Two buildings labeled “Motion Pictures” appear on the 1922 Sanborn map of Bedford, both on J Street. The wider one must have been the Lawrence Theatre, and the narrower one, which was at 1519 J Street, thus must have been the Grand. The cigar shop next door to the theater in the 1910 postcard view is still there on the 1922 map. A modern-looking structure at 1517 today might be the cigar shop’s building, but the Grand’s site is now part of a parking lot.
The Lawrence must have been the theater labeled “Motion Pictures” at 1605 J Street on the 1922 Sanborn map of Bedford. The map shows a rather shallow balcony and no stage. Current Google Street view (here) shows an interesting old brick building with a crenelated second floor parapet wall. The three-bay façade with a taller center section still has a fairly theatrical appearance, even though there is no marquee. It looks to be in good condition, at least on the exterior, and is currently occupied by a business called Crane’s Leather and Shoe Store.
The Liberty was expected to open in September, according to this item from the July 14, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World: “Upon the expiration of the lease of the Palace Theatre, which William Eyre conducts at Pen Argyl, Pa., near Stroudsburg, he will discontinue its conduct and give his time entirely to the management of another theatre now under construction in that town which is owned by the Hurd Brothers. Mr. Eyre will take up his new enterprise when the building is completed in September.”
The January 1, 1924 issue of The Exhibitor made reference to “…the Liberty, Pen Argyl… opened recently by Marsh and Hurd.”
Also, it appears that the Palace did not shut down after Mr. Eyre departed, as it was still listed in the 1926 FDY, along with the Liberty. The 1929 FDY listed the 400-seat Liberty and the 500-seat New Palace. I haven’t discovered if the New Palace was a new theater or the old house perhaps remodeled or simply under new ownership. The Palace, which was on Main Street, was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, along with a house called the Bijou. Only the Liberty was listed in the FDY by 1940, but with 600 seats, so it must have been expanded at some point.
From the September 28, 1912 issue of Moving Picture World: “The Crystal and Princess Theaters at Waterloo, Iowa, have installed an indirect lighting system.” I’ve seen a couple of other references to the Crystal, but so far this is the only mention of the Princess I’ve come across in the trade journals.
The Wayne Theatre was at 427 N. Market Blvd. It is currently in use as a church. The building is tiny. I doubt it could have held much over 100 seats, if that.
This item is from the “Theatre Deals” column of Film Daily for February 8, 1946: “Chambers Buys the Flagler Bunnell, Fla. — F. J. Chambers who is constructing the new Bunnell Theater, has purchased the Flagler from Earl M. Fain, of Leesburg. Fain recently bought the theater from L. E. Lamboley. Jim Camp, who will also run the Bunnell theater after its opening late in February, will assume management.”
Flagler was an aka for the Biddle Theatre, as revealed in this item from the March 1 FD: “Bunnell, Fla. —The Flagler Theater, erected by J. M. Biddle about 20 years ago and used ever since as a theater, has been sold and the new owner, Ernest Decker of Smyrna Beach, plans to convert the building into a modern garage. Theater will continue to operate until completion of the Bunnell theater, now under construction.”
Mr. Decker’s plans for the Flagler must have fallen through, as the August 19 FD had this item: “Camp Sells to Dole. Bunnell, Fla.—The Flagler has been sold by G. M. Camp to H. A. Dale of Lake City. Dale is already owner of the Lake Theater in Lake City.”
In 1948, the April 10 issue ofBoxoffice noted that the Bunnell Theatre had been sold to Weldon S. Bristow, former manager of the Schine Theatres houses at Mayville, Kentucky. This item said the Bunnell had 400 seats.
The Bunnell was remodeled in 1949. According to the July 2 issue of Boxoffice, the house had been closed for two months, the building was lengthened and the front replaced, and new projection and sound equipment installed. At this time the Bunnell was owned by Mr. and Mrs. H. A. Dale.
A page about Flagler County history says that “[t]he Flagler Theater operated as such until 1946 when it was closed down when the new Bunnell Theater, adjoining the Holden building on the northwest corner of Moody Blvd and U.S. 1, began operations on 28 Feb 1946. Ernest R (Ernie) Decker bought the Flagler Theater building from F J Chambers in Feb 1946 with the intention of making it an automotive garage. The building was still standing in April 2007 and was being used as an apartment building.” It also notes that the Biddle/Flagler Theatre, located on U.S. 1 (aka State Street,) opened in 1926.
The northwest corner of State Street (U.S. 1) and Moody Boulevard is now occupied by a Citgo filling station and convenience store. Citgo uses the address 100 W. Moody Blvd., but the Bunnell Theatre must have had a State Street address.
Here is an item from the July 3, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World:“Doc Webster has opened a new house in Leesburg, Fla., running Universal program. The Prince is the name of this new house.”
The names of the architect are most likely spelled Alan J. MacDonough, the spellings preferred by the Society of Architectural Historians (founded 1940 at Harvard University) and their online publication “SAH Archipedia” hosted by the University of Virginia Press.
The Palace was built by the local Masonic Lodge, who had their quarters in the third floor until the early 1970s. The building was designed by architect Alan J. MacDonough (some sources give the spelling McDonough, but the Society of Architectural Historians and the University of Virginia Press prefer the “Mac” spelling, so I’m inclined to follow their practice.)
Moving Picture World of November 9, 1918 noted a new owner for the Opera House in Blue Rapids: “O. A. Reed, of Blue Rapids, Kan., widely known throughout the northern portion of the state, has bought the opera there and is running a program of the best class of photoplays.”
The only theater listed at Blue Rapids in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was called the Photoplay, listed on the east side of the square.
Sources differ on whether the Big Rapids was a new theater built on the site of the old Colonial in 1937 or was an extreme rebuilding of the earlier house. Water Winter Wonderland’s page of photos includes one with the Colonial gutted and its façade torn off but the side walls and roof trusses still in place. Because modern satellite views of the building show a pitched roof uncharacteristic of most theater construction in the 1930s, I’m inclined to go with the extreme rebuild belief.
The only mention of the project I’ve been able to find in trade publications is from the March 10, 1937 issue of Film Daily, which ran a brief item about three new Michigan houses to be built by the Butterfield chain, in Monroe, Manistee and Big Rapids. Of the Big Rapids project it said only “[a] 1,000-seat theater is to be built in Big Rapids on the present site of the Colonial. Pierra & Pierra [sic] of Chicago will probably be in charge of its construction.”
I haven’t found any other sources confirming William and Hal Pereira as architects of this house, but as they were designing one of the other Butterfield projects and the Big Rapids does strongly express their style of the period, they probably did design it.
As for the Colonial, it was a venerable house, dating from 1884, and despite some updating over the years it was a very old fashioned theater by the 1930s, as vintage photos show, and the interior was not well suited to the needs of a modern motion picture house. Cahn guides list it as a ground floor house with a total of about 700 seats arranged with only 319 in the orchestra and the rest in the balcony, gallery and boxes. It was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, which listed only a house called the Vaudette for movies at Big Rapids. The Colonial was still listed in the legitimate theaters section of the 1922 Cahn Guide, as a road show house, but it was being listed in the FDY by 1926, and had been mentioned in Moving Picture World at least as early as December, 1923.
The Cameo apparently spent at least part of its rather short run closed. This item is from the October 9, 1937 issue of Film Daily: “Youngstown, O.—The Cameo Theater, long closed, is being reconditioned by Joe Trunk, who expects to reopen the house Oct. 16.”
The Rialto was still running in early 1930, before the full force of the depression kicked in. This is from the January 5 issue of Film Daily: “Youngstown — The Rialto, Joe Trunk’s house, has Tone-O-Graph installed, as well as the Uptown, owned by the same exhibitor.”
The October 9, 1937 issue of Film Daily had this item about the new Sanilac Theatre: “Sandusky, Mich.— W. H. Anderson has opened his new Sanilac Theater and has closed the old Star. New house, which seats 700, was designed by Bennett & Straight of Dearborn, Mich. Equipment, including RCA sound, was installed by McArthur Theater Equipment Co. of Detroit.”
The Orak Temple Shrine in Hammond was originally built in 1907-1909, and then massively expanded in 1921, which was when the auditorium that became the Temple Theatre was added. The enormous, 65,000 square foot Modern Gothic building also housed a large ballroom, and was long one of Hammond’s most important gathering places, hosting live events including the annual Shrine Circus.
