robboehm: I didn’t have copies of those pictures, and have only found one of them (the one from around 1918) on the Internet. It’s the one that shows the gabled building with the It Theatre sign on it. It isn’t the building in the photo you uploaded, which was the Star Theatre, but was across Main Street from it. I think maybe the It wasn’t in that gabled building with the sign, but the one beyond it, which I believe is the building identified as the former Strand in this photo at CinemaTour.
The congratulatory ad placed by the Yost Lumber Company notes that the Plaza had been remodeled and redecorated. I’ve found C.W. “Wally” Johnson, owner of the Plaza, mentioned in trade journals from 1935 to 1953.
Friend’s theatrical history began with the opening of the Warren Opera House in 1886. The Warren, an upstairs venue, went into decline with the opening of the ground floor San Carlo Opera House in 1908. The town’s first regular movie theater, the Elite, opened a few years later. Both the San Carlo and the Elite were listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. Either of those early houses might have become the Plaza. I’ve been unable to find addresses for either of them.
The Town Theatre was a replacement for an earlier house called the Roxy which was dismantled when the Town opened. The Flora Amusement Company announced plans for closing and dismantling the 360-seat Roxy as soon as their new, as yet unnamed, theater opened, according to Boxoffice of May 20, 1950. Flora Amusement also operated the Florine Theatre. No address was given for the Roxy. I wonder if it could have been an aka for the Casino Theatre?
Multiple sources indicate that the Prince Theatre was designed by the Houston architectural firm H. C. Cooke & Co.. Henry Collier Cooke was an English architect who began practicing in Galveston around 1891, then practiced in Corsicana for a while before establishing himself in Houston around 1901. His son William A. Cooke joined the firm in 1905.
The Prince became a full-time motion picture theater in September, 1916.
The history section of the Arlee Theatre web site says that at some time after arriving in Mason City in 1875, Lipman Frank operated the Frank Opera House, “…where grand balls were held and Ward Ackerman showed early movies.” The opera house was upstairs in the LaForge building, at the northwest corner of Chestnut and Tonica streets. The history also says that “[i]n 1917, Ackerman moved his movie business to the Pritchett Building at 132 S. Main St. and named it the Liberty Theater.”
This is where it starts getting complicated. The web site is fairly recent, and some history has apparently been missed (for example, that the 1914 Sanborn shows a movie theater already operating at 132 S. Main.) The 1913 Moving Picture World article I cited in my first comment on this theater says that Mr. and Mrs. Ackerman had just sold the Lyric Opera House, which they had operated for about five years. There is also this item datelined Mason City Ill. from the August 19, 1911 issue of The Motion Picture News: “A. W. Ackerman of the Lyric Theatre has leased the opera house and will manage same.”
Puzzling stuff. The map is surely the most reliable source, so it’s probably safe to assume that the theater at 132 Main was in operation in 1914. The 1911 MPN item is probably accurate, and Mr. Ackerman did lease the Opera House that year. The question then becomes where was the Lyric Theatre, and did Ackerman continue to operate it along with the Opera House? Mason City had a population of only about 1,800 at that time, though there were undoubtedly many rural families living round about who also would have attended the movies, but was the total market large enough to support two movie theaters?
Then we have the 1913 MPW item, which raises the question of how Ackerman’s two theaters of 1911, the Lyric and the Opera House, became the single Lyric Opera House which he sold in 1913? Or was he selling two theaters, and MPW just garbled the information (the same might account for the single listing in the 1914-1915 Directory?) Or had Ackerman closed one or the other theater and combined the names at the single location still operating? If so, which of the two was closed?
My best guess would be that the Lyric Theatre of 1911 and the Lyric Opera House of 1913 were both the theater at 132 S. Main, since it was shown still operating on the 1914 Sanborn. If the 1913 MPW claim that the Ackermans had been operating the theater for five years is correct, and we assume it means during at least parts of five years, not five entire years, then we can have the harness shop shown at 132 Main on the 1909 Sanborn converted into a theater before the end of that year, and then being run by the Ackermans, first as the Lyric Theatre (mentioned in 1911) and then perhaps as the Lyric Opera House, into late 1913. The 1913 item notes that “Mr. Ackerman will continue to Manage the Prospect Opera House at Greenview….” Then when he returned to Mason City in 1917 and opened the Liberty, he would actually have been re-acquiring the theater he had sold in 1913.
This is all somewhat speculative, of course, but it is plausible, and does accord with the limited facts we do have, as well as accounting for the apparent discrepancies in the sketchy historical record. In the absence of access to historic Mason City newspaper archives, these surmises are the best I can do.
This article about the Mayflower Theatre says that a Mr. Hunt opened Troy’s first movie theater in the fall of 1908. It was in a building next door to the one that would later be occupied by the Mayflower Theatre. That must have been the Star. The opening name was apparently Hunt’s Theatre.
