The Mercer Theatre was in operation at least as late as 1966, when it advertised in the February 7 issue of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph. The house was most likely dismantled in 1973, when a classified ad in the Telegrpah of October 25 offered the Mercer Theatre’s seats for sale.
The Mercer, under new management, was renovated in 1956. The grand opening ad appeared in the September 16 Telegraph, offering the recent Columbia Pictures hit “Picnic” as the only feature attraction, and touting the new carpeting in the balcony and a new snack bar.
The Mercer was advertised in the Telegraph on March 2, 1938. The house was owned by L. A. Von Court, who also owned the Royal Theatre. His intention to convert the building across the street from the Royal into a theater was noted in the April 30, 1937 issue of the Telegraph, but I’ve been unable to find an announcement of the opening.
Despite its condemnation in 2012, a Google street view dated May, 2018 shows Del Rio building still standing, with its vertical sign intact. It did look vacant at that time, and I’ve found no recent information about it on the Internet. The most recent mention is a March 23, 2016 article in The Modesto Bee. At that time the building had been sold to a Modesto businessman who intended to renovate it for use as an event center. The project had obviously not come to fruition by May this year.
The ongoing (since 2013) renovation of the Lavon Theatre has led to several articles about it in the press. This one from the February 11, 2017 issue of The State Journal says that the Royal Theatre opened in 1911 and operated under that name until 1954. At that time it was bought by Dr. Lawrence Von Court, who had his office in one of the storefronts flanking the theater entrance, and he renamed it the Lavon Theatre.
The Princeton Renaissance Project, the outfit renovating the house, apparently intends to keep the name Lavon, although the rebuilt marquee features three capital R’s on it, presumably a nod to the origin of the house as the Royal.
Links to several other articles about the theater, along with many photos of it, both vintage and modern, can be seen on this Facebook page titled “Celebrating and Reviving the Lavon Theater, Princeton West Virginia.”
The Royal Theatre was listed in the 1912-1913 Cahn guide, though without any details. The Royal was mentioned in the June 24, 1916 issue of Motography.
It looks like Hank Aaron Drive is the dividing line between SW and SE numbers. Georgia Avenue now makes that curve between Hank Aaron and Pollard Boulevard, where it once ran straight, crossing Crew Street midway between them. 42 Georgia Avenue SW was undoubtedly the correct address, but when you search for it on Google maps it defaults to the 42 Georgia SE location because the SW address no longer exists.
PlazaChris: Google Maps' pin icon shows this theater at the corner of Georgia Avenue at Fraser Street, but if you look at the ad for the 1928 grand opening on our photos page it says the Empire was on Georgia Avenue at Crew Street. Crew was two blocks west of Fraser. We probably just have the wrong address for the theater. The Empire’s site is under part of the Georgia State Stadium project, and the intersection itself doesn’t even exist anymore. I don’t know what the building at Georgia and Fraser used to be, but it wasn’t the Empire Theatre.
Herman John Duncan Sr. (1891-1056) was the senior architect of the firm of Duncan & Barron, and began practicing architecture in Lafayette around 1912. Later he would form the firm of Herman J. Duncan & Co., succeeded by the firm of Duncan & Duncan with his son Herman John Duncan Jr. I’ve been unable to find out anything about his first partner, Barron, or how long that partnership lasted.
Trying again with the comment that was suspected as spam:
Now that I’ve seen the vintage photo showing this theater, I believe that the marquee does say Strand on it. Enough of the town’s buildings survive that, comparing the photo to modern Google street view, it is clear that the Strand was on Clay Street. The building has “Masonic Temple” just below its cornice, and the theater’s entrance was in the space that now has a sign for Fremont County Veteran’s Affairs, which the Internet says is at 414 Clay Street.
That the Strand is the same house that was previously called the Cozy seems very likely. The Cozy was listed in the 1926 FDY, along with a theater called the Opera House, though no seating capacity was given for either theater. Sidney does not appear in the 1927 FDY, but the 1928 edition lists only the Cozy, with 250 seats. In 1929, the Cozy is listed with 250 seats and the Opera house reappears, no capacity given. In 1930, the name Strand first appears, along with a house called the Liberty, with no capacity given for either.
