Here is a brief item about the Liberty Theatre from the November 1, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World:
The Liberty Theatre, C. Sawyer, Manager; P. A. Hagen, Projectionist, seats 365. It uses Mazda equipped Simplex projectors. I enjoyed a pleasant chat with Manager Sawyer and Projectionist Hagen.“
An April 20, 2018 article in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader said that the Liberty Theatre opened on May 10, 1919. A projection booth fire on February 1st, 1920 closed the house until March 13 while repairs were made. Sawyer’s ten-year lease on the building ended in 1929, and it was not renewed, as the Liberty had closed in 1928, though the article doesn’t give a date for that event.
An item about the Walter Alschlager’s plans for this house in the November 1, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World said that the building would have an Adamesque façade and the auditorium would be decorated in the Spanish Renaissance style.
If the Universal was being advertised in 1926, there might have been more than one movie house to use that name in Hanford. This item is from the November 8, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World:
“Lewis & Byrd, who recently secured the lease on the Universal Theatre, Hanford, Cal., have closed and dismantled the house, formerly operated by a Japanese exhibitor.”
An ad for the Universal Theatre in the October 14, 1915 issue of The Hanford Morning Journal said that the house was presenting “…Its Seventh Great Broadway Universal Picture….” which suggests that the theater might have opened fairly recently. No theaters are listed at Hanford in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, though there’s a god chance that was merely an oversight. It was already a good-sized town, and the County Seat of Kings County.
An item in the November 25, 1916 Moving Picture World said that the Universal Theatre in Hanford was being enlarged, and would now have an additional 200 seats.
An item about the new Hayden-Shaw Theatre, published in Exhibitors Herald and Motography of May 17, 1919, said that the architects and engineers of the new house, the W. S. Ferguson Co., had also designed the Euclid Theatre.
The May 17, 1919 issue of Exhibitors Herald and Motography had this item about the Rialto:
“The deal for the new Rialto theatre on West 25th street has been completed and work will start at once. This house will seat 1,100. Sam H. Weis is the architect.”
Boxoffice of April 24, 1948 reported that the Welling Theatre had reopened after renovations. The $5,000 project included new seats, carpeting, and screen, plus redecoration. The Welling closed and reopened more than once during the 1950s, and in 1966 the February 7 Boxoffice said that local merchants had reopened the house for Saturday shows only, but hoped to add Friday shows soon. That was the last mention of the Welling I’ve found in the trade journals.
From at least as early as 1925, Natoma had a 200-seat movie house called the Reel Theatre. Manager H. P. McFadden sent capsule movie reviews to Moving Picture World into 1927. Natoma then had a population of only about 600, but probably drew business from a significant rural population in the surrounding area. I’ve been unable to discover if the Welling was the same house as the Reel, but the Welling’s building looks like it dates from no earlier than the late 1930s, so if it was the same theater it must have been quite extensively remodeled.
I’ve seen a few references to an episode of a NPR radio show being broadcast from the Gold Pan Theatre in 1998, but I haven’t found the house mentioned in theater industry trade journals. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists a Nugget Theatre, Broadway and Third Street, as the only movie house in Skagway, and the January 13, 1945 Showmen’s Trade Review mentions a house in Skagway called the Broadway Theatre, apparently just closed for the winter, and except for a couple of mentions of the Coliseum, that’s it for Skagway in the trade journals. It’s a tiny little town that these days appears to live mostly on the tourist industry.
The July 7, 1928 issue of Exhibitors Herald World said that “[t]he Capitol at Morrison, Ill., is now under construction. It is being built by Smith & Potter of that place.” It was likely opened before the end of 1928.
A very small photo, left column, second from the bottom on this web page shows the block the the Capitol Theatre was on. As several buildings nearby it are still standing, it’s possible to calculate that the Capitol’s entrance was at 108 W. Main Street.
So, putting the information in all these comments together, the operation was opened by McCormick-Nace Enterprises sometime in 1951, probably late in the year, as either the Twin Drive-In, the Twin Open Air Drive-In, or the Twin Screen Drive-In, which was closed in early January, 1952. Then one screen was reopened April 11, 1952 by Crockett and Nace as either the Acres Drive-In or the Acres of Fun Drive-In, and then the second screen was reopened as the Peso Drive-In (or perhaps El Peso Drive-In) on July 18, 1952.
