I found a reference to someone opening a shoe shine parlor in the Conway Theatre Building in 1925. The September 1, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World had this item in their “Theaters Projected” column:
“CONWAY, ARK.— S. G. and Theodore
Smith have plans by Sanders & Ginnochio, of Little Rock, for fireproof theatre to be erected at North Front and Spencer streets, having main auditorium, 65 by 85 feet, to cost $50,000.”
The parking lot where the Conway Theatre once stood runs through the narrow block from Front Street to Spencer Street, and given that the building had been built by 1925 this notice seems likely to be about the Conway.
The Grand has not been demolished, just extensively remodeled. The auditorium appears to have been gutted and subdivided for retail space, but the stage tower is still standing. As of 2017, the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce, which had the building under contract for purchase (the purchase had been completed by July 2018), was looking into the possibility of returning the structure to theatrical use, as noted in this article from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The article says the Grand closed in 1956.
A house called the Grand Theatre was listed at Conway in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. I’m not positive that it was the same Grand, but given the age of the bricks of the surviving stage tower it’s certainly likely. The Grand was also advertised in the December 10, 1916 Log Cabin Democrat, a local daily.
The corner store now in the Grand’s building, Vesta’s, is at 1101 Oak Street, so we need to update the theater’s address.
A Facebook page called Chincoteague Family Heritage appears to be run by a descendant of the Powell family, and on this page there is a photo of Mabel Powell with a somewhat blurry and washed out view of the New Theatre in the background. The marquee looks quite similar to that of the Island Theatre, but close inspection shows that the New had a narrower entrance.
Multiple sources indicate that the New Theatre building has been demolished, and one suggests that it was perhaps demolished as the result of a flood the area suffered in 1962. The New is mentioned in documents from the Virginia Division of Motion Picture Censorship in 1958, so it must have still been in operation at that time.
It’s now looking like the Powell operated well past the 1920s. The Library of Virginia has a document titled “A Guide to the Records of the Division of Motion Picture Censorship, 1926-1968” (text file here) and it mentions both the New Theatre in 1958 and a house called the New Powell Theatre in 1957-1958. There’s no evidence that the New ever had the aka New Powell, so it looks like the Powell was open into the 1950s.
There is also a brief passage in a book called Chincoteague Summer of 1948: A Waterman’s Childhood Stories by Ed Waterhouse, which says that the Powell and the New were both in operation in the 1940s, though the credibility of this source is somewhat diminished by the repeated misspelling of the name Powell as Pawell. Probably more reliable is an oral history interview of Anne Lumley Davis (PDF here) who moved to Chincoteague at the age of 13 in the mid-1940s, and who says that all three theaters, the Powell, the Island, and the New, were in operation during that period.
Chincoteague is represented in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory only by the listing “M. P. Theatre,” but item number 10 in a walking tour of Chincoteague (PDF here) is listed as the “Old Powell Opera House and Theater,” 4098 Main Street, built by James T. Powell in 1909.
The December 25, 1926 issue of Exhibitors Herald mentioned “Powell, J. T., Powell’s Theatre, Chicoteague Island, Va.” as a participant in a survey the magazine had conducted that year, so the theater must have still been open for at least part of 1926.
And, for what it’s worth, the July 3, 1948 issue of Motion Picture Herald had this item:
“Down on the Eastern Shore
“Marsh Gollner reports that Shore Amusements Inc., have acquired the Powell and New theatres at Chincoteague, down on the eastern shore of Maryland. Marsh is credited with having consummated the deal.”
It’s possible (even likely) that the houses Shore bought in 1948 were the the Island and the New, but the magazine mistakenly gave the name of the seller as the name of the first theater.
There’s an error in this theater’s description. The Movie Misty, which was released in 1961, could not have been the opening night feature at the Island Theatre, but the movie was premiered there. The 1947 book on which it was based was called Misty of Chincoteague, and the movie filmed in the area. The real Misty was still living at the time of the premier, and that was when her hoofprints were set in cement in front of the theater.