In 1931, somewhat improbably, three theaters are listed at tiny Sidney: The 350-seat Liberty, the 300-seat Royal, and the 250-seat Strand. From 1932 through 1943, only the 250-seat Strand is listed, and from 1944 through 1957 only a 250-seat house called the Sidney is listed, suggesting a name change rather than a new theater. The consistent listing of the Cozy, Strand, and Sidney with 250 seats makes it likely that they were the same house, operated under three different names. As the FDY dropped the policy of listing by city after 1957 we don’t know exactly when the theater closed, but it had definitely done so by July, 1963, when Boxoffice noted the sale of its equipment and the conversion of the space to retail use.
However, in this article from the Fremont County Historical Society web site, a Mr. Bob Crawford recalls the Sidney Theatre closing “…about 1956 or 7….” The reminiscence also mentions that the Opera House was located on the east side of the Square, which would be Indiana Street.
I suspect that the Liberty Theatre listed in 1929 and 1931 was the old Opera House, reopened, and the Royal Theatre also listed in 1931 might have been a double-listing of the same theater (double-listing of a theater that had changed hands and/or names was not an extremely rare thing for the FDY to do.)
“The Elite Theater, a motion picture house, opened in this building, also known as the Larkin Building, on October 1, 1909 under the management of Karl Bomshein (Ellsworth Reporter. 1 October 1909). By 1920, the building was in use as a grocery (Sanborn). According to the Sanborn maps, this building was built between 1905 and 1911 -indicating that the Elite Theater was the first occupant at the time of the building’s construction. Before then, the lot was occupied by a small one-story cobbler’s shop. The name ‘Larkin Building’ implies an association with town founder and early hotelier Arthur Larkin (see #52- 201-203 N. Douglas and 203-213 E. N. Main following #83). Larkin continued to invest in the town until his death November 4, 1911. In 1960, the building was a bus depot. It is now occupied by the CR Old West Trading Post.”
Here’s a Google street view roughly recreating the vintage photo. The theater was at 414 Clay Street. I have a longer comment, but CT is mistaking it for spam so I’ll have to try posting it later. I hope this shorter comment is acceptable now.
Sidney, Iowa, is a very small town, and though I can’t find an address for the Strand Theatre (in fact I haven’t even found the name Strand mentioned) it would almost certainly have been located along one of the streets facing the town’s two-block-long public square. I did find mentions of a house called the Cozy Theatre operating at Sidney in the early 1920s, and there is a July 15, 1963 item in Boxoffice saying that “…the equipment from the theatre at Sidney, Iowa” had been sold, and the building “…remodeled into a ladies' ready-to-wear shop.” The house had last been operated by the city, Boxoffice said.
The State Theatre at Larned was mentioned in the December 3, 1927 issue of The Moving Picture World. A regional web site has this comment about the original State Theatre: “The ‘original’ State was slightly to the south of the ‘new’ State. In the old version you walked up a flight of steps (maybe 10-12) to buy your ticket and go inside.”
The original State had a rival called the Electric Theatre, in operation at least as early as 1915 and still in operation at least as late as 1947, when it was mentioned in the May 10 issue of Boxoffice, which noted that its owner, John Schnack, had been in show business for over 45 years. The Electric is also mentioned in the State Theatre thread on the web site I linked to.
Given its Min Street location and its modern style, I think it’s very likely that the Fiesta Twin is the same house that opened in late October, 1948 as the An Le Theatre. It was built for Montana businessman and rancher John Survant, who named the theater for his daughter. Survant then also owned the Cortez Theatre, as well as the Orpheum and Roxy theaters in Glasgow, Montana.
The opening of the An Le was noted in the November 13, 1948 issue of Boxoffice and in a longer article in the November 1, 1948 issue of the Havre Daily News from Havre, Montana. The News article said that the An Le had been designed by Havre architect Frank F. Bossuot and had 646 seats.