This article about the Mayflower says that the house opened on January 31, 1928. The article does not mention the Mayflower’s “steam beams.” Perhaps they were only a local urban legend.
Although the Jewel is mentioned at least once in a trade journal in 1911 (The Moving Picture World, October 7,) and is mentioned in multiple issues of the trades after 1915, it is not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. This might have been an accidental omission from the directory, or the house might have been closed at the time the directory was being put together and then reopened later.
The Star was one of three movie theater listed at Troy in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. No details were provided but the location West Main Street. Also listed were the Gem Theatre, S. Market Street, and the New Theatre, no location given.
The description needs to be updated with the February, 1916 closing of this house, noted in an article of February 8 that year, cited in a comment by vokoban on January 2, 2006. The article noted the impending opening of the Palace Theatre on 7th Street by the operators of the Palace of Pictures, and the last line said that “[t]he present Palace of Pictures will cease to exist at the end of this week,” Its location was taken over by Innes Shoe Company.
I believe I saw the article I cited at newspapers.com, but since then that site has put its content behind a paywall, so I, not being a subscriber to their service, don’t have access to it anymore.
50sSNIPES: See the page for the New Bluebird Theatre. The name was moved there when this house closed in 1959, and the Bluebird operated at that location (143 N. Sycamore) into the 1980s.
This house is once again using the name Fox West Theatre. Here is the official web site, which features numerous historic and contemporary photos, and a fairly detailed history of the house.
The 1889 edition of Jeffrey’s guide lists the Anthony Opera House with 850 seats (folding opera chairs) and a stage 24x60. The builders of the Anthony Opera House went out of state to Trinidad, Colorado for their architects, the Trinidad firm of Bulger & Rapp (Charles William Bulger and Isaac Hamilton Rapp.) The firm lasted for less than five years, after which Bulger left Trinidad, and Rapp was joined there by his brother William Rapp, forming a firm called Rapp & Rapp (not to be confused with the Chicago firm of the same name operated by Isaac and William’s older brothers Cornelius and George.)
This PDF file of the NRHP application for the Bulger & Rapp-designed Zion’s German Lutheran Church in Trinidad mentions the Anthony project, saying that the opera house was dedicated and opened on December 13, 1887. Bulger had been a prominent resident of Anthony for some time before moving to Trinidad.
The North Complex fires which began in August eventually led to Paradise being placed under an evacuation warning for about two weeks, but the fire never advanced far enough to reach the town, and the warning was never upgraded to an evacuation order.
The October 4, 1937 issue of Film Daily had this item under the heading “Change in Ownership”:
“REDWOOD FALLS— Falls, (formerly Dream) transferred to Don Buckley.”
The April 11th 1934 Daily had listed the New Dream at Redwood Falls as one of several Minnesota houses that had recently been reopened. A New Dream Theatre in Redwood Falls was also mentioned in the March 6, 1926 issue of Motion Picture News. Going back even farther, the New Dream was mentioned in the September 7, 1918 issue of The Moving Picture World. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists two movie theaters at Redwood Falls: the Opera House and the Redwood Dream Theatre. Whether or not this last was the same house as the later Dream or New Dream I haven’t discovered.
The July 9, 1938 issue of Boxoffice had this brief item:
“Mr. Mellon [sic] of Portage la Prairie has started construction on a new theatre which will seat between 400 and 500. This house will stand on the site of the old Elite, which has been torn down.”
The man who rebuilt the Elite in 1938 was named Amasa E. Mellen, and according to this thumbnail biography he was the owner and operator of the Elite Theatre from 1907 until his death in 1949.
The architects for the rebuilding of the Elite Theatre were the Winnipeg firm Green, Blankstein, Russell (GBR) who also designed several other theaters in Canada, from Ontario to British Columbia.
The July 2, 1938 issue of Boxoffice said that the Perkins Electric Company had sold CTR equipment to three new theaters, one of which was the Cartier in Timmins.
The July 2, 1938 issue of Boxoffice said that Ted Lewis, of Texarkana, would open his new theater at Overton on July 8. The building was owned by local businessmen and Lewis would operate the house under contract. It would be in competition with the Jefferson Amusement Company, but the article didn’t mention any theatre names.
Jefferson might have had two theaters in Overton, as a November 15, 1941 issue of Motion Picture Herald mentioned houses called the Gem and the Strand there, though it didn’t name the operators. The two houses had enjoyed a 60 day clearance over the Overton Theatre, which an arbiter had cut to 14 days.
