The Majestic and a 400-seathouse called the Garden Theatre were listed at Stuttgart in the 1928 FDY. Only the Garden had been listed in 1927, making that the year the Majestic was likely opened. I think it might have originally been planned to have a different name. This item appeared in the July 23, 1927 issue of Moving Picture World: “The Arkansas Amusement Company will open their new Riceland Theatre at Stuttgart, Arkansas, in the near future.”
The February 19, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World also mentioned the opening of the Strand, though Mr. Conrad is here named William rather than Ben, and the seating capacity of the house has inexplicably expanded by 175: “William Conrad, of Arkansas City, Kan., has just opened a new theater in that place, and is operating it under the name of the Strand. Six hundred is the claim made by the owners as to the number of people it will seat.”
I suspect that this item I more recently ran across, from the April 4, 1914 MPW, is also about the Rex/Howard Theatre, given the builder’s name: “EDITOR BUILDING THEATER.
“A $10,000 theater is being built in Arkansas City., Kan., by Richard C. Howard, the editor of the Arkansas City Daily Traveler, published in that city. When completed the house will be leased for five years by H. Hill, who will install moving pictures.”
It might be that Howard’s deal with Mr. Hill fell through, and the house didn’t open until Mr. Burford appeared, or perhaps the theater was completed and opened as early as mid-1914, but Mr. Hill departed after operating it only a short time, leaving Howard free to lease the house to Burford. So far I’ve found no clues in the trade journals.
A late 1915 or very early 1916 opening is likely for the Strand. This notice appeared in the January 22, 1916 issue of the trade journal Motogrpahy: “The Strand theater, which was erected by Ben Conrad in Arkansas City, is a very attractive picture house and seats 425. The interior is quite pretty and Mr. Conrad is showing the Paramount program.”
A 1915 opening is near certain for Roy Burford’s Rex. The house is mentioned in this item from the November 27, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World: “Roy Burford’s Arkansas City Theater. Roy Burford came ‘out of the west’ to the ‘east’ of Kansas a year ago, and is assisting in the reconstruction of the moving picture business in Arkansas City, Kan. Mr. Burford counts nine years in connection with the industry, and his present property, the Rex, is a fit monument to his accomplishments. This is a beautiful theater seating 650-and its seats are often fully occupied.”
The December 18, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World said that “[t]he Lotus theater building at Arkansas City, Kan., has been sold to the Home National Bank.
Given its opening year and its location on Broadway at High Avenue, this had to have been the $350,000 house noted in the “Theatres Proposed” column of Variety on June 1, 1927. The project, for owners S. Bratter and S. Pollock of Newark, was being designed by noted Newark architect William E. Lehman.
As this is the only theater listed at Effingham which opened in 1927, it is probably the house announced in this item from the “Theaters Proposed” column of Variety on June 1 that year: “Effingham, Ill.— $50,000. Owner. Washington Theatre Corp.; Mattoon, 111. Architect. S. A. Clausen, Decatur, Ill. Policy not given.”
Sven Andrew Clausen was one of Decatur’s most active architects of the period.
Not built on the site of the Beacon, but inserted into the second floor of the Beacon’s largely surviving head house. The stage house of the original Beacon is also still standing, though filled in with apartment floors. The conversion to mostly residential use, which involved the effective demolition of the original auditorium, took place in 2015. The Beacon Movie Theater was originally created as a small performing arts space with about 200 sears, but was later converted into a triplex for movies.
Interestingly, the Beacon had been built in 1928 on the site of the Dibble Opera House, an 1886 building that had been demolished in 1927.
There is a Wikipedia article about the Beacon Theatre, and though I don’t always trust Wikipedia, this piece appears to be well documented and accurate. It says that though it wasn’t opened until 1934, the theater was actually built in 1928. This gibes nicely with an item from the “Construction News” column of Exhibitors Trade Review for June 1, 1927: “BEACON, N. Y.-Architect, Oscar Goldschlag, 1482 Broadway, New York City, chosen for theatre at Main St. Owner, Noceab Amusement Co., 1660 Broadway, New York City.” A corroborating notice appeared in that day’s issue of Variety.