In the late 20th century as lodge membership declined the building became too costly for the Masons to maintain, and by the 1990s the interior had begun to deteriorate badly. The lodge abandoned it for smaller quarters in 1999. New owners hoped to renovate and reopen the facility, but failed, and it was demolished in June, 2009. Its site is now occupied by a charter high school, The Hammond Academy of Science and Technology.
The Pastime was one of four theaters listed at Hammond in the 1926 FDY, unfortunately none with either address or seating capacity. Deluxe, Pantheon, and Orpheum were the other houses. Only the latter three were still listed in the 1927 edition.
The January 5, 1973 issue of The Lexington Herald ran multiple congratulatory ads for the new Crossroads Cinema 1 & 2, so that was likely the opening date. The house was originally run by an outfit called Showtime Cinema Theaters, and later by Associated Theatres of Kentucky, but was one of the Lexington houses that eventually came under the control of the USA Cinemas chain, a subsidiary of Boston- based Sack Theatres. The Crossroads Cinema operated at least into the late 1980s.
The Lyric, 603 N. Washington St., was one of three houses listed at Junction City in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The others were the Aurora and the Opera House.
The October 9. 1954 issue of Boxoffice said that “O. A. Dickson is contemplating closing his Colonial at Alma, Kas., during December.” Dickson had run the Colonial since at least 1945, when he was mentioned in the April 7 issue of Boxoffice.
In a classified ad in the October 13, 1956 issue of Boxoffice 200 theater seats were offered for sale by Fred L. LaMar of Alma, Kansas. They probably came from the Colonial.
As it doesn’t depict this house on Grand Avenue, I’m thinking the photo uploaded by elmorovivo probably shows the Empire/Bungalow at 12th and Morrison. We don’t have a page for that theater. I’m now pretty sure the Baker Theatre at 11th and Morrison, which we do list, was a different house.
Apple maps is putting the pin icon in the wrong neighborhood. The Bakeronian was Downtown, not in the East Burnside district. Perhaps correcting the zip code to 97204 will fix the map error.
The Empire at old address 289 Grand was one of two houses of that name listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The second was at 1141 (presumably also an old address) Albina Avenue. The August 8, 1903 issue of The Oregon Daily Journal mentioned the Empire Theatre in Portland, but I don’t know which Empire it was, or if it was a different theater than either of those operating in 1914.
The Pacific Coast Architecture Database has a page for an Empire Theatre built in 1903 with the aka Bungalow Theatre, but no address or photos or other details. The photo of this house on Grand Avenue shows that the building certainly had a bungalowish look to it, but I think this might have been a third Empire Theatre.
In 1909 there was a house called the Bungalow Theatre at 12th and Morrison, which was not near either of the Empire Theaters in the AMPD. A program from the Bungalow says they were presenting the Baker Stock Company, and noted that the house was leased by the Empire Theatre Company Inc. It might have been the house listed as the Baker Theater, 11th and Morrison, in the AMPD, though it might also have been a new home for the Baker Players. Apparently we also list it as the Baker. No house called the Bungalow is listed at Portland in the AMPD.
Quite a few theaters in the 1926 FDY are listed as Opera House or “(Name) Op H.” but the Wareham is not among them. It was surely the Wareham Theatre by then.
Currently, the theater is closed for rentals, and the dinner theater format appears to have been abandoned some time ago. In 2022 the building was purchased by a non-profit organization that hopes to renovate and return the building to full theatrical use as a regional performing arts facility. The group, which has already received state funding for feasibility studies, calls itself, and apparently the building as well, Wareham Hall. Here is their official web site.
The web site has a history of the building which unfortunately includes nothing about the rebuilding (or extensive alterations) that must have taken place in the 1910s. A page for Wareham Hall at the Downtown Manhattan web site says: “In 1893 Harry P, Wareham purchased the building, installed electricity and renamed it The Wareham Opera House. In 1910, the structure was enlarged and remodeled with the current facade. In 1911 a screen was installed in front of the stage and the Wareham became the second theater in Kansas to show movies [a dubious claim]. The Wareham remained one of Manhattan’s main movie theaters until 1986.”