It sounds like the Peso (or El Peso) Drive-In might have shown Spanish language movies. That would have been a good move at that time. Phoenix probably already had two or three Anglophonic television stations by 1952, but probably didn’t get a Spanish language station until the 1960s at the earliest. Spanish language movies kept a lot of southwestern theaters open long after many theaters in other parts of the country lost their audience to television.
A vanished web page once provided by the Benson Chamber of Commerce, now found on the Internet Archive’s Wayback machine, says:“
"A motion picture theater opened in Benson in the Aldrich House in 1916. In 1925, John DeMarce purchased the theater. Today, the DeMarce Theater, operated by Larry DeMarce, is the only movie theater in Swift County.”
Apparently the house didn’t become the DeMarce Theatre until 1925, but so far I’ve been unable to discover any earlier name[s] for it.
There is no name given for the theater in this item from the March 10, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World, but if the DeMarce was the only house then operating in Benson it must have been the place:
“One hundred persons rushed from a picture theatre at Benson, Minn., Tuesday night when a fire which started in the operating booth threatened to spread to the auditorium of the theatre. The manager of the theatre was operating the picture machine when the fire started.”
The Theatre Historical Society’s data for Staten Island (PDF here) says that the Harbor Theatre was at 3005 Richmond Terrace, opened in January, 1914, and was still extant in 1925. It was designed (alterations of an existing building) by architect James Whitford.
The Harbor wasn’t listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, which listed only four theaters in Staten Island, including a house called the Apollo Theatre just up the road at 2951 Richmond Terrace. THS says the Apollo opened in 1911 and closed in 1914, so perhaps the Harbor was its replacement. In any case, it is evidence that the Harbor was not Staten Island’s first movie house.
A look back at some events in the Mohawk Valley, published in 2010 (Utica Observer-Dispatch), had this to say of the Bates Theatre:
“1935, 75 years ago
“Historic landmark razed
“The Bates Theater building in Mohawk – the village’s recreational center since 1845 – is razed.
“The brick building, with a seating capacity of 1,000, was built by the Hendrick Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. It not only served as the order’s meeting hall, but also had a large stage and was used as an opera house.
“It had various names through the years – including Varley Hall after one of its owners, Thomas Varley – and in 1914, Bates transformed it into a movie house. The last time the building was used was four months ago when it was a skating rink.”
The predecessor of the Rialto that was on the same site, the Grand Theatre, was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory as the Grand Opera House, but with the address 40 Grove Ave. While it may be that the lot numbers were shifted sometime after the Rialto was built, neither address is in use today, the greater part of that block now being under the footprint of the Fountain Square Condominium project, which uses the address 50 S. Grove.
A history of Elgin has this to say about the Rialto:
“The Grand was rebuilt and opened as the Rialto in April 1921, with Orpheum Circuit vaudeville acts and Norma Talmadge in ‘The Passion Flower.’ It had a seating capacity of about 1,350 and cost upwards of $130,000. Patrons had a complete view of the stage from every section, even though the last row of seats was more than one hundred feet away. The stage had a frontage of seventy-two feet and was thirty feet deep.”
Here is an item from the May 5, 1923 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Ralph Crocker of Elgin, prominent in the film circles of the northern part of the state, now says that the new house he is building in Elgin will be ready by June 1st. and will be known as the Crocker Theatre. It will seat 1,700.”
We are missing three akas for this house, and its original opening date. It was opened as Lenney’s Elite Theatre on January 22, 1921. The first operator, J. M. Lenney, had owned two theaters in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and sold one to finance his California venture. He bested Sid Grauman in a competition for the lease on the new house and also secured the Long Beach franchise from Associated First National Pictures, Inc., opening with their feature film “Dinty” and an assortment of short subjects.
Despite his experience a an exhibitor, Mr. Lenney did not succeed with the Elite Theatre, and it closed in early May. The owners of the theater then entered an arrangement with the Harry Corson Clarke Players, a stock company. The opening of the renamed Empire Theatre was scheduled for May 30, but delays in preparing the house for stage productions pushed the actual opening date back to June 6.
Sadly, the Clarke Players had no more luck with the house than Mr. Lenney, and the Empire closed on June 9. Another stock company then took over, opening (after another, more extensive remodeling of the stage facilities) on September 11. The third time, however, was not a charm, and the Empire went dark again on October 3. Another stock company attempted to revive the Empire, opening on December 11, but lasted less than a year, as by early October, 1922 the theater had been renamed the Mission and was again presenting photoplays.
After Fox West Coast took control of the house in 1936, it was advertised for some time as the Fox Long Beach Theatre, the second missing aka, before returning to the simple Long Beach Theatre name. In the late 1940s, when Fox West Coast was required to divest itself of many of its theaters, the Long Beach came under the control of the United Artists circuit, and for the last brief period of its existence was advertised as the UA Long Beach Theatre, the last of the missing akas.
This article from the Kirksville Daily Express mentions two early theaters that we don’t have listed at Cinema Treasures (the article also mentions the Gem, Colonial, and Family, and discusses the Princess and Kennedy a bit more.) One we don’t have listed was called the Harrington, which was in a building of its own, not part of a hotel, so it’s possible that this house on Elson Street was the other missing theater, which was called the Liberty.
The article says that the Liberty pre-dated the Princess, so it could have been there in 1914, even though it isn’t listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The article also says the Liberty was advertised in October, 1924, and I found it mentioned in the December 13 issue of Exhibitor’s Trade Review that same year. It was then being operated by a fellow named D. J. Michael.
A document from the Missouri Office of Historic Preservation credits local architect Irwin Dunbar with the design of the Kennedy Theatre. While it’s possible that Dunbar only acted as supervising architect for the Levine Company, it’s also possible that he did design the theater. He had designed the Princess Theatre for the same owners a little over a decade earlier, and he designed some local churches and office buildings that are quite as good as the Kennedy.
This article from the Kirksville Daily Express gives the opening date of the Princess Theatre as February 29, 1916. The first event was a five-act play called “Misleading Lady.” The Princess closed in 1957.
A document from the Missouri Department of Historic Preservation says that the Princess Theatre opened in 1915 and was designed by local Kirksville architect Irwin Dunbar.
The Royal was in operation by 1921, when the July 2 issue of Exhibitors Herald said that Mrs. H. M. Goodson had installed a new ventilation system in the house.
The only theater listed at Norborne in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was called the Phoenix Theatre, which must have been the 300-seat upstairs house listed that year as the Phoenix Opera House in Gus Hill’s directory. I doubt the Royal and Phoenix were the same theater.
The only movie house listed at Prague in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was called the Picture Show Theatre. Was this an aka for the Savoy, or was it a rival theater?
Numerous issues of Boxoffice from 1948 and 1949 have capsule movie reviews from an R. E. Halstead of the Tri-Town Theatre in Lindstrom. I wonder if this could have been the Princess reopened under a new name? The October 1, 1949 Boxoffice reported the sale of the Tri-Town, and the last reviews by Mr. Halstead appear in that same issue. There are later mentions of the house from other sources, the latest being the 1951 yearbook from the local high school, but I’ve found nothing more in the trade journals.
Here is a brief item about the Liberty Theatre from the November 1, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World:
An April 20, 2018 article in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader said that the Liberty Theatre opened on May 10, 1919. A projection booth fire on February 1st, 1920 closed the house until March 13 while repairs were made. Sawyer’s ten-year lease on the building ended in 1929, and it was not renewed, as the Liberty had closed in 1928, though the article doesn’t give a date for that event.An item about the Walter Alschlager’s plans for this house in the November 1, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World said that the building would have an Adamesque façade and the auditorium would be decorated in the Spanish Renaissance style.
If the Universal was being advertised in 1926, there might have been more than one movie house to use that name in Hanford. This item is from the November 8, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World:
An ad for the Universal Theatre in the October 14, 1915 issue of The Hanford Morning Journal said that the house was presenting “…Its Seventh Great Broadway Universal Picture….” which suggests that the theater might have opened fairly recently. No theaters are listed at Hanford in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, though there’s a god chance that was merely an oversight. It was already a good-sized town, and the County Seat of Kings County.An item in the November 25, 1916 Moving Picture World said that the Universal Theatre in Hanford was being enlarged, and would now have an additional 200 seats.