The March 24, 1917 issue of The Moving Picture World had this item about plans for the extensive remodeling of the Bijou for Loew’s:
“To Remodel Bijou for Loew Chain.
“Birmingham, Ala.– — E. A. Schiller, of the Schiller amusement company, and Marcus Loew, of the Loew vaudeville circuit, will in the near future let contracts to remodel the Bijou theater, which will include the changing of the theater front, a new addition, remodeled lobby, additional fire escapes, rest rooms on each floor for ladies, lounging and reading rooms, etc. The house will be redecorated throughout, a new ventilating system and additional seats installed, and additional stage equipment provided, with a screen of modern design for moving pictures. ”
The book Reel Time: Movie Exhibitors and Movie Audiences in Prairie Canada, 1896 to 1986, by Robert Morris Seiler and Tamara Palmer Seiler says that the Empress Theatre was designed by architects Harry S. Burroughs and J. Bernard Richards. Other sources give the names as S. Harry Burroughs and John B. Richards. The partnership of Burroughs & Richards was only in operation from around 1909 to 1913.
The 425-seat auditorium was built at the back of an existing building, which was remodeled with an arched entrance through former retail space for the theater. Originally built for the Winnipeg-based Starland Theatre Company, by 1926 the Empress was listed in the FDY as a Famous Players house.
The Bhamwiki page for the Frolic Theatre says that in 1921 the theater was located at 312-314 18th Street North, but by the next year it was listed at 1720-1722 4th Avenue North. According to Bhamwiki’s Champion Theatre page, the Champion, which had been at 306 18th Street North, moved into the Frolic’s original location when the Frolic moved to 4th Avenue. The Champion later moved into a building at 1423 4th Avenue, across the street from the new Frolic.
Bhamwiki’s page for the Champion Theatre says that the house first opened in 1914 at 306 18th Street North, but in the early 1920s it moved to 312 18th Street North, which had earlier been the first location of the Frolic Theatre. The Frolic had moved around the corner onto 4th Avenue North. In later years, the wiki says, the Champion was listed at 1720 4th Avenue North, which was also the second Frolic’s address.
Bhamwiki’s Frolic Theatre page says that the address was shared as early as 1922, and that at that time both houses were under the same management. The Frolic’s address 1720 4th was probably used as the office for both houses, but it’s possible that the Champion was then still at 312 18th Street.
The year the Champion moved from 18th Street to 4th Avenue is uncertain, but the Birmingham Public Library has this photo dated 1939 showing the house in what must have been its final location. The building looks fairly old at that time and might have been an existing building into which the theater moved when it left 312 8th, but not so old that it couldn’t have been built as a theater sometime in the 1920s.
The 1948 FDY lists both the Champion and the Frolic among the five Birmingham theaters then being operated by the Jefferson Amusement Company (along with the Carver, the Famous, and the Eighth Avenue.)
A May 30, 1915 article in The Montgomery Advertiser said that the new Strand Theatre occupied a building formerly occupied by the Empress Theatre and a drug store. The two spaces had been thrown together to accommodate the larger theater. The Empress was one of ten Montgomery picture houses listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but the October 21, 1910 Advertiser had announced its grand opening, scheduled to take place that afternoon.
An article about the Regent appeared in The Moving Picture World of August 28, 1915. The target date for the opening of the house, then under construction, was September 15.
Although not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the Grand Theatre was advertising in the Williamsport Sun-Gazette at least as early as November, 1914. The Grand is the subject of an item in the June 5, 1915 issue of Motography:
“J. G. Meyers, who has so successfully conducted the City theater at Williamsport, has taken over the Grand theater, just across the street from the City, having become general manager of the latter house, and will in the future direct both theaters. Many improvements are promised for the Grand under the new management. The latest approved and up-to-date electrical equipment will be installed in the operating room and elsewhere in the theater. This will include another new projecting machine, making two in service, and a screen that will be up to the standard maintained by the City theater.”