This item is from the July 2, 1938 issue of Boxoffice:
“Millvale, Pa. — The Grant Theatre is being remodeled. Present front on Grant St. will be closed and a new front will be installed facing 42 feet on North Ave. Seating capacity will be increased from the present capacity of 500 to approximately 800. The work will cover a period of several months and the house will be closed during the final week of the extensive remodeling. Louis J. Bender is the owner of the Grant, and Floyd Bender is the manager.”
robboehm: I didn’t have copies of those pictures, and have only found one of them (the one from around 1918) on the Internet. It’s the one that shows the gabled building with the It Theatre sign on it. It isn’t the building in the photo you uploaded, which was the Star Theatre, but was across Main Street from it. I think maybe the It wasn’t in that gabled building with the sign, but the one beyond it, which I believe is the building identified as the former Strand in this photo at CinemaTour.
The congratulatory ad placed by the Yost Lumber Company notes that the Plaza had been remodeled and redecorated. I’ve found C.W. “Wally” Johnson, owner of the Plaza, mentioned in trade journals from 1935 to 1953.
Friend’s theatrical history began with the opening of the Warren Opera House in 1886. The Warren, an upstairs venue, went into decline with the opening of the ground floor San Carlo Opera House in 1908. The town’s first regular movie theater, the Elite, opened a few years later. Both the San Carlo and the Elite were listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. Either of those early houses might have become the Plaza. I’ve been unable to find addresses for either of them.
The Town Theatre was a replacement for an earlier house called the Roxy which was dismantled when the Town opened. The Flora Amusement Company announced plans for closing and dismantling the 360-seat Roxy as soon as their new, as yet unnamed, theater opened, according to Boxoffice of May 20, 1950. Flora Amusement also operated the Florine Theatre. No address was given for the Roxy. I wonder if it could have been an aka for the Casino Theatre?
A Pettigrew & Worley design.
Multiple sources indicate that the Prince Theatre was designed by the Houston architectural firm H. C. Cooke & Co.. Henry Collier Cooke was an English architect who began practicing in Galveston around 1891, then practiced in Corsicana for a while before establishing himself in Houston around 1901. His son William A. Cooke joined the firm in 1905.
The Prince became a full-time motion picture theater in September, 1916.
The Mayland Theatre is currently being demolished.
The history section of the Arlee Theatre web site says that at some time after arriving in Mason City in 1875, Lipman Frank operated the Frank Opera House, “…where grand balls were held and Ward Ackerman showed early movies.” The opera house was upstairs in the LaForge building, at the northwest corner of Chestnut and Tonica streets. The history also says that “[i]n 1917, Ackerman moved his movie business to the Pritchett Building at 132 S. Main St. and named it the Liberty Theater.”
This is where it starts getting complicated. The web site is fairly recent, and some history has apparently been missed (for example, that the 1914 Sanborn shows a movie theater already operating at 132 S. Main.) The 1913 Moving Picture World article I cited in my first comment on this theater says that Mr. and Mrs. Ackerman had just sold the Lyric Opera House, which they had operated for about five years. There is also this item datelined Mason City Ill. from the August 19, 1911 issue of The Motion Picture News: “A. W. Ackerman of the Lyric Theatre has leased the opera house and will manage same.”
Puzzling stuff. The map is surely the most reliable source, so it’s probably safe to assume that the theater at 132 Main was in operation in 1914. The 1911 MPN item is probably accurate, and Mr. Ackerman did lease the Opera House that year. The question then becomes where was the Lyric Theatre, and did Ackerman continue to operate it along with the Opera House? Mason City had a population of only about 1,800 at that time, though there were undoubtedly many rural families living round about who also would have attended the movies, but was the total market large enough to support two movie theaters?
Then we have the 1913 MPW item, which raises the question of how Ackerman’s two theaters of 1911, the Lyric and the Opera House, became the single Lyric Opera House which he sold in 1913? Or was he selling two theaters, and MPW just garbled the information (the same might account for the single listing in the 1914-1915 Directory?) Or had Ackerman closed one or the other theater and combined the names at the single location still operating? If so, which of the two was closed?
My best guess would be that the Lyric Theatre of 1911 and the Lyric Opera House of 1913 were both the theater at 132 S. Main, since it was shown still operating on the 1914 Sanborn. If the 1913 MPW claim that the Ackermans had been operating the theater for five years is correct, and we assume it means during at least parts of five years, not five entire years, then we can have the harness shop shown at 132 Main on the 1909 Sanborn converted into a theater before the end of that year, and then being run by the Ackermans, first as the Lyric Theatre (mentioned in 1911) and then perhaps as the Lyric Opera House, into late 1913. The 1913 item notes that “Mr. Ackerman will continue to Manage the Prospect Opera House at Greenview….” Then when he returned to Mason City in 1917 and opened the Liberty, he would actually have been re-acquiring the theater he had sold in 1913.
This is all somewhat speculative, of course, but it is plausible, and does accord with the limited facts we do have, as well as accounting for the apparent discrepancies in the sketchy historical record. In the absence of access to historic Mason City newspaper archives, these surmises are the best I can do.