I’m just going to speculate from the available evidence for a while. Our recently added page for the Park Theatre says that it was at 417 Main Street, across the street from what is now the Showboat at 418 Main. The October 29, 1949 issue of Boxoffice said that the new Park Theatre in Polson had recently opened with 600 seats. Looking at Google’s satellite view of Polson it seems to me that the building at 417 is too small to have held 600 (or even 541) seats, but the Showboat’s building at 418 would be quite adequate for a theater of that size.
What if we’ve somehow gotten the names and histories of the theaters reversed? I think there’s a pretty good chance that the 375 (or 350, according to the 1951 FDY) seat New Lake Theatre was the house at 417 Main, and that it was the 600 (or 541)-seat Park Theatre that was at 418 Main, and later became the Showboat Cinemas.
Our page for the Lake Theatre seems to be pretty accurate, except for the obviously wrong address on 2nd Street. (It’s also missing a major remodeling that took place in late 1936, with a December 5 reopening as the New Lake Theatre.) The page for the Park also seems accurate, except maybe the address and the closing date, if it did in fact, as I suspect, stay open through the 1950s and later become the Showboat. This page (for the Showboat) is the one that appears to have first conflated the histories of the two theaters.
When remodeled and reopened in late 1936, this house was called the New Lake Theatre, according to the December 3, 1936 issue of The Flathead Courier, which announced that the grand opening of the house was to take place on December 5.
This section of Pocatello was in independent city called Alameda at the time the Crest Theatre opened. It was consolidated with Pocatello in 1962. References to this theater from before that year will probably be found under the city name Alameda.
The Tower Theatre might not be utterly doomed after all. This article posted by the Glenn County Transcript on August 27, 2019, tells of a non-profit organization called the Willows Revitalization Group which had acquired title to the theater and plans to renovate it as a mixed-use facility housing a restaurant, culinary school and downsized theater. That I can find no more recent information about the project is not an encouraging sign, but the pandemic has undoubtedly delayed their work, and perhaps the plans will go forward eventually.
Oklahoma City apparently had more than one theater called the Broadway, too. This item is from the January 21, 1922 issue of Exhibitors Herald:
“Oklahoma City, Okla. — The Broadway theatre, with a seating capacity of 400, has been opened here. Music is furnished by an electric orchestra.”
I’ve been unable to track down where this second Broadway Theatre was located or what became of it, so I’m putting the information here to avoid losing track of it.
The original Broadway Theatre was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, nor was any other house at its address. The only theater the Directory listed on Broadway was the Star, at 217 N.
Here is an item from the April 1, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Sullivan, Ind. — C. J. Sherman, the old time theater man of Sullivan has been presented with Shriner’s pin by fellow merchants of his home city at the opening of his new theater, the Sherman.”
An article about the Peerless Theatre appeared in the December 31, 1921 issue of Exhibitors Herald. No photos, alas, but the descriptions are quite effusive.
Newport’s Opera House opened on December 28, 1867, with a performance of the drama “Lucretia Borgia.” Newspaper reports of the time indicate that the theater was designed by architect-builder James Rudolph, with the assistance of architect-engineer Benjamin Coit.
Here’s something from the “Rhode Island Jotting” column of Motion Picture News for November 4, 1922:
“The Emery theatre, which shows feature and comedy pictures in connection with its vaudeville, celebrated its eighth birthday during the week of October 23.”
By 1921, the Lyric was being operated by Southern Enterprises, Inc., a subsidiary of Famous Players-Lasky, then the theater operating arm of Paramount Pictures.
The November 5, 1921 issue of Moving Picture World mentioned the Palace and the Lyric in San Angelo, both managed by Mr. R. P. Whitfield on behalf of Southern Enterprises, the regional theater chain founded as a subsidiary of Famous Players-Lasky, aka Paramount.