The Grand is also mentioned briefly in the August 21, 1915 issue of The Moving Picture World, which says “J. G. Meyer, manager of the Grand in Williamsport, Pa., has purchased a Minusa Gold Fibre screen from Ludwig Hommel & Company, Pittsburgh.”
An interesting item appears in the May 12, 1923 Moving Picture World:
“Keeney’s Grand Theatre, Williamsport, Pa., will be closed during the summer months for extensive alterations to include a thorough modernizing of structure and equipment, under the management of J. M. Delmar. Frank Keeney, after several unsuccessful attempts to promote theatres in Williamsport, has turned over all his ventures in the way of structure and business assets to Manager Delmar.”
Frank Keeney’s main theater in Williamsport, Keeney’s Theatre, was renamed the Keystone Theatre at some point in the 1920s, and both the Keystone and the Grand are mentioned in an item in the July 15, 1927 issue of The Film Daily under the headline “New Manager at Williamsport”, which says “Gregory W. Beck has been named manager of the Keystone and Grand.”
Here is an item from the April 12, 1919 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Keeney’s 1,650-Seat House in Williamsport Now Open
“FRANK A. KEENEY’S new theatre in Williamport, Pa., opened Friday night, March 28, with a policy of high class photoplays. The house is on the site of the former Lycoming Opera House and is a handsome and imposing structure with a seating capacity of 1,650 and is absolutely modern. The facade is of ornamental cream terra-cotta brick. The interior is finished in the beautiful Adam period. The plans for this theatre were drawn up by William E. Lehman, of Newark, N. J., who laid out the plans for Keeney’s other houses in Newark, Brooklyn, and in Kingston.
“One of the features in the Keeney policy is a symphony orchestra, as well as an organist of repute, who operates a pipe organ said to cost $10,000. Herman Becker is the resident manager.”
This article from the Elmira Star Gazette says that the Mozart originally had 1,398 seats, “…eventually became the Strand….” and also says that “[t]he last big night was May 16, 1959, when every seat was filled for an Elmira Civic Chorus spring concert. The building was razed in 1967.” There was nothing about when the Strand had closed as a movie theater.
The article also says that the Mozart was on Market Street east of Baldwin, so it must have been between Baldwin and Lake. That means it was probably at the 313 E. Market address we have listed on the Strand page. It does seem likely that the Mozart became the Strand in 1923, with a remodeling by Leon Lempert Jr., at that time.
Actually the theater that opened in 1906 as the Mozart was renamed the Strand at some point, which we know as we have photos of the building displaying each name at different times, but there was also a Strand Theatre opened in 1915, when the Mozart was still in operation, and another Strand opened in 1923.
What we don’t know yet is when the Mozart was renamed the Strand, or whether the 1923 Strand was a remodel of the Mozart or of the 1915 Strand, or was another theater altogether. So far we have only one of the Strands listed at Cinema Treasures. The Mozart page obviously needs the aka Strand added, but somebody will have to research the history to determine when the name changed, how long it operated under that name, and what became of the 1915 Strand.
The Mercer Theatre was in operation at least as late as 1966, when it advertised in the February 7 issue of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph. The house was most likely dismantled in 1973, when a classified ad in the Telegrpah of October 25 offered the Mercer Theatre’s seats for sale.
The Mercer, under new management, was renovated in 1956. The grand opening ad appeared in the September 16 Telegraph, offering the recent Columbia Pictures hit “Picnic” as the only feature attraction, and touting the new carpeting in the balcony and a new snack bar.
The Mercer was advertised in the Telegraph on March 2, 1938. The house was owned by L. A. Von Court, who also owned the Royal Theatre. His intention to convert the building across the street from the Royal into a theater was noted in the April 30, 1937 issue of the Telegraph, but I’ve been unable to find an announcement of the opening.