The only theater listed at Mason City in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was the Lyric Opera House.
The official web site says that the Arlee Theatre opened on November 19, 1936 with the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical “Swing Time.”
This article about the Mayflower Theatre says that a Mr. Hunt opened Troy’s first movie theater in the fall of 1908. It was in a building next door to the one that would later be occupied by the Mayflower Theatre. That must have been the Star. The opening name was apparently Hunt’s Theatre.
This article about the Mayflower says that the house opened on January 31, 1928. The article does not mention the Mayflower’s “steam beams.” Perhaps they were only a local urban legend.
Although the Jewel is mentioned at least once in a trade journal in 1911 (The Moving Picture World, October 7,) and is mentioned in multiple issues of the trades after 1915, it is not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. This might have been an accidental omission from the directory, or the house might have been closed at the time the directory was being put together and then reopened later.
The Star was one of three movie theater listed at Troy in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. No details were provided but the location West Main Street. Also listed were the Gem Theatre, S. Market Street, and the New Theatre, no location given.
The description needs to be updated with the February, 1916 closing of this house, noted in an article of February 8 that year, cited in a comment by vokoban on January 2, 2006. The article noted the impending opening of the Palace Theatre on 7th Street by the operators of the Palace of Pictures, and the last line said that “[t]he present Palace of Pictures will cease to exist at the end of this week,” Its location was taken over by Innes Shoe Company.
I believe I saw the article I cited at newspapers.com, but since then that site has put its content behind a paywall, so I, not being a subscriber to their service, don’t have access to it anymore.
50sSNIPES: See the page for the New Bluebird Theatre. The name was moved there when this house closed in 1959, and the Bluebird operated at that location (143 N. Sycamore) into the 1980s.
This house is once again using the name Fox West Theatre. Here is the official web site, which features numerous historic and contemporary photos, and a fairly detailed history of the house.
The 1889 edition of Jeffrey’s guide lists the Anthony Opera House with 850 seats (folding opera chairs) and a stage 24x60. The builders of the Anthony Opera House went out of state to Trinidad, Colorado for their architects, the Trinidad firm of Bulger & Rapp (Charles William Bulger and Isaac Hamilton Rapp.) The firm lasted for less than five years, after which Bulger left Trinidad, and Rapp was joined there by his brother William Rapp, forming a firm called Rapp & Rapp (not to be confused with the Chicago firm of the same name operated by Isaac and William’s older brothers Cornelius and George.)
This PDF file of the NRHP application for the Bulger & Rapp-designed Zion’s German Lutheran Church in Trinidad mentions the Anthony project, saying that the opera house was dedicated and opened on December 13, 1887. Bulger had been a prominent resident of Anthony for some time before moving to Trinidad.
The North Complex fires which began in August eventually led to Paradise being placed under an evacuation warning for about two weeks, but the fire never advanced far enough to reach the town, and the warning was never upgraded to an evacuation order.
The October 4, 1937 issue of Film Daily had this item under the heading “Change in Ownership”:
The April 11th 1934 Daily had listed the New Dream at Redwood Falls as one of several Minnesota houses that had recently been reopened. A New Dream Theatre in Redwood Falls was also mentioned in the March 6, 1926 issue of Motion Picture News. Going back even farther, the New Dream was mentioned in the September 7, 1918 issue of The Moving Picture World. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists two movie theaters at Redwood Falls: the Opera House and the Redwood Dream Theatre. Whether or not this last was the same house as the later Dream or New Dream I haven’t discovered.The July 9, 1938 issue of Boxoffice had this brief item:
The man who rebuilt the Elite in 1938 was named Amasa E. Mellen, and according to this thumbnail biography he was the owner and operator of the Elite Theatre from 1907 until his death in 1949.The architects for the rebuilding of the Elite Theatre were the Winnipeg firm Green, Blankstein, Russell (GBR) who also designed several other theaters in Canada, from Ontario to British Columbia.
Boxoffice of July 9, 1938 said that the new Harbor Theatre at Two Harbors had recently been opened by Nick Grengs and his sons.
The July 2, 1938 issue of Boxoffice said that the Perkins Electric Company had sold CTR equipment to three new theaters, one of which was the Cartier in Timmins.
The July 2, 1938 issue of Boxoffice said that Ted Lewis, of Texarkana, would open his new theater at Overton on July 8. The building was owned by local businessmen and Lewis would operate the house under contract. It would be in competition with the Jefferson Amusement Company, but the article didn’t mention any theatre names.
Jefferson might have had two theaters in Overton, as a November 15, 1941 issue of Motion Picture Herald mentioned houses called the Gem and the Strand there, though it didn’t name the operators. The two houses had enjoyed a 60 day clearance over the Overton Theatre, which an arbiter had cut to 14 days.
This item is from the July 2, 1938 issue of Boxoffice: