A history of Rockingham published by the town of Bellows Falls in 1958 says that, prior to being taken over by H. DeMotte Perry in 1912, the Grand had been known as the Standard Theatre, and had originally been operated by a Fred “Skid” Kimball.
This theater is a rebuild of the original Bellows Falls Opera House which was destroyed by fire in 1925. The original Opera House had been showing movies since 1914.
Freeman’s Hall, Pliny Freeman proprietor, is listed with 600 seats in Harry Miner’s dramatic directory for 1884-85. A book called Geneseo Centennial History 1836-1936 mentions a gathering to celebrate the opening of the town’s first library in 1881, held at Freeman’s Hall. A book with biographical sketches of some of Geneseo’s prominent citizens includes Pliny Freeman, saying that around 1869 he invested in rebuilding a commercial building his brother had owned which had been destroyed by fire that year. Though the book doesn’t specify, that might have been the building which contains Freeman’s Hall.
This brief article about silent film comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle says that for several months in 1909 he was a resident of Bisbee, where he appeared regularly on the stage of the Orpheum Theatre.
Although the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum says that the Orpheum opened as the Grand Theatre, a book called Arizona on Stage: Playhouses, Plays, and Players in the Territory, 1879-1912 by Thomas P. Collins doesn’t mention the name Grand. It merely says that the Orpheum Theatre was built by a Swiss immigrant named Joseph Maria Muheim who had prospered in Bisbee, that it opened on July 24, 1907, and that it was designed by local architect Fred C. Hurst. The original seating capacity was 1,000, according to the 1909-1910 Cahn guide.
The Lyric Theatre was built in 1917 by the Diamos family to replace their earlier house of the same name in Brewery Gulch, and it remained in operation for almost 72 years. It was equipped for movies, vaudeville, and legitimate stage shows. In 1930, the Diamos family sold their small chain to Fox West Coast Theatres, who operated them for three years. In 1933 the houses reverted to the Diamos family, and a couple of years later John Diamos became the sole proprietor of the Lyric.
Diamos was still operating the Lyric in 1970, when the December 21 issue of Boxoffice reported that he had temporarily closed the house for repairs and refurbishing. He died in 1977, and the following year the heirs leased the Lyric to its last operator, Lee Hayes. He kept the theater open for a bit more than a decade with a combination of movies, stage shows and concerts, but finally closed the Lyric in January, 1989.
A few years later the building was sold to a local real estate company who remodeled the front of the building for their offices, but the darkened auditorium remained largely intact. A few years ago the real estate office closed, and the Lyric Theatre has been waiting for someone with the vision to restore and reopen it. One individual has hired Herb Stratford’s Historic Theatre Consultants to survey the property, and the company has a few recent photos of the house on their web site, but as yet I’ve heard nothing about any firm plans to restore the theater.
A Facebook post from the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum says “[t]he Grand Theatre at the mouth of the Gulch later became the Orpheum.” The Orpheum was already listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
Boxoffice of September 10, 1955 said that the new Cahokia Drive-In, soon to open at Alorton, had been designed by Cleveland architect-engineer George M. Petersen.
The death of Ritz owner Hugh McGregor on March 11, 1955 led to the closing of the theater on August 29, at which time the McGregor estate put the house up for sale. McGregor had opened the Ritz, Arcola’s first movie theater, on December 15, 1933. According to Boxoffice of September 10, 1955, the estate was also selling the Oakland Theatre at Oakland, Illinois, which had been dark since May 28.
An item in the March 24, 1917 issue of The Moving Picture World said that the new Rialto Theatre in Kewanee was owned by Chris C. Taylor, who also owned the Dreamland Theatre. The March 10 issue of the same journal had noted that the plans for remodeling an existing building to accommodate the Rialto had been prepared by Chicago architect W. T. Braun. William T. Braun had been the architect of the Barker-Swan Film Service studio at Peoria, Illinois, according to Motography of March 25, 1916.
The September 10, 1955 Boxoffice said that the Peerless Theatre would not be reopened. The item did not say how long the house had been closed, but it had been struggling for years. Boxoffice of March 22, 1952 had announced that the Peerless had been shut down after having been on a four-day-a-week schedule for some months, and that plans for the building’s future were indefinite.
It’s possible that the theater never reopened after that, though the 1955 item said that it had been under lease to Rod Lorenz Theatres, operators of the Wanee Theatre and Wanee Drive-In. The building was still owned by the heirs of the theater’s long-time operator, the late William T. Pierce. In any case, whether it ran its last show in 1952 or as late as 1955, it is likely that the Peerless was one of the many old theaters that was never retrofitted for wide-screen movies.