An item about the new Hayden-Shaw Theatre, published in Exhibitors Herald and Motography of May 17, 1919, said that the architects and engineers of the new house, the W. S. Ferguson Co., had also designed the Euclid Theatre.
The May 17, 1919 issue of Exhibitors Herald and Motography had this item about the Rialto:
Boxoffice of April 24, 1948 reported that the Welling Theatre had reopened after renovations. The $5,000 project included new seats, carpeting, and screen, plus redecoration. The Welling closed and reopened more than once during the 1950s, and in 1966 the February 7 Boxoffice said that local merchants had reopened the house for Saturday shows only, but hoped to add Friday shows soon. That was the last mention of the Welling I’ve found in the trade journals.
From at least as early as 1925, Natoma had a 200-seat movie house called the Reel Theatre. Manager H. P. McFadden sent capsule movie reviews to Moving Picture World into 1927. Natoma then had a population of only about 600, but probably drew business from a significant rural population in the surrounding area. I’ve been unable to discover if the Welling was the same house as the Reel, but the Welling’s building looks like it dates from no earlier than the late 1930s, so if it was the same theater it must have been quite extensively remodeled.
I’ve seen a few references to an episode of a NPR radio show being broadcast from the Gold Pan Theatre in 1998, but I haven’t found the house mentioned in theater industry trade journals. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists a Nugget Theatre, Broadway and Third Street, as the only movie house in Skagway, and the January 13, 1945 Showmen’s Trade Review mentions a house in Skagway called the Broadway Theatre, apparently just closed for the winter, and except for a couple of mentions of the Coliseum, that’s it for Skagway in the trade journals. It’s a tiny little town that these days appears to live mostly on the tourist industry.
The July 7, 1928 issue of Exhibitors Herald World said that “[t]he Capitol at Morrison, Ill., is now under construction. It is being built by Smith & Potter of that place.” It was likely opened before the end of 1928.
A very small photo, left column, second from the bottom on this web page shows the block the the Capitol Theatre was on. As several buildings nearby it are still standing, it’s possible to calculate that the Capitol’s entrance was at 108 W. Main Street.
So, putting the information in all these comments together, the operation was opened by McCormick-Nace Enterprises sometime in 1951, probably late in the year, as either the Twin Drive-In, the Twin Open Air Drive-In, or the Twin Screen Drive-In, which was closed in early January, 1952. Then one screen was reopened April 11, 1952 by Crockett and Nace as either the Acres Drive-In or the Acres of Fun Drive-In, and then the second screen was reopened as the Peso Drive-In (or perhaps El Peso Drive-In) on July 18, 1952.
It sounds like the Peso (or El Peso) Drive-In might have shown Spanish language movies. That would have been a good move at that time. Phoenix probably already had two or three Anglophonic television stations by 1952, but probably didn’t get a Spanish language station until the 1960s at the earliest. Spanish language movies kept a lot of southwestern theaters open long after many theaters in other parts of the country lost their audience to television.
The architect of the Capitol Theatre was Eugene DeRosa.
Indeed, the Marquee is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, so might well have been opened even earlier.
A vanished web page once provided by the Benson Chamber of Commerce, now found on the Internet Archive’s Wayback machine, says:“
Apparently the house didn’t become the DeMarce Theatre until 1925, but so far I’ve been unable to discover any earlier name[s] for it.There is no name given for the theater in this item from the March 10, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World, but if the DeMarce was the only house then operating in Benson it must have been the place:
The Theatre Historical Society’s data for Staten Island (PDF here) says that the Harbor Theatre was at 3005 Richmond Terrace, opened in January, 1914, and was still extant in 1925. It was designed (alterations of an existing building) by architect James Whitford.
The Harbor wasn’t listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, which listed only four theaters in Staten Island, including a house called the Apollo Theatre just up the road at 2951 Richmond Terrace. THS says the Apollo opened in 1911 and closed in 1914, so perhaps the Harbor was its replacement. In any case, it is evidence that the Harbor was not Staten Island’s first movie house.
A look back at some events in the Mohawk Valley, published in 2010 (Utica Observer-Dispatch), had this to say of the Bates Theatre:
The predecessor of the Rialto that was on the same site, the Grand Theatre, was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory as the Grand Opera House, but with the address 40 Grove Ave. While it may be that the lot numbers were shifted sometime after the Rialto was built, neither address is in use today, the greater part of that block now being under the footprint of the Fountain Square Condominium project, which uses the address 50 S. Grove.
