The June 3, 1916 issue of Motography said that Dorbandt Brothers were expanding and remodeling their Dixie Theatre at Athens, Texas, adding a balcony. The 300-seat Dixie, operated by Dorbandt Brothers, had been listed in the “Picture Theatres” section of the 1914 edition of Gus Hill’s National Theatrical Directory, but somehow missed being included in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
It’s possible that the Dixie dates from 1912, when the July 18 issue of The Tradesman, a hardware industry trade journal, said that J. T. LaRue planned to erect half a block of buildings at Athens, one of which would be used as a theater. In any case, it was definitely open by 1914.
The July 4, 1912 issue of The Tradesman had this item dateline Muskogee:
“In the very near future the new
Broadway theater, being built by the Homestead Ammusement Company, will be thrown open to the public, and this building will give to the city, with our present equipment — the best play house facilities of any city of its size in the country.”
This brief article from the Arizona Daily Sun of December 10, 2015, is about the Orpheum, with a slide show of five photos. The house was built by John Weatherford of the adjacent Weatherford’s Hotel in 1911, and operated as the Majestic Opera House. The house was listed as the Majestic Theatre in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
In late December, 1915, a storm dropped some sixty inches of snow on Flagstaff. A maintenance man, thinking to melt away some of the snow and reduce the weight on the theater’s roof, sprayed it with water, precipitating its collapse on New Year’s Eve. The house was eventually rebuilt and reopened as the Orpheum Theatre.
The Orpheum was listed in the FDY through 1929, but in 1930 began being listed as the College Theatre. In 1933 the name Orpheum was restored.
The old official web site link is dead. The restoration of the Grand has been taken on by a new organization, Border Arts Corridor, which has this page about the project on their web site. What remains of the building is in rough shape. The roof is still off the auditorium, and Google’s street view of the 12th street side shows what look to me like some serious cracks in the wall. Unless somebody drops a load of money on this project I doubt it will be finished anytime soon.
This web page has a few photos of the Pantages, including two of the interior, which displayed many of the design characteristics that Priteca called the “Pantages Greek” style which he would use on later Pantages houses well into the 1920s.
I thought I’d saved the rather long comment I tried to post which was rejected as spam, but the application lost it. I won’t try to reconstruct it. The bare bones version is that the Coosa Theatre was built in 1941 by Martin Theatres, and Martin operated it until 1963. Here is a photo of the Coosa under construction.
The FDY always listed this house at 20 N. 17th Avenue, not 17th Street, but that address doesn’t exist today (nor does 17th Avenue, as far as I can tell— 16th is as high as the avenues go now, which is probably why Google Maps defaults to residential 17th Street.) I’ve checked Google street views of Childersburg but can’t find any building that would likely be the one in the 1941 photo. Wherever it actually was, the Coosa has either been demolished or remodeled beyond recognition.
I believe the correct name of this house is not Greenville Theatre (which wouldn’t make sense in a town called Greensboro) but Greenland Theatre. The building was probably built in 1940-41, replacing an earlier house of the same name, and is at 124 S. Main Street, currently occupied by a Chinese restaurant called (rather unimaginatively) the China Restaurant.
This web page gives a sketchy bit of history up to 1935, when the theater was rebuilt, burned down a short time later, then was rebuilt again. The 1940 rebuild must have been at least the third, and it was larger than the earlier iterations. Charles S. Aiken’s book The Cotton Plantation South Since the Civil War has a couple of paragraphs about the opening of the house in January, 1941, saying that there were 500 seats for whites on the main floor and 160 additional seats in the segregated balcony.
This 1941 photo from the Library of Congress shows the Streamline Modern theater before the building got the fake Colonial front and mansard it now sports.
The name Greenland Theatre goes back at least as early as 1917 in Greensboro, when it was mentioned in the October 20 issue of Motography. The planning of the 1940 rebuild was noted in this item from the October 11 issue of The Film Daily:
“Reynolds-Boswell To Build
“Greensboro, Ga. — J. M. Reynolds. Jr., and W. R. Boswell, operators of the Greenland theater here, will erect a new theater with a seating capacity of 660.”
The Roxy is mentioned in this 2010 article from The Tifton Gazette. The article says the Roxy was located on 17th Street West just off of South Park Avenue, in an American Legion hall.
The Gem is one of five Gadsden movie houses listed in Eric Ledell Smith’s African American Theater Buildings: An Illustrated Historical Directory. A footnote in the book cites a mention of the Gem in the July 15, 1939 issue of Motion Picture Herald. I can’t find that issue online so I don’t know what the item said, but 1939 was also the first year the Gem was listed in the FDY. The Gem still appeared in the FDY as late as 1955, when it was one of twentyfive houses being operated by Bailey Theaters of Atlanta.
A house called simply the Royal Theatre was listed at the northeast corner of Broad and Cort [sic] Streets in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. My guess would be that the New Royal, a few doors west of Court Street, was its replacement. I haven’t found out when that happened, though.
An Amusu Theatre is listed at Gadsden in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, so if it burned in 1911 it might have been rebuilt, or just moved to another location.
The Moving Picture World of March 15, 1924 said that the Lyric Theatre in Gadsden would be closed and the building converted into a store. The Lyric had gone into operation by 1921, and was last operated by Will B. Wood.
The Savoy was listed in the Motion Picture section of the 1922 Cahn guide, but with no details. In 1923 it suffered a fire, according to this item from The Moving Picture World of March 15, 1924:
“The Savoy Theatre, Alabama City, Ala., which suffered a disastrous fire last November, has been reopened. Mr. Woods, owner, has closed his Lyric Theatre, Gadsden, Ala., which is to be converted into a store.”
“Mr. Woods” was probably the man listed in the 1922 Film Year Book as Will B. Wood, the head of a small chain of theaters consisting of the Belle, Lyric, Savoy and Pastime in Alabama City. The Savoy and the Belle were both mentioned in the July 8, 1927 issue of Motion Picture News.
The Empress Theatre was one of two houses listed at Chamberlain in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the other being the Electric Theatre. Both were located on Main Street. In 1913 there was a house called the Julian Theatre, which might have been an aka for either the Empress or the Electric.
The Fad Theatre is one of two movie houses listed at Brookings in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the other bing the Pleasant Hour Theatre.
Architects for the 1960 remodeling of the State Theatre were Harold Spitznagel & Associates. Harold T. Spitznagel was also the architect of the Hollywood Theatre in Sioux Falls, the city in which his office was located.
This item is from the May 20, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“C. C. Baker, owner of the Strand theater, Britton, South Dakota, was seen by me at the convention. Mr. Baker built the Strand theater last year. It seats 300 people, and General Film Company’s service and miscellaneous features comprised of V-L-S-E, World and Fox makes are offered his patrons. The regular program costs 10 cents and the feature program 25 cents. Mr. Baker has the only theater in his home town, which has a population of 1,000 people. He is doing very good business.”
C. C. Baker was mentioned in the July 12, 1913, when he was elected treasurer of the newly-formed Motion Picture Exhibitors League of South Dakota. Theitem didn’t give the name of his theater, but the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists Britton with the “Dreamland Theatre and Opera House.”
A report for the South Dakota Department of Insurance covering the fiscal year ending June 30, 1920, listed Emmert’s Theatre in Alcester as having paid the require $5.00 public building license fee for that period. The Emmert Theatre was also on the list for the fiscal year ending in June, 1930.
The New Barrymore Theatre at Alcester is advertised in the December 4, 1930 issue of The Hawarden Independent from Hawarden, Iowa, a few miles east of Alcester, so the name change likely came in 1930.
However, it’s probable that the New Barrymore was in a different building than the Emmert Theatre had been. This item appeared in the July 7, 1930 issue of the Independent:
“Alcester Will Have New Theatre
“The business men of Alcester have organized an association known as The Greater Alcester Association, Inc. and will build a new theatre, work on which was started this week. The sum of $25,000 has been raised by the Alcester people for the erection of the building which has already been leased to Fred Elfine of Bloomfield, Neb. T. F. Thompson of Beresford is in charge of the building of the structure.”
The June 8, 1933 issue of the Independent reported that the Barrymore Theatre had suffered a major fire the previous Saturday night (June 3.) The building, still owned by the Greater Alcester Association but then under lease to a Mr. Harry Lind, would be rebuilt as soon as possible, the article said.
The Strand must have been right around the corner from the Ritz Theatre, which was also at the southeast corner of Person and Dick Streets at 101 Dick.
Here is an item about the Strand from the July 18, 1946 issue of The Film Daily:
“Asheville, N. C. — The new Strand Theater building, which has been under construction for some time, is expected to be completed sometime in August. The new house, when completed, will have a seating capacity of 750 persons. It will be operated by H. B. Meiselman, of Charlotte.”
The July 18, 1946 Film Daily had this item: “Ft. Walton, Fla.— The Star, new 400-seat theater, opens this week.
Neal Robinson of Crestview, part owner, will operate it.”
The June 3, 1916 issue of Motography said that Dorbandt Brothers were expanding and remodeling their Dixie Theatre at Athens, Texas, adding a balcony. The 300-seat Dixie, operated by Dorbandt Brothers, had been listed in the “Picture Theatres” section of the 1914 edition of Gus Hill’s National Theatrical Directory, but somehow missed being included in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
It’s possible that the Dixie dates from 1912, when the July 18 issue of The Tradesman, a hardware industry trade journal, said that J. T. LaRue planned to erect half a block of buildings at Athens, one of which would be used as a theater. In any case, it was definitely open by 1914.
The July 4, 1912 issue of The Tradesman had this item dateline Muskogee:
This brief article from the Arizona Daily Sun of December 10, 2015, is about the Orpheum, with a slide show of five photos. The house was built by John Weatherford of the adjacent Weatherford’s Hotel in 1911, and operated as the Majestic Opera House. The house was listed as the Majestic Theatre in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
In late December, 1915, a storm dropped some sixty inches of snow on Flagstaff. A maintenance man, thinking to melt away some of the snow and reduce the weight on the theater’s roof, sprayed it with water, precipitating its collapse on New Year’s Eve. The house was eventually rebuilt and reopened as the Orpheum Theatre.
The Orpheum was listed in the FDY through 1929, but in 1930 began being listed as the College Theatre. In 1933 the name Orpheum was restored.
The old official web site link is dead. The restoration of the Grand has been taken on by a new organization, Border Arts Corridor, which has this page about the project on their web site. What remains of the building is in rough shape. The roof is still off the auditorium, and Google’s street view of the 12th street side shows what look to me like some serious cracks in the wall. Unless somebody drops a load of money on this project I doubt it will be finished anytime soon.
This web page has a few photos of the Pantages, including two of the interior, which displayed many of the design characteristics that Priteca called the “Pantages Greek” style which he would use on later Pantages houses well into the 1920s.
No, no deer ticks, just dear tickets, like most theaters these days.
I thought I’d saved the rather long comment I tried to post which was rejected as spam, but the application lost it. I won’t try to reconstruct it. The bare bones version is that the Coosa Theatre was built in 1941 by Martin Theatres, and Martin operated it until 1963. Here is a photo of the Coosa under construction.
The FDY always listed this house at 20 N. 17th Avenue, not 17th Street, but that address doesn’t exist today (nor does 17th Avenue, as far as I can tell— 16th is as high as the avenues go now, which is probably why Google Maps defaults to residential 17th Street.) I’ve checked Google street views of Childersburg but can’t find any building that would likely be the one in the 1941 photo. Wherever it actually was, the Coosa has either been demolished or remodeled beyond recognition.
I believe the correct name of this house is not Greenville Theatre (which wouldn’t make sense in a town called Greensboro) but Greenland Theatre. The building was probably built in 1940-41, replacing an earlier house of the same name, and is at 124 S. Main Street, currently occupied by a Chinese restaurant called (rather unimaginatively) the China Restaurant.
This web page gives a sketchy bit of history up to 1935, when the theater was rebuilt, burned down a short time later, then was rebuilt again. The 1940 rebuild must have been at least the third, and it was larger than the earlier iterations. Charles S. Aiken’s book The Cotton Plantation South Since the Civil War has a couple of paragraphs about the opening of the house in January, 1941, saying that there were 500 seats for whites on the main floor and 160 additional seats in the segregated balcony.
This 1941 photo from the Library of Congress shows the Streamline Modern theater before the building got the fake Colonial front and mansard it now sports.
The name Greenland Theatre goes back at least as early as 1917 in Greensboro, when it was mentioned in the October 20 issue of Motography. The planning of the 1940 rebuild was noted in this item from the October 11 issue of The Film Daily:
The Roxy is mentioned in this 2010 article from The Tifton Gazette. The article says the Roxy was located on 17th Street West just off of South Park Avenue, in an American Legion hall.
No, the comment I’m trying to post is not spam. This is getting annoying.
The Gem is one of five Gadsden movie houses listed in Eric Ledell Smith’s African American Theater Buildings: An Illustrated Historical Directory. A footnote in the book cites a mention of the Gem in the July 15, 1939 issue of Motion Picture Herald. I can’t find that issue online so I don’t know what the item said, but 1939 was also the first year the Gem was listed in the FDY. The Gem still appeared in the FDY as late as 1955, when it was one of twentyfive houses being operated by Bailey Theaters of Atlanta.
A house called simply the Royal Theatre was listed at the northeast corner of Broad and Cort [sic] Streets in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. My guess would be that the New Royal, a few doors west of Court Street, was its replacement. I haven’t found out when that happened, though.
An Amusu Theatre is listed at Gadsden in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, so if it burned in 1911 it might have been rebuilt, or just moved to another location.
The Moving Picture World of March 15, 1924 said that the Lyric Theatre in Gadsden would be closed and the building converted into a store. The Lyric had gone into operation by 1921, and was last operated by Will B. Wood.
A house called simply the People’s Theatre is listed at Alabama City in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
The Savoy was listed in the Motion Picture section of the 1922 Cahn guide, but with no details. In 1923 it suffered a fire, according to this item from The Moving Picture World of March 15, 1924:
“Mr. Woods” was probably the man listed in the 1922 Film Year Book as Will B. Wood, the head of a small chain of theaters consisting of the Belle, Lyric, Savoy and Pastime in Alabama City. The Savoy and the Belle were both mentioned in the July 8, 1927 issue of Motion Picture News.Thanks for posting the photos, Mike. I’d had no idea this house was Egyptian in style.
The Empress Theatre was one of two houses listed at Chamberlain in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the other being the Electric Theatre. Both were located on Main Street. In 1913 there was a house called the Julian Theatre, which might have been an aka for either the Empress or the Electric.
The Fad Theatre is one of two movie houses listed at Brookings in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the other bing the Pleasant Hour Theatre.
Architects for the 1960 remodeling of the State Theatre were Harold Spitznagel & Associates. Harold T. Spitznagel was also the architect of the Hollywood Theatre in Sioux Falls, the city in which his office was located.
This item is from the May 20, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World:
C. C. Baker was mentioned in the July 12, 1913, when he was elected treasurer of the newly-formed Motion Picture Exhibitors League of South Dakota. Theitem didn’t give the name of his theater, but the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists Britton with the “Dreamland Theatre and Opera House.”A report for the South Dakota Department of Insurance covering the fiscal year ending June 30, 1920, listed Emmert’s Theatre in Alcester as having paid the require $5.00 public building license fee for that period. The Emmert Theatre was also on the list for the fiscal year ending in June, 1930.
The New Barrymore Theatre at Alcester is advertised in the December 4, 1930 issue of The Hawarden Independent from Hawarden, Iowa, a few miles east of Alcester, so the name change likely came in 1930.
However, it’s probable that the New Barrymore was in a different building than the Emmert Theatre had been. This item appeared in the July 7, 1930 issue of the Independent:
The June 8, 1933 issue of the Independent reported that the Barrymore Theatre had suffered a major fire the previous Saturday night (June 3.) The building, still owned by the Greater Alcester Association but then under lease to a Mr. Harry Lind, would be rebuilt as soon as possible, the article said.The Strand must have been right around the corner from the Ritz Theatre, which was also at the southeast corner of Person and Dick Streets at 101 Dick.
Here is an item about the Strand from the July 18, 1946 issue of The Film Daily:
The July 18, 1946 Film Daily had this item: “Ft. Walton, Fla.— The Star, new 400-seat theater, opens this week. Neal Robinson of Crestview, part owner, will operate it.”