Boxoffice of September 10, 1955 carried a brief notice datelined Eagle Rock saying “[l]ong dark, the Dale Theatre here has been reopened by W. C. Jenkins and Peter Fox.”
An article about the newly renovated Regent Theatre appeared in Boxoffice of September 10, 1955. It noted that the house had originally opened in 1926 with D. W. Griffith’s Orphans of the Storm.
When the house was being renovated in 1955, operators Florida State Theatres ran a contest through the local newspaper asking for patrons to suggest a new name for the theater. Public sentiment turned out to be overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the old name, so when the theater reopened it was as the New Regent Theatre.
Published references to a New Royal Theatre at Versailles in 1932 suggest an earlier opening date than 1935 for this house. This item from the March 22, 1931 issue of The Seadlia Democrat makes it even more likely: “J. T. Goshen, owner of the Royal Theatre at Versailles, is to erect a new moving picture theatre building. He has secured a long lease on property on the west side of the square there for the structure.” The Royal is indeed on the west side of the square.
SethG’s suggestion that the first Royal Theatre might have been the former Krauss Opera House seems a definite possibility. The latest mentions of the Opera House I’ve seen in Versaille’s newspaper, the Morgan County Republican, are from 1911, and the earliest mentions of the Royal Theatre are from 1913. As there is no overlap, a name change is certainly possible.
An early 20th century vaudeville organization’s journal called The Player has in its issue of July 25, 1913 a list of theaters in Crockett (there were four!) and one of them is the Columbia.
The Citadel Theatre opened on December 26, 1921 with the D.W. Griffith film Way Down East. The November 8, 1968 issue of Boxoffice reported that the Citadel Theatre in Bloomfield had been gutted by a fire while undergoing renovation. Presumably repaired, as it was still open in 1989.
The NRHP nomination form for the Delavan Downtown Commercial Historic District says that the Delavan Theatre was designed by Milwaukee architect John Wolf. The twinning took place in 1978, and the stage house the theater originally sported was demolished at that time.
Neither a Black Cat nor a Solax Theatre is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. It might have been overlooked, or it might have been inactive at the time the Directory was compiled. No other theater is listed at this house’s address, either, but there is a house called the Carrollton Theatre, listed at 1203-05 W. Baltimore Street, which must have been directly across the street.
Broan’s discovery that John Eberson and the firm of Fugard & Knapp were both connected with the Centennial Theatre project is interesting. Cinema Treasures' page for the Paramount (originally the Majestic, 1915) Theatre in Austin, Texas, attributes that theater’s design to Eberson, but Emporis attributes it to Fugard & Knapp. The two firms were associated on more than one project around that time, then.
The Centennial was completed before the end of 1916, as it’s recent opening was noted in the December 23 issue of Moving Picture World.
Further digging has revealed that the 1948 vote was not the first time Sioux Center had rejected a movies, nor was the Legion Theater of that period the first movie house operated there by the town’s American Legionnaires. This item is from the July 2, 1938 issue of Boxoffice:
“Sioux Center Again Bars Sunday Films
“Sioux Center, Ia. — This is still ‘the town without movies,’ and the voters appear to like it that way. They rolled up the largest vote in the town’s history last week when the question, ‘Shall the town license a theatre or movie house’ was submitted. The count showed 429 opposed to shows and 343 in favor.
“The council, according to Mayor Anthony Te Paske, can decide to allow shows despite the election result, but no one expects it to do this, not even Garret Wanscheer who proposed to build a $15,000 theatre building. ‘Well, it looks like we’re licked again,’ Wanscheer remarked after the ballots were counted.
“Two years ago the same proposition came up and the voters turned thumbs down on it then, too.
“Sioux Center isn’t the only town in the state without a picture house, but it is probably the largest. The population is 1,650. Once the town did have photoplays when the American Legion post operated a theatre from 1916 to 1927. The Legion went out of business with the advent of talking pictures and no one has been able to get a permit since.
“Opposition to films is led by two ministers in the town who allege the shows are detrimental to morals and the spiritual life.
“Of course, for those who want their photoplays there’s a theatre at Orange City, Ia.”
A brief item dateline Hopkins in the July 23, 1949 issue of Boxoffice said that “Ralph White opened his 430-seat Roxy early this month.” A December 11, 1948 item had announced the start of construction, but said that the house would be called the Rex and would seat 350. That item also said that Ralph White and his sons had started the project. Since the item about the opening doesn’t mention the sons, I’m assuming that Mr. White disowned them and spent their inheritance on space for 80 more seats and an additional letter for his theater’s name.
When the Legionnaires began sponsoring movies in Sioux Center, then a town of less than 2000, it was not without controversy. In fact, the controversy was so intense (and by that late date so unusual) that Life Magazine featured an article about it in their issue of April 19, 1948.
One of the images in the Life article is a reproduction of part of an ad placed in the local newspaper by the anti-movie forces who had engineered a referendum on the issue, giving reasons why they believed citizens should cast their votes to reject movies. Signed by 450 local farmers, who lived outside city limits and thus were not eligible to vote, the ad said in part (I won’t reproduce their ALL CAPS shout:
“We are opposed to marring the city of Sioux Center with a theater which as Satan’s tool we believe to be a spiritual and moral detriment to our people”
The anti-movie forces prevailed in the election, 488 to 427, but a newly elected city council ignored the advisory result and voted to renew the American legion’s license to operate the movie theater in Town Hall. Those citizens of Sioux Center and vicinity who were inclined to such wickedness were thus able to enjoy movies locally for five more years before a force apparently more powerful than the group of ministers who led the fight against them, television, finally closed the theater.
Sioux Center’s midcentury flirtation with evil does not seem to have harmed the town, which, unlike many similar small towns in the nation’s agricultural regions, has continued to grow and prosper. Today it has a population of over 7,000, and supports a five-screen tool of Satan… I mean multiplex… operated by Fridley Theatres.
The last events at the Lynn Theatre posted on their Facebook page were movie showings on June 12, 13, and 14, 2020. If those showings did take place (there have been no posts to the page since June 12) then this house closed on June 14, 2020 with a showing of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The “About” section at the top of the Facebook page now says “Permanently Closed.”
The minutes of the April 23, 2018 meeting of the Gonzales Economic Development Corporation reveal that, at that time at least, the Lynn was owned by the city’s EDC, and I have found no evidence that this has changed. If the Lynn Theatre has a future, it is in the hands of the City of Gonzales.
The September 1, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World said that the new Capitol Theatre in Danbury had opened August 11 with the Goldwyn production “Three Wise Fools” as the feature attraction. The wording of the article makes it clear that the house, which was owned by the Taylor estate, was entirely new and had not been seem by the public before.
The appearance of the name Taylor Theatre at the Capitol’s address in the 1923 city directory was likely the result of the fact that the directory went to press while the theater was still in the planning stage or under construction and the name Capitol had not yet been chosen, so the publisher used the name of the owners of the project. There’s no evidence that the house ever operated under the name Taylor Theatre.
A history of Rockingham published by the town of Bellows Falls in 1958 says that, prior to being taken over by H. DeMotte Perry in 1912, the Grand had been known as the Standard Theatre, and had originally been operated by a Fred “Skid” Kimball.
This theater is a rebuild of the original Bellows Falls Opera House which was destroyed by fire in 1925. The original Opera House had been showing movies since 1914.
Freeman’s Hall, Pliny Freeman proprietor, is listed with 600 seats in Harry Miner’s dramatic directory for 1884-85. A book called Geneseo Centennial History 1836-1936 mentions a gathering to celebrate the opening of the town’s first library in 1881, held at Freeman’s Hall. A book with biographical sketches of some of Geneseo’s prominent citizens includes Pliny Freeman, saying that around 1869 he invested in rebuilding a commercial building his brother had owned which had been destroyed by fire that year. Though the book doesn’t specify, that might have been the building which contains Freeman’s Hall.
This brief article about silent film comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle says that for several months in 1909 he was a resident of Bisbee, where he appeared regularly on the stage of the Orpheum Theatre.
Although the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum says that the Orpheum opened as the Grand Theatre, a book called Arizona on Stage: Playhouses, Plays, and Players in the Territory, 1879-1912 by Thomas P. Collins doesn’t mention the name Grand. It merely says that the Orpheum Theatre was built by a Swiss immigrant named Joseph Maria Muheim who had prospered in Bisbee, that it opened on July 24, 1907, and that it was designed by local architect Fred C. Hurst. The original seating capacity was 1,000, according to the 1909-1910 Cahn guide.
The Lyric Theatre was built in 1917 by the Diamos family to replace their earlier house of the same name in Brewery Gulch, and it remained in operation for almost 72 years. It was equipped for movies, vaudeville, and legitimate stage shows. In 1930, the Diamos family sold their small chain to Fox West Coast Theatres, who operated them for three years. In 1933 the houses reverted to the Diamos family, and a couple of years later John Diamos became the sole proprietor of the Lyric.
Diamos was still operating the Lyric in 1970, when the December 21 issue of Boxoffice reported that he had temporarily closed the house for repairs and refurbishing. He died in 1977, and the following year the heirs leased the Lyric to its last operator, Lee Hayes. He kept the theater open for a bit more than a decade with a combination of movies, stage shows and concerts, but finally closed the Lyric in January, 1989.
A few years later the building was sold to a local real estate company who remodeled the front of the building for their offices, but the darkened auditorium remained largely intact. A few years ago the real estate office closed, and the Lyric Theatre has been waiting for someone with the vision to restore and reopen it. One individual has hired Herb Stratford’s Historic Theatre Consultants to survey the property, and the company has a few recent photos of the house on their web site, but as yet I’ve heard nothing about any firm plans to restore the theater.
A Facebook post from the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum says “[t]he Grand Theatre at the mouth of the Gulch later became the Orpheum.” The Orpheum was already listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
Boxoffice of September 10, 1955 said that the new Cahokia Drive-In, soon to open at Alorton, had been designed by Cleveland architect-engineer George M. Petersen.
The death of Ritz owner Hugh McGregor on March 11, 1955 led to the closing of the theater on August 29, at which time the McGregor estate put the house up for sale. McGregor had opened the Ritz, Arcola’s first movie theater, on December 15, 1933. According to Boxoffice of September 10, 1955, the estate was also selling the Oakland Theatre at Oakland, Illinois, which had been dark since May 28.
An item in the March 24, 1917 issue of The Moving Picture World said that the new Rialto Theatre in Kewanee was owned by Chris C. Taylor, who also owned the Dreamland Theatre. The March 10 issue of the same journal had noted that the plans for remodeling an existing building to accommodate the Rialto had been prepared by Chicago architect W. T. Braun. William T. Braun had been the architect of the Barker-Swan Film Service studio at Peoria, Illinois, according to Motography of March 25, 1916.
The September 10, 1955 Boxoffice said that the Peerless Theatre would not be reopened. The item did not say how long the house had been closed, but it had been struggling for years. Boxoffice of March 22, 1952 had announced that the Peerless had been shut down after having been on a four-day-a-week schedule for some months, and that plans for the building’s future were indefinite.
It’s possible that the theater never reopened after that, though the 1955 item said that it had been under lease to Rod Lorenz Theatres, operators of the Wanee Theatre and Wanee Drive-In. The building was still owned by the heirs of the theater’s long-time operator, the late William T. Pierce. In any case, whether it ran its last show in 1952 or as late as 1955, it is likely that the Peerless was one of the many old theaters that was never retrofitted for wide-screen movies.
Boxoffice of September 10, 1955 carried a brief notice datelined Eagle Rock saying “[l]ong dark, the Dale Theatre here has been reopened by W. C. Jenkins and Peter Fox.”
An article about the newly renovated Regent Theatre appeared in Boxoffice of September 10, 1955. It noted that the house had originally opened in 1926 with D. W. Griffith’s Orphans of the Storm.
When the house was being renovated in 1955, operators Florida State Theatres ran a contest through the local newspaper asking for patrons to suggest a new name for the theater. Public sentiment turned out to be overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the old name, so when the theater reopened it was as the New Regent Theatre.
Published references to a New Royal Theatre at Versailles in 1932 suggest an earlier opening date than 1935 for this house. This item from the March 22, 1931 issue of The Seadlia Democrat makes it even more likely: “J. T. Goshen, owner of the Royal Theatre at Versailles, is to erect a new moving picture theatre building. He has secured a long lease on property on the west side of the square there for the structure.” The Royal is indeed on the west side of the square.
SethG’s suggestion that the first Royal Theatre might have been the former Krauss Opera House seems a definite possibility. The latest mentions of the Opera House I’ve seen in Versaille’s newspaper, the Morgan County Republican, are from 1911, and the earliest mentions of the Royal Theatre are from 1913. As there is no overlap, a name change is certainly possible.
An early 20th century vaudeville organization’s journal called The Player has in its issue of July 25, 1913 a list of theaters in Crockett (there were four!) and one of them is the Columbia.
The Citadel Theatre opened on December 26, 1921 with the D.W. Griffith film Way Down East. The November 8, 1968 issue of Boxoffice reported that the Citadel Theatre in Bloomfield had been gutted by a fire while undergoing renovation. Presumably repaired, as it was still open in 1989.
The NRHP nomination form for the Delavan Downtown Commercial Historic District says that the Delavan Theatre was designed by Milwaukee architect John Wolf. The twinning took place in 1978, and the stage house the theater originally sported was demolished at that time.
Neither a Black Cat nor a Solax Theatre is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. It might have been overlooked, or it might have been inactive at the time the Directory was compiled. No other theater is listed at this house’s address, either, but there is a house called the Carrollton Theatre, listed at 1203-05 W. Baltimore Street, which must have been directly across the street.
Broan’s discovery that John Eberson and the firm of Fugard & Knapp were both connected with the Centennial Theatre project is interesting. Cinema Treasures' page for the Paramount (originally the Majestic, 1915) Theatre in Austin, Texas, attributes that theater’s design to Eberson, but Emporis attributes it to Fugard & Knapp. The two firms were associated on more than one project around that time, then.
The Centennial was completed before the end of 1916, as it’s recent opening was noted in the December 23 issue of Moving Picture World.
The web site is still available, but Fandango says the house is “temporarily closed.”
Further digging has revealed that the 1948 vote was not the first time Sioux Center had rejected a movies, nor was the Legion Theater of that period the first movie house operated there by the town’s American Legionnaires. This item is from the July 2, 1938 issue of Boxoffice:
A brief item dateline Hopkins in the July 23, 1949 issue of Boxoffice said that “Ralph White opened his 430-seat Roxy early this month.” A December 11, 1948 item had announced the start of construction, but said that the house would be called the Rex and would seat 350. That item also said that Ralph White and his sons had started the project. Since the item about the opening doesn’t mention the sons, I’m assuming that Mr. White disowned them and spent their inheritance on space for 80 more seats and an additional letter for his theater’s name.
When the Legionnaires began sponsoring movies in Sioux Center, then a town of less than 2000, it was not without controversy. In fact, the controversy was so intense (and by that late date so unusual) that Life Magazine featured an article about it in their issue of April 19, 1948.
One of the images in the Life article is a reproduction of part of an ad placed in the local newspaper by the anti-movie forces who had engineered a referendum on the issue, giving reasons why they believed citizens should cast their votes to reject movies. Signed by 450 local farmers, who lived outside city limits and thus were not eligible to vote, the ad said in part (I won’t reproduce their ALL CAPS shout:
The anti-movie forces prevailed in the election, 488 to 427, but a newly elected city council ignored the advisory result and voted to renew the American legion’s license to operate the movie theater in Town Hall. Those citizens of Sioux Center and vicinity who were inclined to such wickedness were thus able to enjoy movies locally for five more years before a force apparently more powerful than the group of ministers who led the fight against them, television, finally closed the theater.Sioux Center’s midcentury flirtation with evil does not seem to have harmed the town, which, unlike many similar small towns in the nation’s agricultural regions, has continued to grow and prosper. Today it has a population of over 7,000, and supports a five-screen tool of Satan… I mean multiplex… operated by Fridley Theatres.
The last events at the Lynn Theatre posted on their Facebook page were movie showings on June 12, 13, and 14, 2020. If those showings did take place (there have been no posts to the page since June 12) then this house closed on June 14, 2020 with a showing of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The “About” section at the top of the Facebook page now says “Permanently Closed.”
The minutes of the April 23, 2018 meeting of the Gonzales Economic Development Corporation reveal that, at that time at least, the Lynn was owned by the city’s EDC, and I have found no evidence that this has changed. If the Lynn Theatre has a future, it is in the hands of the City of Gonzales.
The Orpheum Theatre was at 12 Center Street. It was listed as the Orpheum in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
The September 1, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World said that the new Capitol Theatre in Danbury had opened August 11 with the Goldwyn production “Three Wise Fools” as the feature attraction. The wording of the article makes it clear that the house, which was owned by the Taylor estate, was entirely new and had not been seem by the public before.
The appearance of the name Taylor Theatre at the Capitol’s address in the 1923 city directory was likely the result of the fact that the directory went to press while the theater was still in the planning stage or under construction and the name Capitol had not yet been chosen, so the publisher used the name of the owners of the project. There’s no evidence that the house ever operated under the name Taylor Theatre.