Despite its condemnation in 2012, a Google street view dated May, 2018 shows Del Rio building still standing, with its vertical sign intact. It did look vacant at that time, and I’ve found no recent information about it on the Internet. The most recent mention is a March 23, 2016 article in The Modesto Bee. At that time the building had been sold to a Modesto businessman who intended to renovate it for use as an event center. The project had obviously not come to fruition by May this year.
The ongoing (since 2013) renovation of the Lavon Theatre has led to several articles about it in the press. This one from the February 11, 2017 issue of The State Journal says that the Royal Theatre opened in 1911 and operated under that name until 1954. At that time it was bought by Dr. Lawrence Von Court, who had his office in one of the storefronts flanking the theater entrance, and he renamed it the Lavon Theatre.
The Princeton Renaissance Project, the outfit renovating the house, apparently intends to keep the name Lavon, although the rebuilt marquee features three capital R’s on it, presumably a nod to the origin of the house as the Royal.
Links to several other articles about the theater, along with many photos of it, both vintage and modern, can be seen on this Facebook page titled “Celebrating and Reviving the Lavon Theater, Princeton West Virginia.”
The Royal Theatre was listed in the 1912-1913 Cahn guide, though without any details. The Royal was mentioned in the June 24, 1916 issue of Motography.
It looks like Hank Aaron Drive is the dividing line between SW and SE numbers. Georgia Avenue now makes that curve between Hank Aaron and Pollard Boulevard, where it once ran straight, crossing Crew Street midway between them. 42 Georgia Avenue SW was undoubtedly the correct address, but when you search for it on Google maps it defaults to the 42 Georgia SE location because the SW address no longer exists.
PlazaChris: Google Maps' pin icon shows this theater at the corner of Georgia Avenue at Fraser Street, but if you look at the ad for the 1928 grand opening on our photos page it says the Empire was on Georgia Avenue at Crew Street. Crew was two blocks west of Fraser. We probably just have the wrong address for the theater. The Empire’s site is under part of the Georgia State Stadium project, and the intersection itself doesn’t even exist anymore. I don’t know what the building at Georgia and Fraser used to be, but it wasn’t the Empire Theatre.
Herman John Duncan Sr. (1891-1056) was the senior architect of the firm of Duncan & Barron, and began practicing architecture in Lafayette around 1912. Later he would form the firm of Herman J. Duncan & Co., succeeded by the firm of Duncan & Duncan with his son Herman John Duncan Jr. I’ve been unable to find out anything about his first partner, Barron, or how long that partnership lasted.
Trying again with the comment that was suspected as spam:
Now that I’ve seen the vintage photo showing this theater, I believe that the marquee does say Strand on it. Enough of the town’s buildings survive that, comparing the photo to modern Google street view, it is clear that the Strand was on Clay Street. The building has “Masonic Temple” just below its cornice, and the theater’s entrance was in the space that now has a sign for Fremont County Veteran’s Affairs, which the Internet says is at 414 Clay Street.
That the Strand is the same house that was previously called the Cozy seems very likely. The Cozy was listed in the 1926 FDY, along with a theater called the Opera House, though no seating capacity was given for either theater. Sidney does not appear in the 1927 FDY, but the 1928 edition lists only the Cozy, with 250 seats. In 1929, the Cozy is listed with 250 seats and the Opera house reappears, no capacity given. In 1930, the name Strand first appears, along with a house called the Liberty, with no capacity given for either.
In 1931, somewhat improbably, three theaters are listed at tiny Sidney: The 350-seat Liberty, the 300-seat Royal, and the 250-seat Strand. From 1932 through 1943, only the 250-seat Strand is listed, and from 1944 through 1957 only a 250-seat house called the Sidney is listed, suggesting a name change rather than a new theater. The consistent listing of the Cozy, Strand, and Sidney with 250 seats makes it likely that they were the same house, operated under three different names. As the FDY dropped the policy of listing by city after 1957 we don’t know exactly when the theater closed, but it had definitely done so by July, 1963, when Boxoffice noted the sale of its equipment and the conversion of the space to retail use.