A history of Elgin has this to say about the Rialto:
This theater is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory as the Grand Opera House, and the address is given as 40 Grove Ave.
Here is an item from the May 5, 1923 issue of The Moving Picture World:
We are missing three akas for this house, and its original opening date. It was opened as Lenney’s Elite Theatre on January 22, 1921. The first operator, J. M. Lenney, had owned two theaters in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and sold one to finance his California venture. He bested Sid Grauman in a competition for the lease on the new house and also secured the Long Beach franchise from Associated First National Pictures, Inc., opening with their feature film “Dinty” and an assortment of short subjects.
Despite his experience a an exhibitor, Mr. Lenney did not succeed with the Elite Theatre, and it closed in early May. The owners of the theater then entered an arrangement with the Harry Corson Clarke Players, a stock company. The opening of the renamed Empire Theatre was scheduled for May 30, but delays in preparing the house for stage productions pushed the actual opening date back to June 6.
Sadly, the Clarke Players had no more luck with the house than Mr. Lenney, and the Empire closed on June 9. Another stock company then took over, opening (after another, more extensive remodeling of the stage facilities) on September 11. The third time, however, was not a charm, and the Empire went dark again on October 3. Another stock company attempted to revive the Empire, opening on December 11, but lasted less than a year, as by early October, 1922 the theater had been renamed the Mission and was again presenting photoplays.
After Fox West Coast took control of the house in 1936, it was advertised for some time as the Fox Long Beach Theatre, the second missing aka, before returning to the simple Long Beach Theatre name. In the late 1940s, when Fox West Coast was required to divest itself of many of its theaters, the Long Beach came under the control of the United Artists circuit, and for the last brief period of its existence was advertised as the UA Long Beach Theatre, the last of the missing akas.
This article from the Kirksville Daily Express mentions two early theaters that we don’t have listed at Cinema Treasures (the article also mentions the Gem, Colonial, and Family, and discusses the Princess and Kennedy a bit more.) One we don’t have listed was called the Harrington, which was in a building of its own, not part of a hotel, so it’s possible that this house on Elson Street was the other missing theater, which was called the Liberty.
The article says that the Liberty pre-dated the Princess, so it could have been there in 1914, even though it isn’t listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The article also says the Liberty was advertised in October, 1924, and I found it mentioned in the December 13 issue of Exhibitor’s Trade Review that same year. It was then being operated by a fellow named D. J. Michael.
A document from the Missouri Office of Historic Preservation credits local architect Irwin Dunbar with the design of the Kennedy Theatre. While it’s possible that Dunbar only acted as supervising architect for the Levine Company, it’s also possible that he did design the theater. He had designed the Princess Theatre for the same owners a little over a decade earlier, and he designed some local churches and office buildings that are quite as good as the Kennedy.
This article from the Kirksville Daily Express gives the opening date of the Princess Theatre as February 29, 1916. The first event was a five-act play called “Misleading Lady.” The Princess closed in 1957.
A document from the Missouri Department of Historic Preservation says that the Princess Theatre opened in 1915 and was designed by local Kirksville architect Irwin Dunbar.
The Royal was in operation by 1921, when the July 2 issue of Exhibitors Herald said that Mrs. H. M. Goodson had installed a new ventilation system in the house.
The only theater listed at Norborne in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was called the Phoenix Theatre, which must have been the 300-seat upstairs house listed that year as the Phoenix Opera House in Gus Hill’s directory. I doubt the Royal and Phoenix were the same theater.
The only movie house listed at Prague in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was called the Picture Show Theatre. Was this an aka for the Savoy, or was it a rival theater?
Numerous issues of Boxoffice from 1948 and 1949 have capsule movie reviews from an R. E. Halstead of the Tri-Town Theatre in Lindstrom. I wonder if this could have been the Princess reopened under a new name? The October 1, 1949 Boxoffice reported the sale of the Tri-Town, and the last reviews by Mr. Halstead appear in that same issue. There are later mentions of the house from other sources, the latest being the 1951 yearbook from the local high school, but I’ve found nothing more in the trade journals.