From the August 26, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “At Woodsfield this week Jess Shannon, exhibitor there, was opening his new 600-seat house, known as the Life.”
In 1954, Joe Shannon of the New Life Theatre is quoted in several ads appearing in Boxoffice, praising the benefits of CinemaScope for small town movie houses.
From the January 7, 1956, issue: “J.J. Shannon, manager, reports the reopening of the Newlife Theatre, Woodsfield, Ohio….”
The December 11, 1978, issue of Boxoffice quotes a regional buyer and booker named Jack Talley as saying that the Swissland Cinema in Woodsfield was being opened.
That new building belongs to the Salvation Army and is apparently some sort of rehab center. It has the same address as the theater, so (assuming the theater address is correct) the Metro is gone. The Salvation Army building looks no more than a few years old. Unfortunately, Historic Aerials only has a 2004 photo for the location, and it’s too blurry to tell if the theater was still there then or not. I’m quite sure it wasn’t there on May 11 this year, though.
Now I’m really confused. I can’t find a photo from 4/28/09. The photo Don Lewis linked to was dated as having been taken on May 11, 2009. Assuming it does depict the Metro, and the date is correct, we’d also have to assume that the Metro was demolished, the new multi-story building seen in Google Street View was built, and Google came by to take new photos of the block, all in the last 12 days.
I’m not saying that such a thing couldn’t happen in Texas. Just that it’s very unlikely.
A couple of 1940 items from Boxoffice Magazine concern the Mecca Theatre. The issue of September 7 says that Cumberland Amusement Co., operators of the Strand, had leased a building on Lincoln Street and planned to convert it into a movie theatre. The December 14 issue specifically names the Mecca, saying it was scheduled to open on the day of publication. The house was to have 400 seats.
The Army’s Camp Peay, later renamed Camp Forrest, was located near Tullahoma, and the arrival of some 20,000 recruits as WWII approached created a demand for new theaters in the town.
The Swiss Theatre opened in the summer of 1948, according to an item in the October 23 issue of Boxoffice Magazine that year. The 449-seat theater was designed by the Evansville, Indiana, firm of Warweg and Hagel. Other issues of Boxoffice give the name of the original operator of this independent house as Silver Rayley (or Raley- their spelling is inconsistent.)
At various times, Tell City also had theaters called the Royal, the Rialto, and the Ohio.
The Northgate Theatre was featured in an article in the January 21, 1963, issue of Boxoffice magazine. A preview of the house was held on December 21, 1962, with a screening of “Jumbo” for an audience of invited guests. The public opening of the theater took place on Christmas Day.
The Northgate Theatre was built and owned by the developers of the Northgate Shopping Center, and was first operated by Consolidated Theatres of Charlotte. The theater was designed by the Raleigh architectural firm Leif Valand & Associates.
Boxoffice Magazine of July 19, 1941, said the Clover Theatre had opened on Friday (the 19th was a Saturday that year.) According to Boxoffice, the theater had “…ultra-modern appointments and decorations.” The seating capacity was given as 700. The first manager was Don W. Randolph, formerly of Asheville, N.C., and the projectionist was B.P. Bopkins.
The Sierra Three was opened by Fridley Theatres in 1973, according to the April 30 issue of Boxoffice that year. By 1977, the house was being operated by Dubinsky Theatres.
The Fleur Four Theatre was actually opened in 1970, and was originally operated by Dubinsky Brothers Theatres. The November 2, 1970, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that Irwin Dubinsky had spent the day of October 26 checking on the progress of the Fleur Four, and that the planned opening date was November 18. The new four-plex would have 1,250 seats.
The Dubinsky circuit, based in Lincoln, Nebraska, grew rapidly in the 1970s. They apparently operated the Fleur Four until the company was bought out by Chicago-based Excellence Theatres (formerly Essanass Theatres) in 1989. At the time of the sale, Dubinsky operated 127 screens. Carmike Cinemas took over management of Excellence Theatres in 1992.
I’ve never been to Santa Rosa, but the 20th Century West Theatre is mentioned in the April 26, 1965, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, which says that “The Greatest Story Ever Told” was the first movie shown at the recently opened house.
Originally built for independent operators Mr. and Mrs. William Blair, the theater was bought in 1968 by the Sonoma Theatre Corporation, headed by George Mann, Robert L. Lippert, and Charles J. Maestri. Sonoma Theatre Corp. also bought a twin-screen house elsewhere in Santa Rosa from the Blairs at the same time.
The July 22, 1974, issue of Boxoffice said that Sonoma Theatres would expand the 20th Century West by adding two 400-seat auditoriums adjacent to the original 800-seat house, with all three sharing a common entrance and lobby. The theater would be renamed the Coddingtown Cinemas.
Mike Rivest’s list of Sonoma County theaters (PDF file here) says that the house was expanded to four screens in the late 1980s, was last operated by the United Artists circuit, and was closed about 2000.
Try putting the address into Google Maps and looking at the current building in Street View. It looks about the right size to have held a triplex with 1600 seats, but it contains retail stores now.
In 1945, the Ritz was bought by Robert J. Mattecheck and Harold Gunness. The new owners planned to remodel the house, according to the December 15, 1945, issue of Boxoffice.
Then the December 10, 1949, issue of Boxoffice said that R.J. Mattecheck and Harold Gunness were selling the Beaver Theatre at Beaverton to Harold Fix.
I can’t find any mentions of a Ritz Theatre in Beaverton later then 1945, nor any mentions of a Beaver Theatre in Beaverton before 1949, so the most likely explanation is that Mattecheck and Gunness changed the name from Ritz to Beaver when they remodeled.
There are a few more items mentioning the Beaver in the 1950s, and then nothing for a long time. As early as 1953, the owner was named as J.J. Taggart.
Finally, the September 16, 1968, issue of Boxoffice says that Jay and Joy Taggart had reopened the former Beaver Theatre as an art house called the Film Fair. This is the only mention of the Film Fair I’ve found, so I don’t know of it was successful or not. In any case, if the Ritz and the Beaver were the same house, and there were no later name changes, Film Fair was the last name for the theater.
The last article I mentioned contains these entertaining lines, by the way: “In remodeling the Beaver Theatre here, he decided on an ‘adults only’ policy because of the difficulty in operation. With a general picture policy the small Beaver had become a ‘baby sitting’ operation.” (cue Butthead laugh: huhhuhhuh huhhuhhuh.)
The architect’s surname is currently misspelled in the info section at the top of this page. The correct spelling, Calvin Garrett, can be found in the by-line of the article he wrote about the house for Boxoffice Magazine in 1966, which is linked in rodesideok’s comment of July 23, 2005, above.
To very belatedly answer Michael Coate’s question from the same day, the article comes from the March 21, 1966, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. An earlier article, in the September 13, 1965, issue of the same publication, when the Oklahoma City Continental was nearing completion, said that construction was already underway on the Tulsa and Denver Continentals as well.
Two things: First, the Continental did not have stadium seating, as the introduction currently states. Like the other two Continental Theatres built by Barton, it had continental seating, an unbroken block of seats with the aisles confined to the sides of the house.
Second, the architect’s surname is spelled Garrett, with a double t. This can be seen in the article about the Oklahoma City Continental Garrett wrote for Boxoffice Magazine, which is linked from the comment by Oklahomo Cowboy’s comment of July 7, 2007, above.
I believe the architect’s name is currently misspelled above. It should be Garrett, with a double t. Calvin Garrett wrote an article about the original Continental Theatre in Oklahoma City for the March 21, 1966, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
While Boxoffice did sometimes (well, ok, frequently) misspell people’s names in articles, it would have been an extraordinary event for them to have misspelled an author’s name in a by-line.
The February 3, 1951, issue of Boxoffice said that the Liberty Theatre had recently been reopened after remodeling and redecoration. When construction of the Liberty began in 1918, it was Wenatchee’s first brick theater. The first owner of the house was N.I. Neubauer.
The Boxoffice item about the reopening also mentioned three earlier movie theaters in Wenatchee. The first theater built to accommodate both movies and stage shows in town was the Wenatchee Theatre, opened in 1905 by Ed Ferguson. Later there was a Gem Theatre, located in the Olympic Hotel building, and then a Majestic Theatre. No opening dates are given for the latter two houses.
The April 11, 1966, issue of Boxoffice said that San Francisco theater man Arthur Glasgow had bought the Ojai Theatre and would rename it the Glasgow Playhouse, operating it as an art house after refurbishing it.
Boxoffice said that the refurbishment was to be done by the F.F. Shearer Co., with architect Arthur Drilsman, though they must have meant B.F. Shearer Co. and architect J. Arthur Drielsma. Some issues of Boxoffice got more than their share of errors.
The Tower Theatre was built by T&D Jr. Enterprises. The opening date of the theater was May 25, 1949, according to Boxoffice Magazine of May 29. The house had 946 seats, and the first manager was Mario Menconi. The Tower either supplemented or replaced the local Rialto Theatre, which Menconi had also managed.
The architect of the 1951 moderne remodeling when the Mayfield was converted into the Fine Arts was Gale Santocono. The February 17 issue of Boxoffice ran the announcement, but managed to mangle the architect’s name into Gus Santascona.
An ad for the United States Air Conditioning Corporation in the May 17, 1941, issue of Boxoffice lists the Bay Theatre among the houses which had recently had the company’s equipment installed. There’s no indication whether the Bay was newly built or if it was an existing house merely getting new air conditioning equipment. In any case, there was apparently a Bay Theatre in National City before the 1944 opening date currently cited in the intro on this page.
The marquee and decorative tower on the Bay Theatre apparently date from 1951, as those particular features are mentioned in an item about an $80,000 remodeling of the house appearing in the April 21 issue of Boxoffice.
There were also two theaters called the National in National City. A card in the California Index cites and L.A. Times article of May 20, 1930, saying that the National Theatre had burned, with the loss estimated at $25,000. Either this house was rebuilt or another house was given the name, as a National Theatre is mentioned in several Boxoffice items from 1938 into the early 1950s. Then, an August 27, 1955, Boxoffice item says that the old National Theatre had been reopened by an independent operator who had renamed it the Abalee Theatre.
A third National City house was called the Star Theatre. The August 7, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said that the 500 seat house was nearing completion.
The March 25, 1950, issue of Boxoffice said that Harry Goldfarb operated three theaters at National City in conjunction with the Eastland circuit. The Star might not have been among them, though, as the November 20, 1948, issue of Boxoffice named the three theaters operated by the Eastland Circuit at National City as the Bay, the National, and the Vista. I think the Vista might have actually been in nearby Alta Vista, though. A 1938 Boxoffice item mentions a Vista Theatre operated by Harry Goldfarb, but places it in San Diego.
One more National City house was the Paradise Twin, opened on August 15, 1973, according to the August 27 issue of Boxoffice. Also, the September 18, 1972, issue of Boxoffice includes an unnamed 678-seat theater on Harbison Avenue in National City on a list of recent and current theater projects, but Boxoffice’s lists of this sort tend to contain a number of errors.
The September 18, 1937, issue of Boxoffice had this to say about the Lux Theatre: “Souris & Ade are opening the Lux at Grants, N.M., a house of 518 seats. The town has been without a theatre since 1930.”
Another item in the same issue lists various pieces of equipment and furnishings installed at the Lux by the Denver branch of National Theatre Supply Company. Neither item indicates whether the Lux was new construction or a renovation of an older theater— perhaps the one that had closed in 1930.
An item in the October 11, 1947, issue of Boxoffice said that C.E. Means, owner of the Lux Theatre, was planning a new theater for Grants. To be designed by Albuquerque architect Gordon Ferguson, and to seat 500, the new house would be called the El Sol. I find no other mentions of this theater, and don’t know if it was actually built or not.
J.C. West, who would later build the West Theatre in Grants, bought the Lux from C.E. Means in 1950. He might have closed the Lux for a time in the 1960s, as the September 14, 1964, issue of Boxoffice mentions him as the operator of the West Theatre and the Sahara and Trails Drive-Ins in Grants, but makes no mention of the Lux. Then the January 30, 1967, issue of Boxoffice said that J.C. West had opened the Lux after an extensive remodeling. He intended to operate the house with an art film policy.
West was still operating the Lux as late as February, 1970, when the Boxoffice issue of the 16th said that the house had to be closed for one night due to a fire in a furnace blower. That’s the last mention of the Lux I’ve found in Boxoffice. J.C. West is mentioned once more, but only as the operator of the West Theatre, in 1972.
The West Theatre apparently turned fifty years old this month. The May 18, 1959, issue of Boxoffice said that it had opened recently. The opening features were “Tarawa Beachhead” and “Crash Landing.” Boxoffice reported the cost of the new theatre as $125,000.
The owner of the West Theatre was J.C. West, Grants' theater magnate. He bought the Lux Theatre in 1950, and built the Sahara Drive-In in 1958. He also operated the Trails Drive-In at Grants.
The recent opening of the Fine Arts 3 was noted in the November 22, 1971, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The new house seated 400 patrons, and, like the Fine Arts 1 and 2, was operated by the Nutmeg Circuit.
From the August 26, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “At Woodsfield this week Jess Shannon, exhibitor there, was opening his new 600-seat house, known as the Life.”
In 1954, Joe Shannon of the New Life Theatre is quoted in several ads appearing in Boxoffice, praising the benefits of CinemaScope for small town movie houses.
From the January 7, 1956, issue: “J.J. Shannon, manager, reports the reopening of the Newlife Theatre, Woodsfield, Ohio….”
The December 11, 1978, issue of Boxoffice quotes a regional buyer and booker named Jack Talley as saying that the Swissland Cinema in Woodsfield was being opened.
That new building belongs to the Salvation Army and is apparently some sort of rehab center. It has the same address as the theater, so (assuming the theater address is correct) the Metro is gone. The Salvation Army building looks no more than a few years old. Unfortunately, Historic Aerials only has a 2004 photo for the location, and it’s too blurry to tell if the theater was still there then or not. I’m quite sure it wasn’t there on May 11 this year, though.
Now I’m really confused. I can’t find a photo from 4/28/09. The photo Don Lewis linked to was dated as having been taken on May 11, 2009. Assuming it does depict the Metro, and the date is correct, we’d also have to assume that the Metro was demolished, the new multi-story building seen in Google Street View was built, and Google came by to take new photos of the block, all in the last 12 days.
I’m not saying that such a thing couldn’t happen in Texas. Just that it’s very unlikely.
A couple of 1940 items from Boxoffice Magazine concern the Mecca Theatre. The issue of September 7 says that Cumberland Amusement Co., operators of the Strand, had leased a building on Lincoln Street and planned to convert it into a movie theatre. The December 14 issue specifically names the Mecca, saying it was scheduled to open on the day of publication. The house was to have 400 seats.
The Army’s Camp Peay, later renamed Camp Forrest, was located near Tullahoma, and the arrival of some 20,000 recruits as WWII approached created a demand for new theaters in the town.
The Swiss Theatre opened in the summer of 1948, according to an item in the October 23 issue of Boxoffice Magazine that year. The 449-seat theater was designed by the Evansville, Indiana, firm of Warweg and Hagel. Other issues of Boxoffice give the name of the original operator of this independent house as Silver Rayley (or Raley- their spelling is inconsistent.)
At various times, Tell City also had theaters called the Royal, the Rialto, and the Ohio.
The Northgate Theatre was featured in an article in the January 21, 1963, issue of Boxoffice magazine. A preview of the house was held on December 21, 1962, with a screening of “Jumbo” for an audience of invited guests. The public opening of the theater took place on Christmas Day.
The Northgate Theatre was built and owned by the developers of the Northgate Shopping Center, and was first operated by Consolidated Theatres of Charlotte. The theater was designed by the Raleigh architectural firm Leif Valand & Associates.
Boxoffice Magazine of July 19, 1941, said the Clover Theatre had opened on Friday (the 19th was a Saturday that year.) According to Boxoffice, the theater had “…ultra-modern appointments and decorations.” The seating capacity was given as 700. The first manager was Don W. Randolph, formerly of Asheville, N.C., and the projectionist was B.P. Bopkins.
That should read “Esseness” rather than Essanass. My mind has been wandering into Beavis and Butthead territory again.
The Sierra Three was opened by Fridley Theatres in 1973, according to the April 30 issue of Boxoffice that year. By 1977, the house was being operated by Dubinsky Theatres.
The Fleur Four Theatre was actually opened in 1970, and was originally operated by Dubinsky Brothers Theatres. The November 2, 1970, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that Irwin Dubinsky had spent the day of October 26 checking on the progress of the Fleur Four, and that the planned opening date was November 18. The new four-plex would have 1,250 seats.
The Dubinsky circuit, based in Lincoln, Nebraska, grew rapidly in the 1970s. They apparently operated the Fleur Four until the company was bought out by Chicago-based Excellence Theatres (formerly Essanass Theatres) in 1989. At the time of the sale, Dubinsky operated 127 screens. Carmike Cinemas took over management of Excellence Theatres in 1992.
I’ve never been to Santa Rosa, but the 20th Century West Theatre is mentioned in the April 26, 1965, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, which says that “The Greatest Story Ever Told” was the first movie shown at the recently opened house.
Originally built for independent operators Mr. and Mrs. William Blair, the theater was bought in 1968 by the Sonoma Theatre Corporation, headed by George Mann, Robert L. Lippert, and Charles J. Maestri. Sonoma Theatre Corp. also bought a twin-screen house elsewhere in Santa Rosa from the Blairs at the same time.
The July 22, 1974, issue of Boxoffice said that Sonoma Theatres would expand the 20th Century West by adding two 400-seat auditoriums adjacent to the original 800-seat house, with all three sharing a common entrance and lobby. The theater would be renamed the Coddingtown Cinemas.
Mike Rivest’s list of Sonoma County theaters (PDF file here) says that the house was expanded to four screens in the late 1980s, was last operated by the United Artists circuit, and was closed about 2000.
Try putting the address into Google Maps and looking at the current building in Street View. It looks about the right size to have held a triplex with 1600 seats, but it contains retail stores now.
In 1945, the Ritz was bought by Robert J. Mattecheck and Harold Gunness. The new owners planned to remodel the house, according to the December 15, 1945, issue of Boxoffice.
Then the December 10, 1949, issue of Boxoffice said that R.J. Mattecheck and Harold Gunness were selling the Beaver Theatre at Beaverton to Harold Fix.
I can’t find any mentions of a Ritz Theatre in Beaverton later then 1945, nor any mentions of a Beaver Theatre in Beaverton before 1949, so the most likely explanation is that Mattecheck and Gunness changed the name from Ritz to Beaver when they remodeled.
There are a few more items mentioning the Beaver in the 1950s, and then nothing for a long time. As early as 1953, the owner was named as J.J. Taggart.
Finally, the September 16, 1968, issue of Boxoffice says that Jay and Joy Taggart had reopened the former Beaver Theatre as an art house called the Film Fair. This is the only mention of the Film Fair I’ve found, so I don’t know of it was successful or not. In any case, if the Ritz and the Beaver were the same house, and there were no later name changes, Film Fair was the last name for the theater.
The last article I mentioned contains these entertaining lines, by the way: “In remodeling the Beaver Theatre here, he decided on an ‘adults only’ policy because of the difficulty in operation. With a general picture policy the small Beaver had become a ‘baby sitting’ operation.” (cue Butthead laugh: huhhuhhuh huhhuhhuh.)
The architect’s surname is currently misspelled in the info section at the top of this page. The correct spelling, Calvin Garrett, can be found in the by-line of the article he wrote about the house for Boxoffice Magazine in 1966, which is linked in rodesideok’s comment of July 23, 2005, above.
To very belatedly answer Michael Coate’s question from the same day, the article comes from the March 21, 1966, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. An earlier article, in the September 13, 1965, issue of the same publication, when the Oklahoma City Continental was nearing completion, said that construction was already underway on the Tulsa and Denver Continentals as well.
Two things: First, the Continental did not have stadium seating, as the introduction currently states. Like the other two Continental Theatres built by Barton, it had continental seating, an unbroken block of seats with the aisles confined to the sides of the house.
Second, the architect’s surname is spelled Garrett, with a double t. This can be seen in the article about the Oklahoma City Continental Garrett wrote for Boxoffice Magazine, which is linked from the comment by Oklahomo Cowboy’s comment of July 7, 2007, above.
I believe the architect’s name is currently misspelled above. It should be Garrett, with a double t. Calvin Garrett wrote an article about the original Continental Theatre in Oklahoma City for the March 21, 1966, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
While Boxoffice did sometimes (well, ok, frequently) misspell people’s names in articles, it would have been an extraordinary event for them to have misspelled an author’s name in a by-line.
The recent opening of the Hawthorne 6 was the subject of a brief article in the May 9, 1977, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The February 3, 1951, issue of Boxoffice said that the Liberty Theatre had recently been reopened after remodeling and redecoration. When construction of the Liberty began in 1918, it was Wenatchee’s first brick theater. The first owner of the house was N.I. Neubauer.
The Boxoffice item about the reopening also mentioned three earlier movie theaters in Wenatchee. The first theater built to accommodate both movies and stage shows in town was the Wenatchee Theatre, opened in 1905 by Ed Ferguson. Later there was a Gem Theatre, located in the Olympic Hotel building, and then a Majestic Theatre. No opening dates are given for the latter two houses.
This is probably a duplicate listing. See my comment of today on the Ojai Playhouse page.
The April 11, 1966, issue of Boxoffice said that San Francisco theater man Arthur Glasgow had bought the Ojai Theatre and would rename it the Glasgow Playhouse, operating it as an art house after refurbishing it.
Boxoffice said that the refurbishment was to be done by the F.F. Shearer Co., with architect Arthur Drilsman, though they must have meant B.F. Shearer Co. and architect J. Arthur Drielsma. Some issues of Boxoffice got more than their share of errors.