However, in this article from the Fremont County Historical Society web site, a Mr. Bob Crawford recalls the Sidney Theatre closing “…about 1956 or 7….” The reminiscence also mentions that the Opera House was located on the east side of the Square, which would be Indiana Street.
I suspect that the Liberty Theatre listed in 1929 and 1931 was the old Opera House, reopened, and the Royal Theatre also listed in 1931 might have been a double-listing of the same theater (double-listing of a theater that had changed hands and/or names was not an extremely rare thing for the FDY to do.)
An NRHP form for the Ellsworth Downtown Historic District lists the Elite Theatre/Larkin Building at 123 N. Douglas Avenue. It gives this history of the building:
Here’s a Google street view roughly recreating the vintage photo. The theater was at 414 Clay Street. I have a longer comment, but CT is mistaking it for spam so I’ll have to try posting it later. I hope this shorter comment is acceptable now.
Sidney, Iowa, is a very small town, and though I can’t find an address for the Strand Theatre (in fact I haven’t even found the name Strand mentioned) it would almost certainly have been located along one of the streets facing the town’s two-block-long public square. I did find mentions of a house called the Cozy Theatre operating at Sidney in the early 1920s, and there is a July 15, 1963 item in Boxoffice saying that “…the equipment from the theatre at Sidney, Iowa” had been sold, and the building “…remodeled into a ladies' ready-to-wear shop.” The house had last been operated by the city, Boxoffice said.
The New Strand’s origin as the West Liberty Opera House in 1910 means that it was indeed the project designed by Dieman & Fiske.
The State Theatre at Larned was mentioned in the December 3, 1927 issue of The Moving Picture World. A regional web site has this comment about the original State Theatre: “The ‘original’ State was slightly to the south of the ‘new’ State. In the old version you walked up a flight of steps (maybe 10-12) to buy your ticket and go inside.”
The original State had a rival called the Electric Theatre, in operation at least as early as 1915 and still in operation at least as late as 1947, when it was mentioned in the May 10 issue of Boxoffice, which noted that its owner, John Schnack, had been in show business for over 45 years. The Electric is also mentioned in the State Theatre thread on the web site I linked to.
Given its Min Street location and its modern style, I think it’s very likely that the Fiesta Twin is the same house that opened in late October, 1948 as the An Le Theatre. It was built for Montana businessman and rancher John Survant, who named the theater for his daughter. Survant then also owned the Cortez Theatre, as well as the Orpheum and Roxy theaters in Glasgow, Montana.
The opening of the An Le was noted in the November 13, 1948 issue of Boxoffice and in a longer article in the November 1, 1948 issue of the Havre Daily News from Havre, Montana. The News article said that the An Le had been designed by Havre architect Frank F. Bossuot and had 646 seats.
The March 24, 1917 issue of The Moving Picture World had this item about plans for the extensive remodeling of the Bijou for Loew’s:
The book Reel Time: Movie Exhibitors and Movie Audiences in Prairie Canada, 1896 to 1986, by Robert Morris Seiler and Tamara Palmer Seiler says that the Empress Theatre was designed by architects Harry S. Burroughs and J. Bernard Richards. Other sources give the names as S. Harry Burroughs and John B. Richards. The partnership of Burroughs & Richards was only in operation from around 1909 to 1913.
The 425-seat auditorium was built at the back of an existing building, which was remodeled with an arched entrance through former retail space for the theater. Originally built for the Winnipeg-based Starland Theatre Company, by 1926 the Empress was listed in the FDY as a Famous Players house.
The Bhamwiki page for the Frolic Theatre says that in 1921 the theater was located at 312-314 18th Street North, but by the next year it was listed at 1720-1722 4th Avenue North. According to Bhamwiki’s Champion Theatre page, the Champion, which had been at 306 18th Street North, moved into the Frolic’s original location when the Frolic moved to 4th Avenue. The Champion later moved into a building at 1423 4th Avenue, across the street from the new Frolic.