Two buildings labeled “Motion Pictures” appear on the 1922 Sanborn map of Bedford, both on J Street. The wider one must have been the Lawrence Theatre, and the narrower one, which was at 1519 J Street, thus must have been the Grand. The cigar shop next door to the theater in the 1910 postcard view is still there on the 1922 map. A modern-looking structure at 1517 today might be the cigar shop’s building, but the Grand’s site is now part of a parking lot.
The Lawrence must have been the theater labeled “Motion Pictures” at 1605 J Street on the 1922 Sanborn map of Bedford. The map shows a rather shallow balcony and no stage. Current Google Street view (here) shows an interesting old brick building with a crenelated second floor parapet wall. The three-bay façade with a taller center section still has a fairly theatrical appearance, even though there is no marquee. It looks to be in good condition, at least on the exterior, and is currently occupied by a business called Crane’s Leather and Shoe Store.
The Liberty was expected to open in September, according to this item from the July 14, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World: “Upon the expiration of the lease of the Palace Theatre, which William Eyre conducts at Pen Argyl, Pa., near Stroudsburg, he will discontinue its conduct and give his time entirely to the management of another theatre now under construction in that town which is owned by the Hurd Brothers. Mr. Eyre will take up his new enterprise when the building is completed in September.”
The January 1, 1924 issue of The Exhibitor made reference to “…the Liberty, Pen Argyl… opened recently by Marsh and Hurd.” Also, it appears that the Palace did not shut down after Mr. Eyre departed, as it was still listed in the 1926 FDY, along with the Liberty. The 1929 FDY listed the 400-seat Liberty and the 500-seat New Palace. I haven’t discovered if the New Palace was a new theater or the old house perhaps remodeled or simply under new ownership. The Palace, which was on Main Street, was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, along with a house called the Bijou. Only the Liberty was listed in the FDY by 1940, but with 600 seats, so it must have been expanded at some point.
From the September 28, 1912 issue of Moving Picture World: “The Crystal and Princess Theaters at Waterloo, Iowa, have installed an indirect lighting system.” I’ve seen a couple of other references to the Crystal, but so far this is the only mention of the Princess I’ve come across in the trade journals.
The Wayne Theatre was at 427 N. Market Blvd. It is currently in use as a church. The building is tiny. I doubt it could have held much over 100 seats, if that.
The Flagler Playhouse was devastated by a major fire in late October, 2023, and has been closed ever since.
This item is from the “Theatre Deals” column of Film Daily for February 8, 1946: “Chambers Buys the Flagler Bunnell, Fla. — F. J. Chambers who is constructing the new Bunnell Theater, has purchased the Flagler from Earl M. Fain, of Leesburg. Fain recently bought the theater from L. E. Lamboley. Jim Camp, who will also run the Bunnell theater after its opening late in February, will assume management.”
Flagler was an aka for the Biddle Theatre, as revealed in this item from the March 1 FD: “Bunnell, Fla. —The Flagler Theater, erected by J. M. Biddle about 20 years ago and used ever since as a theater, has been sold and the new owner, Ernest Decker of Smyrna Beach, plans to convert the building into a modern garage. Theater will continue to operate until completion of the Bunnell theater, now under construction.”
Mr. Decker’s plans for the Flagler must have fallen through, as the August 19 FD had this item: “Camp Sells to Dole. Bunnell, Fla.—The Flagler has been sold by G. M. Camp to H. A. Dale of Lake City. Dale is already owner of the Lake Theater in Lake City.”
In 1948, the April 10 issue ofBoxoffice noted that the Bunnell Theatre had been sold to Weldon S. Bristow, former manager of the Schine Theatres houses at Mayville, Kentucky. This item said the Bunnell had 400 seats.
The Bunnell was remodeled in 1949. According to the July 2 issue of Boxoffice, the house had been closed for two months, the building was lengthened and the front replaced, and new projection and sound equipment installed. At this time the Bunnell was owned by Mr. and Mrs. H. A. Dale.
A page about Flagler County history says that “[t]he Flagler Theater operated as such until 1946 when it was closed down when the new Bunnell Theater, adjoining the Holden building on the northwest corner of Moody Blvd and U.S. 1, began operations on 28 Feb 1946. Ernest R (Ernie) Decker bought the Flagler Theater building from F J Chambers in Feb 1946 with the intention of making it an automotive garage. The building was still standing in April 2007 and was being used as an apartment building.” It also notes that the Biddle/Flagler Theatre, located on U.S. 1 (aka State Street,) opened in 1926.
The northwest corner of State Street (U.S. 1) and Moody Boulevard is now occupied by a Citgo filling station and convenience store. Citgo uses the address 100 W. Moody Blvd., but the Bunnell Theatre must have had a State Street address.
Here is an item from the July 3, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World:“Doc Webster has opened a new house in Leesburg, Fla., running Universal program. The Prince is the name of this new house.”
The names of the architect are most likely spelled Alan J. MacDonough, the spellings preferred by the Society of Architectural Historians (founded 1940 at Harvard University) and their online publication “SAH Archipedia” hosted by the University of Virginia Press.
The Palace was built by the local Masonic Lodge, who had their quarters in the third floor until the early 1970s. The building was designed by architect Alan J. MacDonough (some sources give the spelling McDonough, but the Society of Architectural Historians and the University of Virginia Press prefer the “Mac” spelling, so I’m inclined to follow their practice.)
Moving Picture World of November 9, 1918 noted a new owner for the Opera House in Blue Rapids: “O. A. Reed, of Blue Rapids, Kan., widely known throughout the northern portion of the state, has bought the opera there and is running a program of the best class of photoplays.”
The only theater listed at Blue Rapids in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was called the Photoplay, listed on the east side of the square.
Sources differ on whether the Big Rapids was a new theater built on the site of the old Colonial in 1937 or was an extreme rebuilding of the earlier house. Water Winter Wonderland’s page of photos includes one with the Colonial gutted and its façade torn off but the side walls and roof trusses still in place. Because modern satellite views of the building show a pitched roof uncharacteristic of most theater construction in the 1930s, I’m inclined to go with the extreme rebuild belief.
The only mention of the project I’ve been able to find in trade publications is from the March 10, 1937 issue of Film Daily, which ran a brief item about three new Michigan houses to be built by the Butterfield chain, in Monroe, Manistee and Big Rapids. Of the Big Rapids project it said only “[a] 1,000-seat theater is to be built in Big Rapids on the present site of the Colonial. Pierra & Pierra [sic] of Chicago will probably be in charge of its construction.”
I haven’t found any other sources confirming William and Hal Pereira as architects of this house, but as they were designing one of the other Butterfield projects and the Big Rapids does strongly express their style of the period, they probably did design it.
As for the Colonial, it was a venerable house, dating from 1884, and despite some updating over the years it was a very old fashioned theater by the 1930s, as vintage photos show, and the interior was not well suited to the needs of a modern motion picture house. Cahn guides list it as a ground floor house with a total of about 700 seats arranged with only 319 in the orchestra and the rest in the balcony, gallery and boxes. It was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, which listed only a house called the Vaudette for movies at Big Rapids. The Colonial was still listed in the legitimate theaters section of the 1922 Cahn Guide, as a road show house, but it was being listed in the FDY by 1926, and had been mentioned in Moving Picture World at least as early as December, 1923.
The Cameo apparently spent at least part of its rather short run closed. This item is from the October 9, 1937 issue of Film Daily: “Youngstown, O.—The Cameo Theater, long closed, is being reconditioned by Joe Trunk, who expects to reopen the house Oct. 16.”
The Rialto was still running in early 1930, before the full force of the depression kicked in. This is from the January 5 issue of Film Daily: “Youngstown — The Rialto, Joe Trunk’s house, has Tone-O-Graph installed, as well as the Uptown, owned by the same exhibitor.”
The October 9, 1937 issue of Film Daily had this item about the new Sanilac Theatre: “Sandusky, Mich.— W. H. Anderson has opened his new Sanilac Theater and has closed the old Star. New house, which seats 700, was designed by Bennett & Straight of Dearborn, Mich. Equipment, including RCA sound, was installed by McArthur Theater Equipment Co. of Detroit.”
The Orak Temple Shrine in Hammond was originally built in 1907-1909, and then massively expanded in 1921, which was when the auditorium that became the Temple Theatre was added. The enormous, 65,000 square foot Modern Gothic building also housed a large ballroom, and was long one of Hammond’s most important gathering places, hosting live events including the annual Shrine Circus.
In the late 20th century as lodge membership declined the building became too costly for the Masons to maintain, and by the 1990s the interior had begun to deteriorate badly. The lodge abandoned it for smaller quarters in 1999. New owners hoped to renovate and reopen the facility, but failed, and it was demolished in June, 2009. Its site is now occupied by a charter high school, The Hammond Academy of Science and Technology.
The Pastime was one of four theaters listed at Hammond in the 1926 FDY, unfortunately none with either address or seating capacity. Deluxe, Pantheon, and Orpheum were the other houses. Only the latter three were still listed in the 1927 edition.
The January 5, 1973 issue of The Lexington Herald ran multiple congratulatory ads for the new Crossroads Cinema 1 & 2, so that was likely the opening date. The house was originally run by an outfit called Showtime Cinema Theaters, and later by Associated Theatres of Kentucky, but was one of the Lexington houses that eventually came under the control of the USA Cinemas chain, a subsidiary of Boston- based Sack Theatres. The Crossroads Cinema operated at least into the late 1980s.
The Lyric, 603 N. Washington St., was one of three houses listed at Junction City in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The others were the Aurora and the Opera House.
The October 9. 1954 issue of Boxoffice said that “O. A. Dickson is contemplating closing his Colonial at Alma, Kas., during December.” Dickson had run the Colonial since at least 1945, when he was mentioned in the April 7 issue of Boxoffice.
In a classified ad in the October 13, 1956 issue of Boxoffice 200 theater seats were offered for sale by Fred L. LaMar of Alma, Kansas. They probably came from the Colonial.
Well drat, it didn’t work, the map still shows the wrong location. I’m out of ideas.
As it doesn’t depict this house on Grand Avenue, I’m thinking the photo uploaded by elmorovivo probably shows the Empire/Bungalow at 12th and Morrison. We don’t have a page for that theater. I’m now pretty sure the Baker Theatre at 11th and Morrison, which we do list, was a different house.
Apple maps is putting the pin icon in the wrong neighborhood. The Bakeronian was Downtown, not in the East Burnside district. Perhaps correcting the zip code to 97204 will fix the map error.
The Empire at old address 289 Grand was one of two houses of that name listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The second was at 1141 (presumably also an old address) Albina Avenue. The August 8, 1903 issue of The Oregon Daily Journal mentioned the Empire Theatre in Portland, but I don’t know which Empire it was, or if it was a different theater than either of those operating in 1914.
The Pacific Coast Architecture Database has a page for an Empire Theatre built in 1903 with the aka Bungalow Theatre, but no address or photos or other details. The photo of this house on Grand Avenue shows that the building certainly had a bungalowish look to it, but I think this might have been a third Empire Theatre.
In 1909 there was a house called the Bungalow Theatre at 12th and Morrison, which was not near either of the Empire Theaters in the AMPD. A program from the Bungalow says they were presenting the Baker Stock Company, and noted that the house was leased by the Empire Theatre Company Inc. It might have been the house listed as the Baker Theater, 11th and Morrison, in the AMPD, though it might also have been a new home for the Baker Players. Apparently we also list it as the Baker. No house called the Bungalow is listed at Portland in the AMPD.
Quite a few theaters in the 1926 FDY are listed as Opera House or “(Name) Op H.” but the Wareham is not among them. It was surely the Wareham Theatre by then.
Currently, the theater is closed for rentals, and the dinner theater format appears to have been abandoned some time ago. In 2022 the building was purchased by a non-profit organization that hopes to renovate and return the building to full theatrical use as a regional performing arts facility. The group, which has already received state funding for feasibility studies, calls itself, and apparently the building as well, Wareham Hall. Here is their official web site.
The web site has a history of the building which unfortunately includes nothing about the rebuilding (or extensive alterations) that must have taken place in the 1910s. A page for Wareham Hall at the Downtown Manhattan web site says: “In 1893 Harry P, Wareham purchased the building, installed electricity and renamed it The Wareham Opera House. In 1910, the structure was enlarged and remodeled with the current facade. In 1911 a screen was installed in front of the stage and the Wareham became the second theater in Kansas to show movies [a dubious claim]. The Wareham remained one of Manhattan’s main movie theaters until 1986.”