The Beacon closed as a theater in 1968, and was vacant until the 1990s, when it was used as storage by a roofing contractor and then as a meeting place for a church group who demolished the balcony and reseated the auditorium. In the first decade of the 21st century, interest in reviving the house grow, with various plans for creating a performing arts space or a multiplex movie house falling through one after the other. Finally, in 2015 a new owner carried out the conversion of much of the building to residential use, with a small performing arts theater on the second floor. This has since been converted to a three-screen cinema.
Google street views of both the front and the back of the building show the exterior walls mostly intact. Even the auditorium side walls, though mostly replaced with windows, show sections of original brick. I suspect that the roof is of modern construction, but so much of the original building obviously remains that it could be considered a near survivor. However, I’d say that the fact that the original auditorium space is effectively unrecoverable makes it correct under Cinema Treasures' usual standards to list the Beacon as demolished.
The May 2, 1927 Moving Picture World ran this item about the Blake Theatre: “The Blake theatre, Webb City, Mo., has just completed a remodeling job which cost $20,000. The improvements included new upholstered seats, painting of the ceiling and replacing of the floors.”
Are we sure of the aka Civic Junior? More than a year before this house was supposed to have opened as the Dickinson Theatre, the January 6, 1945 issue of Boxoffice had this news about the Civic Junior Theatre: “Webb City Show Closed By Blaze in Booth
“WEBB CITY, MO.—A fire in the projection room of the Civic Junior Theatre here recently destroyed film and caused smoke and water damage which closed the theatre for a few days. Howard Larsen, manager, said the blaze apparently originated from a short circuit in the wiring while Bob Case, projectionist, was checking some film prior to showing.”
If this house was the Civic Junior, our history of it needs to be rewritten.
To expand a bit on Darren_Snow’s comment above, an article in the April 12, 2023 Webb City Sentinel says that the Empress Theatre operated at this address from 1915 to 1928. It appears on a Sanborn map dated March, 1915 (the most recent available for Webb City.) The building was much too small for a theater seating 1,100, so if the seat count is accurate it must have been expanded quite extensively at some point.
The Sentinel article says that the entire half block of buildings that had once included the Empress/Ozark Theatre was destroyed by a fire in December, 1982.
The 1915 Sanborn also shows a combination movie-vaudeville house at 21 S. Allen (now Main) Street. It was larger than the Empress. I can’t confirm a name, but it might have been the Lake Theatre that was listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD.
The company called Warner’s Features operated from 1910 to 1917, as a distribution firm for its first three years and as a production company after that. I can’t find a film titled “Regeneration” but the Warners distributed a 1912 film titled “The Regeneration of Worthless Dan” Which might have been the movie advertised by the poster on the Royal in this photo.
Wikipedia has an article on the Mattha Washington Theatre which says the house opened on October 21, 1915, and the first movie shown was Vitagraph’s “The Island of Regeneration” starring Edith Storey. Florence Signor sold the house to Butterfield Theatres in April, 1925.
The Deja Vu strip club, first opened in 1982, was forced to close during the COVID-19 Pandemic, in March, 2000. While closed, the building suffered a major fire that June. Lawsuits were filed by both the city and the club, and the settlement reached in 2022 allowed the club to reopen after certain conditions were met, including returning part of the building to retail use, and the reconstruction of the lost theater marquee. The club reopened on March 1, 2024 and continues in operation today.
The November 13, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World carried a short item about the opening of the house: “THE MARTHA WASHINGTON AT YPSILANTI OPENS.
“The Martha Washington theater, Colonial in design, has been opened at Ypsilanti by Mrs. Florence Wilson Signor. The stucco work is designed after the time of Martha Washington, many of the details and enrichments of the plastic relief are fac-similes taken from her home in Mt. Vernon. The borders, especially those on the ceiling, are taken from some of the ceilings in the White House at Washington, D. C., and other Colonial homes in the East. Bas relief portraits of Martha Washington enhance the two side panels of the proscenium arch. The antique gold frame which surmounts these portraits is an exact fac-simile of the portrait of Martha Washington which enriches the walls at Mt. Vernon. The general color scheme of the entire house is in subdued tones of old rose, French greys and antique ivory. The main panel of the ceiling is in mellow sky effect, containing pearl greys and ivory tints.”
Butterfield’s takeover of the house from Mrs. Signor, who at the time had been the last woman theater operator in the state, was noted in the May 2, 1925 issue of Motion Picture Herald.
The Lyric was opened in 1910, when the May 15 issue of The Nickelodeon ran this item: “LAURIUM, MICH. -The Lyric theater, the newest playhouse on the D. E. Rice circuit, recently opened on Hecla street, near Fourth, under the management of A. L. Cooley, which will be devoted to moving pictures, is said to be the most beautiful and roomy theater on the circuit, which includes Larium, Red Jacket, Mohawk and Negaunee. The theater was planned by the Decorators' Supply Company, Chicago, and the decorating was done by the Chicago Decorating Company, a branch of which is located in Larium.”
The May 15, 1910 issue of The Nickelodeon suggests another possible name for this house: “MARSHALL, Mo.-The Gayety, a new moving picture theater, was recently opened by the Midland Amusement Company of Kansas City, under the management of W. C. Robertson.”
On the other hand, since the April 15 issue of the same journal had said that Mr. Robertson had opened a theater in the Ming Building, and Google’s AI says that the Ming Building was on the north side of Marshall’s town square, which is not Jefferson Street, this house might not have been the Gayety. Unless, of course, Mr. Robertson opened more than one theater at Marshall that year.
A post on the “Get to Know Newton” Facebook page reveals that this house was called the Star Theatre. Upstairs in the same building was the Modern Woodmen of America lodge hall, which had been built around 1880. On a 1906 Sanborn map, the downstairs was vacant, so the theater opened sometime between then and 1911, but probably before 1911.
The theater mentioned at the end of this item from the March 12, 1927 issue of Moving Picture World could have been the Capitol, though it doesn’t use that name: “A. G. Stolte with the Blank circuit is in Chicago for a few weeks making a close inspection of the Balaban and Katz system, which he will introduce in the management of the new Riveria theatre to be opened at Omaha, Neb., under his direction. He recently opened the new Englert theatre at Iowa City and new Newton theatre at Newton, Iowa.”
The 1926 and 1927 FDYs list only two theaters in Newton, the Newtonia, with no details, and the 585-seat Rialto. The 1928 edition lists a rather surprising five: the previous two, plus the Capitol, the Strand, and the Rex. As Newtonia is supposed to have been an aka for the Strand, its appearance that year was probably an error, though the same five houses are listed in 1929.
110 N. 2nd Ave. W. is currently occupied by extra office space for a bank next door at 100 N. 2nd. 112 is currently a vacant retail space previously occupied by a boutique.
Newton’s Strand Theatre first appears in the 1928 edition of the FDY. Other local houses making their first appearance that year were the Capitol and the Rex. The Newtonia was still listed, too, held over from earlier editions along with the 585-seat Rialto. The Newtonia Theater was mentioned in the May 16, 1925 issue of The Billboard.
The Rialto Theatre occupied the Clarkson Building, 114-118 First Avenue East, with its entrance in the building’s central bay at 116 First. The building, which is a contributing element in the Newton Downtown Historic District, is the subject of an Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs inventory form (PDF here.)
The building was erected in 1917, though the document inconsistently says the Rialto operated from 1916. No explanation is given for this. However, the document does say that the Rialto was operated by the A. H. Blank Company, and that its co-owner was George P. Hundling, who opened the Capitol Theatre with the Blank company in 1927. The Rialto was closed intermittently for a few years, then reopened full time in 1934 as the circuit’s “B” house in Newton, showing second run films and cowboy movies. It continued in operation until 1954 and has since been used as office or retail space, and is currently office space for a chartable organization.
The Majestic and a 400-seathouse called the Garden Theatre were listed at Stuttgart in the 1928 FDY. Only the Garden had been listed in 1927, making that the year the Majestic was likely opened. I think it might have originally been planned to have a different name. This item appeared in the July 23, 1927 issue of Moving Picture World: “The Arkansas Amusement Company will open their new Riceland Theatre at Stuttgart, Arkansas, in the near future.”
The February 19, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World also mentioned the opening of the Strand, though Mr. Conrad is here named William rather than Ben, and the seating capacity of the house has inexplicably expanded by 175: “William Conrad, of Arkansas City, Kan., has just opened a new theater in that place, and is operating it under the name of the Strand. Six hundred is the claim made by the owners as to the number of people it will seat.”
I suspect that this item I more recently ran across, from the April 4, 1914 MPW, is also about the Rex/Howard Theatre, given the builder’s name: “EDITOR BUILDING THEATER.
“A $10,000 theater is being built in Arkansas City., Kan., by Richard C. Howard, the editor of the Arkansas City Daily Traveler, published in that city. When completed the house will be leased for five years by H. Hill, who will install moving pictures.”
It might be that Howard’s deal with Mr. Hill fell through, and the house didn’t open until Mr. Burford appeared, or perhaps the theater was completed and opened as early as mid-1914, but Mr. Hill departed after operating it only a short time, leaving Howard free to lease the house to Burford. So far I’ve found no clues in the trade journals.
Listed as the Fifth Avenue Theater in Polk’s 1904 Kansas state directory.
A late 1915 or very early 1916 opening is likely for the Strand. This notice appeared in the January 22, 1916 issue of the trade journal Motogrpahy: “The Strand theater, which was erected by Ben Conrad in Arkansas City, is a very attractive picture house and seats 425. The interior is quite pretty and Mr. Conrad is showing the Paramount program.”
A 1915 opening is near certain for Roy Burford’s Rex. The house is mentioned in this item from the November 27, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World: “Roy Burford’s Arkansas City Theater. Roy Burford came ‘out of the west’ to the ‘east’ of Kansas a year ago, and is assisting in the reconstruction of the moving picture business in Arkansas City, Kan. Mr. Burford counts nine years in connection with the industry, and his present property, the Rex, is a fit monument to his accomplishments. This is a beautiful theater seating 650-and its seats are often fully occupied.”
The December 18, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World said that “[t]he Lotus theater building at Arkansas City, Kan., has been sold to the Home National Bank.
Given its opening year and its location on Broadway at High Avenue, this had to have been the $350,000 house noted in the “Theatres Proposed” column of Variety on June 1, 1927. The project, for owners S. Bratter and S. Pollock of Newark, was being designed by noted Newark architect William E. Lehman.
As this is the only theater listed at Effingham which opened in 1927, it is probably the house announced in this item from the “Theaters Proposed” column of Variety on June 1 that year: “Effingham, Ill.— $50,000. Owner. Washington Theatre Corp.; Mattoon, 111. Architect. S. A. Clausen, Decatur, Ill. Policy not given.”
Sven Andrew Clausen was one of Decatur’s most active architects of the period.
Not built on the site of the Beacon, but inserted into the second floor of the Beacon’s largely surviving head house. The stage house of the original Beacon is also still standing, though filled in with apartment floors. The conversion to mostly residential use, which involved the effective demolition of the original auditorium, took place in 2015. The Beacon Movie Theater was originally created as a small performing arts space with about 200 sears, but was later converted into a triplex for movies.
Interestingly, the Beacon had been built in 1928 on the site of the Dibble Opera House, an 1886 building that had been demolished in 1927.
There is a Wikipedia article about the Beacon Theatre, and though I don’t always trust Wikipedia, this piece appears to be well documented and accurate. It says that though it wasn’t opened until 1934, the theater was actually built in 1928. This gibes nicely with an item from the “Construction News” column of Exhibitors Trade Review for June 1, 1927: “BEACON, N. Y.-Architect, Oscar Goldschlag, 1482 Broadway, New York City, chosen for theatre at Main St. Owner, Noceab Amusement Co., 1660 Broadway, New York City.” A corroborating notice appeared in that day’s issue of Variety.
The Beacon closed as a theater in 1968, and was vacant until the 1990s, when it was used as storage by a roofing contractor and then as a meeting place for a church group who demolished the balcony and reseated the auditorium. In the first decade of the 21st century, interest in reviving the house grow, with various plans for creating a performing arts space or a multiplex movie house falling through one after the other. Finally, in 2015 a new owner carried out the conversion of much of the building to residential use, with a small performing arts theater on the second floor. This has since been converted to a three-screen cinema.
Google street views of both the front and the back of the building show the exterior walls mostly intact. Even the auditorium side walls, though mostly replaced with windows, show sections of original brick. I suspect that the roof is of modern construction, but so much of the original building obviously remains that it could be considered a near survivor. However, I’d say that the fact that the original auditorium space is effectively unrecoverable makes it correct under Cinema Treasures' usual standards to list the Beacon as demolished.
The May 2, 1927 Moving Picture World ran this item about the Blake Theatre: “The Blake theatre, Webb City, Mo., has just completed a remodeling job which cost $20,000. The improvements included new upholstered seats, painting of the ceiling and replacing of the floors.”
Are we sure of the aka Civic Junior? More than a year before this house was supposed to have opened as the Dickinson Theatre, the January 6, 1945 issue of Boxoffice had this news about the Civic Junior Theatre: “Webb City Show Closed By Blaze in Booth
“WEBB CITY, MO.—A fire in the projection room of the Civic Junior Theatre here recently destroyed film and caused smoke and water damage which closed the theatre for a few days. Howard Larsen, manager, said the blaze apparently originated from a short circuit in the wiring while Bob Case, projectionist, was checking some film prior to showing.”
If this house was the Civic Junior, our history of it needs to be rewritten.
To expand a bit on Darren_Snow’s comment above, an article in the April 12, 2023 Webb City Sentinel says that the Empress Theatre operated at this address from 1915 to 1928. It appears on a Sanborn map dated March, 1915 (the most recent available for Webb City.) The building was much too small for a theater seating 1,100, so if the seat count is accurate it must have been expanded quite extensively at some point.
The Sentinel article says that the entire half block of buildings that had once included the Empress/Ozark Theatre was destroyed by a fire in December, 1982.
The 1915 Sanborn also shows a combination movie-vaudeville house at 21 S. Allen (now Main) Street. It was larger than the Empress. I can’t confirm a name, but it might have been the Lake Theatre that was listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD.
The company called Warner’s Features operated from 1910 to 1917, as a distribution firm for its first three years and as a production company after that. I can’t find a film titled “Regeneration” but the Warners distributed a 1912 film titled “The Regeneration of Worthless Dan” Which might have been the movie advertised by the poster on the Royal in this photo.
Per Google Maps, the current occupant of the building at 214 S. 6th Street is a restaurant called the 6 Street Café.
Wikipedia has an article on the Mattha Washington Theatre which says the house opened on October 21, 1915, and the first movie shown was Vitagraph’s “The Island of Regeneration” starring Edith Storey. Florence Signor sold the house to Butterfield Theatres in April, 1925.
The Deja Vu strip club, first opened in 1982, was forced to close during the COVID-19 Pandemic, in March, 2000. While closed, the building suffered a major fire that June. Lawsuits were filed by both the city and the club, and the settlement reached in 2022 allowed the club to reopen after certain conditions were met, including returning part of the building to retail use, and the reconstruction of the lost theater marquee. The club reopened on March 1, 2024 and continues in operation today.
The November 13, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World carried a short item about the opening of the house: “THE MARTHA WASHINGTON AT YPSILANTI OPENS.
“The Martha Washington theater, Colonial in design, has been opened at Ypsilanti by Mrs. Florence Wilson Signor. The stucco work is designed after the time of Martha Washington, many of the details and enrichments of the plastic relief are fac-similes taken from her home in Mt. Vernon. The borders, especially those on the ceiling, are taken from some of the ceilings in the White House at Washington, D. C., and other Colonial homes in the East. Bas relief portraits of Martha Washington enhance the two side panels of the proscenium arch. The antique gold frame which surmounts these portraits is an exact fac-simile of the portrait of Martha Washington which enriches the walls at Mt. Vernon. The general color scheme of the entire house is in subdued tones of old rose, French greys and antique ivory. The main panel of the ceiling is in mellow sky effect, containing pearl greys and ivory tints.”
Butterfield’s takeover of the house from Mrs. Signor, who at the time had been the last woman theater operator in the state, was noted in the May 2, 1925 issue of Motion Picture Herald.
The Lyric was opened in 1910, when the May 15 issue of The Nickelodeon ran this item: “LAURIUM, MICH. -The Lyric theater, the newest playhouse on the D. E. Rice circuit, recently opened on Hecla street, near Fourth, under the management of A. L. Cooley, which will be devoted to moving pictures, is said to be the most beautiful and roomy theater on the circuit, which includes Larium, Red Jacket, Mohawk and Negaunee. The theater was planned by the Decorators' Supply Company, Chicago, and the decorating was done by the Chicago Decorating Company, a branch of which is located in Larium.”
The May 15, 1910 issue of The Nickelodeon suggests another possible name for this house: “MARSHALL, Mo.-The Gayety, a new moving picture theater, was recently opened by the Midland Amusement Company of Kansas City, under the management of W. C. Robertson.”
On the other hand, since the April 15 issue of the same journal had said that Mr. Robertson had opened a theater in the Ming Building, and Google’s AI says that the Ming Building was on the north side of Marshall’s town square, which is not Jefferson Street, this house might not have been the Gayety. Unless, of course, Mr. Robertson opened more than one theater at Marshall that year.
Apple Maps is having trouble placing this theater. We should probably go with the alternate address of 109 1st Ave. W.
A post on the “Get to Know Newton” Facebook page reveals that this house was called the Star Theatre. Upstairs in the same building was the Modern Woodmen of America lodge hall, which had been built around 1880. On a 1906 Sanborn map, the downstairs was vacant, so the theater opened sometime between then and 1911, but probably before 1911.
The theater mentioned at the end of this item from the March 12, 1927 issue of Moving Picture World could have been the Capitol, though it doesn’t use that name: “A. G. Stolte with the Blank circuit is in Chicago for a few weeks making a close inspection of the Balaban and Katz system, which he will introduce in the management of the new Riveria theatre to be opened at Omaha, Neb., under his direction. He recently opened the new Englert theatre at Iowa City and new Newton theatre at Newton, Iowa.”
The 1926 and 1927 FDYs list only two theaters in Newton, the Newtonia, with no details, and the 585-seat Rialto. The 1928 edition lists a rather surprising five: the previous two, plus the Capitol, the Strand, and the Rex. As Newtonia is supposed to have been an aka for the Strand, its appearance that year was probably an error, though the same five houses are listed in 1929.
110 N. 2nd Ave. W. is currently occupied by extra office space for a bank next door at 100 N. 2nd. 112 is currently a vacant retail space previously occupied by a boutique.
Newton’s Strand Theatre first appears in the 1928 edition of the FDY. Other local houses making their first appearance that year were the Capitol and the Rex. The Newtonia was still listed, too, held over from earlier editions along with the 585-seat Rialto. The Newtonia Theater was mentioned in the May 16, 1925 issue of The Billboard.
The Rialto Theatre occupied the Clarkson Building, 114-118 First Avenue East, with its entrance in the building’s central bay at 116 First. The building, which is a contributing element in the Newton Downtown Historic District, is the subject of an Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs inventory form (PDF here.)
The building was erected in 1917, though the document inconsistently says the Rialto operated from 1916. No explanation is given for this. However, the document does say that the Rialto was operated by the A. H. Blank Company, and that its co-owner was George P. Hundling, who opened the Capitol Theatre with the Blank company in 1927. The Rialto was closed intermittently for a few years, then reopened full time in 1934 as the circuit’s “B” house in Newton, showing second run films and cowboy movies. It continued in operation until 1954 and has since been used as office or retail space, and is currently office space for a chartable organization.