Of the nine theaters listed at Johnstown in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory only three were listed without addresses, and of those three the Grand is accounted for. The other two were the Family Theatre (not to be confused with the Park Family Theatre, which was also listed) and the Victoria Theatre. Assuming that this little neighborhood theater was listed, and was still in operation, it must have been one of those two.
A 1927 Sanborn map shows the Opera House (with notation “Dance Hall & Movies”) on the north side of W. Front Street, just east of midblock. This is now the location of a parking lot adjacent to an Ace Hardware store. The hardware store runs through the block and uses the address 115 W. Nebraska Street, but Google maps street view gives the address 108 WI-133 Trunk (W. Front Street) to the parking lot where the theater once stood.
The Bijou Theatre opened in 1915, and around 1923 was remodeled and reopened as the Queen Theatre. According to the St. Croix Historical Society, the Queen closed in 1957, but the destruction by fire of the only other movie house in the region, the State Theatre in Calais, Maine, led to the Queen’s reopening in 1958, after which it continued to operate for many years, well patronized both by Canadians and by Mainers.
The State Theatre opened in 1928, and the original building was destroyed by a fire on March 4, 1958. A post from the St. Croix Historical Society (rather far down this page) says that the State was not rebuilt for many years, and in the meantime Calais movie fans had to attend the theater in St. Stephen, across the Canadian border.
The Palace didn’t make it into the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but a very brief article from the local historical society (PDF here) says that it opened in February, 1914, and its advertisements vanished from the local paper by 1919. The building which had housed the Palace burned to the ground in 1948 and was replaced by a W.T. Grant store, now also demolished.
I’ve been unable to puzzle out the exact location of the Palace, but the article indicates that it was on part of what is now a small park and the parking lot for the Downeast Heritage Center, which is at 39 Union Street. The parking area is quite long, and the earliest aerial view at Historic Aerials is from 1996, by which time much of the area had already been demolished, so I can’t find the street corner the Palace was on. Judging from old photos and aerial views, it was across the street from some surviving historic buildings on the south side of the street, roughly between the shops now occupied by Kendall’s Jewelers at 293 Main and Artemis’s Attic at 311 Main, so the Palace must have been at approximately 300 Main Street.
The May 1, 1919 issue of Industrial Record had a notice saying that H. H. Julian was having the Ideal Theatre at Conway, Arkansas remodeled.
I found a reference to someone opening a shoe shine parlor in the Conway Theatre Building in 1925. The September 1, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World had this item in their “Theaters Projected” column:
The parking lot where the Conway Theatre once stood runs through the narrow block from Front Street to Spencer Street, and given that the building had been built by 1925 this notice seems likely to be about the Conway.The Grand has not been demolished, just extensively remodeled. The auditorium appears to have been gutted and subdivided for retail space, but the stage tower is still standing. As of 2017, the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce, which had the building under contract for purchase (the purchase had been completed by July 2018), was looking into the possibility of returning the structure to theatrical use, as noted in this article from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The article says the Grand closed in 1956.
A house called the Grand Theatre was listed at Conway in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. I’m not positive that it was the same Grand, but given the age of the bricks of the surviving stage tower it’s certainly likely. The Grand was also advertised in the December 10, 1916 Log Cabin Democrat, a local daily.
The corner store now in the Grand’s building, Vesta’s, is at 1101 Oak Street, so we need to update the theater’s address.
A Facebook page called Chincoteague Family Heritage appears to be run by a descendant of the Powell family, and on this page there is a photo of Mabel Powell with a somewhat blurry and washed out view of the New Theatre in the background. The marquee looks quite similar to that of the Island Theatre, but close inspection shows that the New had a narrower entrance.
Multiple sources indicate that the New Theatre building has been demolished, and one suggests that it was perhaps demolished as the result of a flood the area suffered in 1962. The New is mentioned in documents from the Virginia Division of Motion Picture Censorship in 1958, so it must have still been in operation at that time.
It’s now looking like the Powell operated well past the 1920s. The Library of Virginia has a document titled “A Guide to the Records of the Division of Motion Picture Censorship, 1926-1968” (text file here) and it mentions both the New Theatre in 1958 and a house called the New Powell Theatre in 1957-1958. There’s no evidence that the New ever had the aka New Powell, so it looks like the Powell was open into the 1950s.
There is also a brief passage in a book called Chincoteague Summer of 1948: A Waterman’s Childhood Stories by Ed Waterhouse, which says that the Powell and the New were both in operation in the 1940s, though the credibility of this source is somewhat diminished by the repeated misspelling of the name Powell as Pawell. Probably more reliable is an oral history interview of Anne Lumley Davis (PDF here) who moved to Chincoteague at the age of 13 in the mid-1940s, and who says that all three theaters, the Powell, the Island, and the New, were in operation during that period.
Chincoteague is represented in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory only by the listing “M. P. Theatre,” but item number 10 in a walking tour of Chincoteague (PDF here) is listed as the “Old Powell Opera House and Theater,” 4098 Main Street, built by James T. Powell in 1909.
The December 25, 1926 issue of Exhibitors Herald mentioned “Powell, J. T., Powell’s Theatre, Chicoteague Island, Va.” as a participant in a survey the magazine had conducted that year, so the theater must have still been open for at least part of 1926.
And, for what it’s worth, the July 3, 1948 issue of Motion Picture Herald had this item:
It’s possible (even likely) that the houses Shore bought in 1948 were the the Island and the New, but the magazine mistakenly gave the name of the seller as the name of the first theater.There’s an error in this theater’s description. The Movie Misty, which was released in 1961, could not have been the opening night feature at the Island Theatre, but the movie was premiered there. The 1947 book on which it was based was called Misty of Chincoteague, and the movie filmed in the area. The real Misty was still living at the time of the premier, and that was when her hoofprints were set in cement in front of the theater.
I’m just going to speculate from the available evidence for a while. Our recently added page for the Park Theatre says that it was at 417 Main Street, across the street from what is now the Showboat at 418 Main. The October 29, 1949 issue of Boxoffice said that the new Park Theatre in Polson had recently opened with 600 seats. Looking at Google’s satellite view of Polson it seems to me that the building at 417 is too small to have held 600 (or even 541) seats, but the Showboat’s building at 418 would be quite adequate for a theater of that size.
What if we’ve somehow gotten the names and histories of the theaters reversed? I think there’s a pretty good chance that the 375 (or 350, according to the 1951 FDY) seat New Lake Theatre was the house at 417 Main, and that it was the 600 (or 541)-seat Park Theatre that was at 418 Main, and later became the Showboat Cinemas.
Our page for the Lake Theatre seems to be pretty accurate, except for the obviously wrong address on 2nd Street. (It’s also missing a major remodeling that took place in late 1936, with a December 5 reopening as the New Lake Theatre.) The page for the Park also seems accurate, except maybe the address and the closing date, if it did in fact, as I suspect, stay open through the 1950s and later become the Showboat. This page (for the Showboat) is the one that appears to have first conflated the histories of the two theaters.
When remodeled and reopened in late 1936, this house was called the New Lake Theatre, according to the December 3, 1936 issue of The Flathead Courier, which announced that the grand opening of the house was to take place on December 5.
Information in the description on this page conflicts with the description of the Lake Theatre on its page. One or the other has to be wrong.
This section of Pocatello was in independent city called Alameda at the time the Crest Theatre opened. It was consolidated with Pocatello in 1962. References to this theater from before that year will probably be found under the city name Alameda.
The Tower Theatre might not be utterly doomed after all. This article posted by the Glenn County Transcript on August 27, 2019, tells of a non-profit organization called the Willows Revitalization Group which had acquired title to the theater and plans to renovate it as a mixed-use facility housing a restaurant, culinary school and downsized theater. That I can find no more recent information about the project is not an encouraging sign, but the pandemic has undoubtedly delayed their work, and perhaps the plans will go forward eventually.
Oklahoma City apparently had more than one theater called the Broadway, too. This item is from the January 21, 1922 issue of Exhibitors Herald:
I’ve been unable to track down where this second Broadway Theatre was located or what became of it, so I’m putting the information here to avoid losing track of it.The original Broadway Theatre was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, nor was any other house at its address. The only theater the Directory listed on Broadway was the Star, at 217 N.
Here is an item from the April 1, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World:
The Lyric was opened very early in the year, as the event was noted in the January 14, 1922 issue of Exhibitors Herald.
An article about the Peerless Theatre appeared in the December 31, 1921 issue of Exhibitors Herald. No photos, alas, but the descriptions are quite effusive.
Newport’s Opera House opened on December 28, 1867, with a performance of the drama “Lucretia Borgia.” Newspaper reports of the time indicate that the theater was designed by architect-builder James Rudolph, with the assistance of architect-engineer Benjamin Coit.
Here’s something from the “Rhode Island Jotting” column of Motion Picture News for November 4, 1922:
By 1921, the Lyric was being operated by Southern Enterprises, Inc., a subsidiary of Famous Players-Lasky, then the theater operating arm of Paramount Pictures.
The November 5, 1921 issue of Moving Picture World mentioned the Palace and the Lyric in San Angelo, both managed by Mr. R. P. Whitfield on behalf of Southern Enterprises, the regional theater chain founded as a subsidiary of Famous Players-Lasky, aka Paramount.
Of the nine theaters listed at Johnstown in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory only three were listed without addresses, and of those three the Grand is accounted for. The other two were the Family Theatre (not to be confused with the Park Family Theatre, which was also listed) and the Victoria Theatre. Assuming that this little neighborhood theater was listed, and was still in operation, it must have been one of those two.
A 1927 Sanborn map shows the Opera House (with notation “Dance Hall & Movies”) on the north side of W. Front Street, just east of midblock. This is now the location of a parking lot adjacent to an Ace Hardware store. The hardware store runs through the block and uses the address 115 W. Nebraska Street, but Google maps street view gives the address 108 WI-133 Trunk (W. Front Street) to the parking lot where the theater once stood.
The Bijou Theatre opened in 1915, and around 1923 was remodeled and reopened as the Queen Theatre. According to the St. Croix Historical Society, the Queen closed in 1957, but the destruction by fire of the only other movie house in the region, the State Theatre in Calais, Maine, led to the Queen’s reopening in 1958, after which it continued to operate for many years, well patronized both by Canadians and by Mainers.
The State Theatre opened in 1928, and the original building was destroyed by a fire on March 4, 1958. A post from the St. Croix Historical Society (rather far down this page) says that the State was not rebuilt for many years, and in the meantime Calais movie fans had to attend the theater in St. Stephen, across the Canadian border.
The Palace didn’t make it into the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but a very brief article from the local historical society (PDF here) says that it opened in February, 1914, and its advertisements vanished from the local paper by 1919. The building which had housed the Palace burned to the ground in 1948 and was replaced by a W.T. Grant store, now also demolished.
I’ve been unable to puzzle out the exact location of the Palace, but the article indicates that it was on part of what is now a small park and the parking lot for the Downeast Heritage Center, which is at 39 Union Street. The parking area is quite long, and the earliest aerial view at Historic Aerials is from 1996, by which time much of the area had already been demolished, so I can’t find the street corner the Palace was on. Judging from old photos and aerial views, it was across the street from some surviving historic buildings on the south side of the street, roughly between the shops now occupied by Kendall’s Jewelers at 293 Main and Artemis’s Attic at 311 Main, so the Palace must have been at approximately 300 Main Street.