Comparing the before and after photos again, it now seems to me that the Martin might have been a few doors down the block from the site of the Bank. The building in the background in the 1959 photo doesn’t quite match the one beyond the bank in the recent photo. In fact the building in the background in 1959 might actually be the bank before it got a drive-up window. But the theater was definitely on the west side of Broadway between 1st and Fort William Street.
The Before and After page of the Bamaboys' web site has a photo of the Martin (near the bottom of the page) and the Frontier Bank which is apparently the building that replaced it. A web search shows the Frontier Bank is at 43 Broadway Ave., though Google Maps doesn’t like that address (it insists on calling Sylacauga “Oak Grove”, and does weird things with the street numbers.)
The Before and After page also has a photo of the Sylacauga Theatre and the vacant lot where it stood, and comparing it to Google street view shows that the Sylacauga was on the northeast corner of Broadway and 1st, and the Martin was apparently on the southwest corner of the same intersection.
The Plaza Theatre was remodeled and redecorated at a cost of $25,000 in 1940, as described in an illustrated article in Boxoffice Magazine of August 17 that year. The architect for the project was Larry P. Larsen.
An article in the August 17, 1940, issue of Boxoffice has a paragraph mentioning the Rose Theatre and its owner-operator, F.R. Thompson. Mr. Thompson was celebrating his 59th birthday and had recently completed construction of a new house for himself and his wife. Quoth Boxoffice writer Rene Clayton: “Mr. Thompson, who is a very fine architect if we are to judge by the Rose which he designed and built practically single-handed, designed and built the new Thompson home as well.”
The Georgia Theatre must be the project mentioned in the August 17, 1940, issue of Boxoffice. Headed “625-Seat Negro Theatre Planned in Memphis,” the item gave the location as the corner of Georgia and Mississippi avenues. Designed by architect Raymond B. Spencer, the new house was slated to cost $35,000.
The June 15, 1940, issue of Boxoffice said that the new State in Logansport had opened on June 8. It was operated by the Alliance Theatre Corporation, also operators of the Roxy and Paramount at Logansport.
A photo of the auditorium of the State Theatre illustrated an advertisement for American Avion Theatre Chairs in the August 17, 1940, issue of Boxoffice. There were 1074 seats in the State. The architect of the theater was Irving M. Karlin, Chicago.
The Orpheum Theatre in Ottawa was rebuilt in 1937, several years after it had been virtually destroyed by a fire. Three walls of the original building remained standing, and the side walls were incorporated into the new theater by architect Irving M. Karlin. The surviving facade wall was demolished. Karlin wrote an article about the project which was published in the October 16, 1937, issue of Boxoffice. The new Orpheum was designed in the Moderne style.
The State Theatre (its original name) was opened in 1950, before November 4, when an article about it, written by decorator Haans Teichert, appeared in Boxoffice Magazine. Designed by Cleveland architect George Ebeling and decorated by Rex M. Davis of the Teichert Studios, the State Theatre was originally operated by the Cuyahoga Falls Amusement Company, headed by Moe Horowitz of the Washington circuit. The Loew’s circuit did not acquire the State until 1968, according to an item in Boxoffice, March 17, 1969.
George Ebeling designed numerous theaters in Ohio between the late 1930s and his sudden death in 1951, and was for a time a member of the advisory board of Boxoffice Magazine’s Modern Theatre Planning Institute. Among theaters he designed were the Lake Theatre in Painesville, the Yorktown Theatre in Cleveland, the Mapletown Theatre in Cleveland, and the Mentor Drive-In at Mentor, Ohio.
Albert A. Weis took over the Grand Opera House in 1910, according to an item in the New York Times of June 28 that year. The article said that Weis controlled a circuit of theaters in Texas, Mississippi, and adjoining states.
The December 10, 1938, issue of Boxoffice said that a permit had been granted for the installation of a marquee at the Bibb Theatre.
In its October 15 issue, Boxoffice had reported on an unnamed theater nearing completion on 3rd Street in Macon. It was to have 800 seats. I think it must have been the Bibb. The article implied that the new theater was being built in an existing building, saying “…workmen have nearly completed removal of two upper floors to make room for the balcony.”
The November 25, 1963, issue of Boxoffice announced that the the Bibb Theatre was to undergo a $150,000 remodeling. Reconfiguration of the auditorium and seating would reduce the capacity of the house to 550 seats. The plans for the remodeling were drawn by the Atlanta architectural firm of Finch, Alexander, Barnes, Rothschild & Paschal.
The June 7, 1941, issue of Boxoffice said that Fred G. Weis had recently opened the Roxy Theatre in Savannah. The item said that the Roxy was located on the site of the Arcadia Theatre, a Lucas & Jenkins house which Weis had taken over early in 1941.
Though the phrasing of the June 7 item made it sound as though the Roxy was new construction, a February 8 Boxoffice item about the takeover had said that Weis and his partners, operating as F&W Theatres, intended to remodel the Arcadia and perhaps give it a new name. As four months would have been little time for demolition and rebuilding, it’s most likely that the Roxy was in the same building as the Arcadia, which would thus be an aka.
The September 11, 1948, issue of Boxoffice ran an article about the intention of Fred G. Weis to rebuild the Savannah Theatre. It said that Weis, son of impresario Albert A. Weis, had been operating the Savannah since 1920. This item also named Robert E. Collins and Carl E. Helfrich as the architects for the project.
Photographs of the Serra Theatre appeared in Boxoffice, November 4, 1950. The 1000-seat house was built for Mike Naify’s Golden State circuit.
The Weslin must be the unnamed theater mentioned in a June 24, 1939, Boxoffice article that said: “William N. Skirball will build an 800-seat house in Massillon according to plans by Architect John Eberson of New York. Located on Lincoln Way, the theatre will have the newest type of equipment throughout.”
The February 18, 1939, issue of Boxoffice said that work had begun on a new theater for Schwartz and Shulman in Painesville. The architect was George Ebeling, of Cleveland, who designed many other theatres in Ohio. The Lake was listed as one of Ebeling’s designs in his obituary in Boxoffice of November 21, 1951.
Opened in 1947 by the Vermes Brothers, the Yorktown Theatre was one of numerous theaters designed by Cleveland architect George Ebeling.
The Mapletown Theatre was designed by Cleveland architect George Ebeling, and was one of several theaters of his design listed in his obituary in the November 21, 1951, issue of Boxoffice.
The Varsity Theatre was opened by Paul Scott in 1929. In 1937, he sold the house to Interstate Theatres. Subsequently, he filed a lawsuit against Interstate, claiming that the chain’s unfair practices had caused him considerable losses. The suit was settled out of court, and Scott later became a district manager for Interstate.
I’ve been unable to discover when the Varsity got the modern facade it sported at the time of its demolition, but it reminds me a bit of the street-facing side wall of the Esquire in Chicago.
The Rio 6 Cinemas at Beeville opened in 2002, according to the September issue of Boxoffice that year.
An earlier Rio Theatre in Beeville had been opened by the Hall Brothers in 1935 to serve as a temporary replacement for the Rialto Theatre, which had been gutted by fire. The Hall’s Rio was still in operation at least as late as 1972.
The September 15, 1972, issue of Boxoffice featured an article about the 50th anniversary of the Rialto. The house opened on August 19, 1922, over a month after it had been completed. The delay was the result of a railroad strike which had stranded the Theater’s organ in a Cincinnati railyard. Henry Hall finally grew impatient and arranged for a ten-piece orchestra to substitute for the missing theater organ at the opening. The first movie shown in the new house was Douglas Fairbanks' “The Three Musketeers.”
The Boxoffice article gives a higher seat count at the time of the Rialto’s opening than the theater currently has, saying there were 526 opera chairs on the main floor and 200 additional seats in the balcony. Over 1300 tickets were sold for two shows on the opening night, at 10 and 25 cents.
The year after the Rialto opened, the Halls bought a competing Beeville house, the Mission Theatre, later renaming it the Rex. They operated the Rex until 1959. When the Rialto was gutted by fire in 1936, the Halls opened another theater called the Rio, intending it to be a temporary replacement until the Rialto was rebuilt, but Hall was still operating the Rio at least as late as 1972.
The Aquarius IV was designed for Trans-Texas Theatres by Austin architect Earl J. Nesbitt Jr., who I believe is still in practice at Austin.
An article about the Aquarius IV (the marquee, like the Boxoffice articles about the theater, featured the Roman numeral, not the Arabic number) published in the September 17, 1973, issue of Boxoffice, some months after the house had opened, gave the seating capacity as 1,606. Auditoriums I and IV each had 254 seats, auditorium II had 656, and auditorium III 442.
The June 7, 1947, issue of Boxoffice said: “J.E. Charbonneu, owner and operator of the Concord, Concord, N.H., for many years, has disposed of the property to Theresa Cantin, who has been booking and managing the house for some time. Charbonneau will retire from active business.”
E.L. Jack Johnston was operating the Mecca Theatre in 1931, when a letter he wrote in praise of Universal serials was published as part of an ad placed by Universal in the August 4, 1931, issue of Exhibitor’s Forum. Johnston died in 1964, and the brief obituary published in Boxoffice mentioned that he had once operated a theater at McAlester, but did not give the years of its operation.
Whenever the Mecca closed, Jack Johnston was gone from McAlester sometime before 1944. He ran a classified ad in the March 11 issue of Boxoffice that year, seeking employment as a theater manager and giving a P.O. Box address in Cordell, Oklahoma. The ad said he was currently employed in California but would be available April 2. Some years later he bought the Washita Theatre in Cordell, operating it until his death.
A small photo of the Star Theatre appeared in Boxoffice, May 15, 1948. The caption said it had opened in February, had 520 seats, and was operated by Chris Geoghegan, who had been operating the Colonial Theatre in South Hill for 15 years.
The address of the Sylacauga Tehatre was probably 100 N. Broadway Avenue. Google Maps has no trouble finding that spot. It looks like when the Street View truck went by, there was construction going on on the vacant lot where the theater used to be. In the background you can see a house on the next street which can also be seen in the after photo on this page (very near the bottom) at the Bamaboy’s web site.
For some reason, Google Maps insists on calling Sylacauga “Oak Grove, AL.”
Comparing the before and after photos again, it now seems to me that the Martin might have been a few doors down the block from the site of the Bank. The building in the background in the 1959 photo doesn’t quite match the one beyond the bank in the recent photo. In fact the building in the background in 1959 might actually be the bank before it got a drive-up window. But the theater was definitely on the west side of Broadway between 1st and Fort William Street.
The Before and After page of the Bamaboys' web site has a photo of the Martin (near the bottom of the page) and the Frontier Bank which is apparently the building that replaced it. A web search shows the Frontier Bank is at 43 Broadway Ave., though Google Maps doesn’t like that address (it insists on calling Sylacauga “Oak Grove”, and does weird things with the street numbers.)
The Before and After page also has a photo of the Sylacauga Theatre and the vacant lot where it stood, and comparing it to Google street view shows that the Sylacauga was on the northeast corner of Broadway and 1st, and the Martin was apparently on the southwest corner of the same intersection.