Bhamwiki’s page for the Champion Theatre says that the house first opened in 1914 at 306 18th Street North, but in the early 1920s it moved to 312 18th Street North, which had earlier been the first location of the Frolic Theatre. The Frolic had moved around the corner onto 4th Avenue North. In later years, the wiki says, the Champion was listed at 1720 4th Avenue North, which was also the second Frolic’s address.
Bhamwiki’s Frolic Theatre page says that the address was shared as early as 1922, and that at that time both houses were under the same management. The Frolic’s address 1720 4th was probably used as the office for both houses, but it’s possible that the Champion was then still at 312 18th Street.
The year the Champion moved from 18th Street to 4th Avenue is uncertain, but the Birmingham Public Library has this photo dated 1939 showing the house in what must have been its final location. The building looks fairly old at that time and might have been an existing building into which the theater moved when it left 312 8th, but not so old that it couldn’t have been built as a theater sometime in the 1920s.
The 1948 FDY lists both the Champion and the Frolic among the five Birmingham theaters then being operated by the Jefferson Amusement Company (along with the Carver, the Famous, and the Eighth Avenue.)
This picture shows the Famous Theatre building, still standing, which was two doors down from the Champion, which has been demolished.
A May 30, 1915 article in The Montgomery Advertiser said that the new Strand Theatre occupied a building formerly occupied by the Empress Theatre and a drug store. The two spaces had been thrown together to accommodate the larger theater. The Empress was one of ten Montgomery picture houses listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but the October 21, 1910 Advertiser had announced its grand opening, scheduled to take place that afternoon.
An article about the Regent appeared in The Moving Picture World of August 28, 1915. The target date for the opening of the house, then under construction, was September 15.
The December 13, 1913 issue of The Moving Picture World had this item: “Bessemer, Ala.—J. A. Snider is having his Grand Theater remodeled.”
Although not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the Grand Theatre was advertising in the Williamsport Sun-Gazette at least as early as November, 1914. The Grand is the subject of an item in the June 5, 1915 issue of Motography:
The Grand is also mentioned briefly in the August 21, 1915 issue of The Moving Picture World, which says “J. G. Meyer, manager of the Grand in Williamsport, Pa., has purchased a Minusa Gold Fibre screen from Ludwig Hommel & Company, Pittsburgh.”An interesting item appears in the May 12, 1923 Moving Picture World:
Frank Keeney’s main theater in Williamsport, Keeney’s Theatre, was renamed the Keystone Theatre at some point in the 1920s, and both the Keystone and the Grand are mentioned in an item in the July 15, 1927 issue of The Film Daily under the headline “New Manager at Williamsport”, which says “Gregory W. Beck has been named manager of the Keystone and Grand.”Here is an item from the April 12, 1919 issue of The Moving Picture World:
This article from the Elmira Star Gazette says that the Mozart originally had 1,398 seats, “…eventually became the Strand….” and also says that “[t]he last big night was May 16, 1959, when every seat was filled for an Elmira Civic Chorus spring concert. The building was razed in 1967.” There was nothing about when the Strand had closed as a movie theater.
The article also says that the Mozart was on Market Street east of Baldwin, so it must have been between Baldwin and Lake. That means it was probably at the 313 E. Market address we have listed on the Strand page. It does seem likely that the Mozart became the Strand in 1923, with a remodeling by Leon Lempert Jr., at that time.
Actually the theater that opened in 1906 as the Mozart was renamed the Strand at some point, which we know as we have photos of the building displaying each name at different times, but there was also a Strand Theatre opened in 1915, when the Mozart was still in operation, and another Strand opened in 1923.
What we don’t know yet is when the Mozart was renamed the Strand, or whether the 1923 Strand was a remodel of the Mozart or of the 1915 Strand, or was another theater altogether. So far we have only one of the Strands listed at Cinema Treasures. The Mozart page obviously needs the aka Strand added, but somebody will have to research the history to determine when the name changed, how long it operated under that name, and what became of the 1915 Strand.