The Tower Theatre was built by T&D Jr. Enterprises. The opening date of the theater was May 25, 1949, according to Boxoffice Magazine of May 29. The house had 946 seats, and the first manager was Mario Menconi. The Tower either supplemented or replaced the local Rialto Theatre, which Menconi had also managed.
The architect of the 1951 moderne remodeling when the Mayfield was converted into the Fine Arts was Gale Santocono. The February 17 issue of Boxoffice ran the announcement, but managed to mangle the architect’s name into Gus Santascona.
An ad for the United States Air Conditioning Corporation in the May 17, 1941, issue of Boxoffice lists the Bay Theatre among the houses which had recently had the company’s equipment installed. There’s no indication whether the Bay was newly built or if it was an existing house merely getting new air conditioning equipment. In any case, there was apparently a Bay Theatre in National City before the 1944 opening date currently cited in the intro on this page.
The marquee and decorative tower on the Bay Theatre apparently date from 1951, as those particular features are mentioned in an item about an $80,000 remodeling of the house appearing in the April 21 issue of Boxoffice.
There were also two theaters called the National in National City. A card in the California Index cites and L.A. Times article of May 20, 1930, saying that the National Theatre had burned, with the loss estimated at $25,000. Either this house was rebuilt or another house was given the name, as a National Theatre is mentioned in several Boxoffice items from 1938 into the early 1950s. Then, an August 27, 1955, Boxoffice item says that the old National Theatre had been reopened by an independent operator who had renamed it the Abalee Theatre.
A third National City house was called the Star Theatre. The August 7, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said that the 500 seat house was nearing completion.
The March 25, 1950, issue of Boxoffice said that Harry Goldfarb operated three theaters at National City in conjunction with the Eastland circuit. The Star might not have been among them, though, as the November 20, 1948, issue of Boxoffice named the three theaters operated by the Eastland Circuit at National City as the Bay, the National, and the Vista. I think the Vista might have actually been in nearby Alta Vista, though. A 1938 Boxoffice item mentions a Vista Theatre operated by Harry Goldfarb, but places it in San Diego.
One more National City house was the Paradise Twin, opened on August 15, 1973, according to the August 27 issue of Boxoffice. Also, the September 18, 1972, issue of Boxoffice includes an unnamed 678-seat theater on Harbison Avenue in National City on a list of recent and current theater projects, but Boxoffice’s lists of this sort tend to contain a number of errors.
The September 18, 1937, issue of Boxoffice had this to say about the Lux Theatre: “Souris & Ade are opening the Lux at Grants, N.M., a house of 518 seats. The town has been without a theatre since 1930.”
Another item in the same issue lists various pieces of equipment and furnishings installed at the Lux by the Denver branch of National Theatre Supply Company. Neither item indicates whether the Lux was new construction or a renovation of an older theater— perhaps the one that had closed in 1930.
An item in the October 11, 1947, issue of Boxoffice said that C.E. Means, owner of the Lux Theatre, was planning a new theater for Grants. To be designed by Albuquerque architect Gordon Ferguson, and to seat 500, the new house would be called the El Sol. I find no other mentions of this theater, and don’t know if it was actually built or not.
J.C. West, who would later build the West Theatre in Grants, bought the Lux from C.E. Means in 1950. He might have closed the Lux for a time in the 1960s, as the September 14, 1964, issue of Boxoffice mentions him as the operator of the West Theatre and the Sahara and Trails Drive-Ins in Grants, but makes no mention of the Lux. Then the January 30, 1967, issue of Boxoffice said that J.C. West had opened the Lux after an extensive remodeling. He intended to operate the house with an art film policy.
West was still operating the Lux as late as February, 1970, when the Boxoffice issue of the 16th said that the house had to be closed for one night due to a fire in a furnace blower. That’s the last mention of the Lux I’ve found in Boxoffice. J.C. West is mentioned once more, but only as the operator of the West Theatre, in 1972.
The West Theatre apparently turned fifty years old this month. The May 18, 1959, issue of Boxoffice said that it had opened recently. The opening features were “Tarawa Beachhead” and “Crash Landing.” Boxoffice reported the cost of the new theatre as $125,000.
The owner of the West Theatre was J.C. West, Grants' theater magnate. He bought the Lux Theatre in 1950, and built the Sahara Drive-In in 1958. He also operated the Trails Drive-In at Grants.
The recent opening of the Fine Arts 3 was noted in the November 22, 1971, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The new house seated 400 patrons, and, like the Fine Arts 1 and 2, was operated by the Nutmeg Circuit.