The July 1, 1910 issue of The Nickelodeon published an article about F. O. Weber’s plans to build a new theater, which turned out to be the Comet. The article also had a bit of information about Mr. Weber’s first Amuzu Theatre, saying that “[t]he Amuzu has never known a losing week since its opening, June 15, 1909, and it will also be continued on the same high plane.” The Amuzu had been operated by Weber since its opening.
This item from the July 1, 1910 issue of The Nickelodeon must be about the Comet Theatre, though it had not yet been given a name: “ROANOKE, VA.-F. O. Webber, proprietor of the Amuzu Theater, will erect a new theater at 309 South Jefferson street, which will be completed about September 1st, and will have a seating capacity of 400. When the theater is completed it will be one of the handsomest in the city. The entire front of 40 feet will be plaster relief with designs symbolic of the theater. A mass of electric lights will bring out every line of the building and a big flashing sign spell the name to all parts of the city. The front lobby will be tile with walls of patented marble effect, giving the place a rich and appropriate setting for the handsome interior. A small stage will fill the rear of the theater, which is for variety acts and illustrated song singers. The policy of the theater will be moving pictures and songs, the same as Mr. Webber has given so successfully at the Amuzu, which he has been operating for the past year, although the performance at the new theater will be more extensive than the Amuzu. The Amuzu has never known a losing week since its opening, June 15, 1909, and it will also be continued on the same high plane. Mr. Webber has always catered to ladies and children, and always offered a large amount of highgrade amusement for a nominal sum. He will soon open a new theater at Bluefield.”
Bad news for Roanoke’s Paramount Theatre from Moving Picture World of July 31, 1915: “The Paramount theater of this city has closed its doors. This theater was formerly the Jefferson and has been termed a lemon by the local showmen for a good many years, stock, vaudeville and pictures being tried with little success.”
A September 29, 2010 article in The Oberlin Herald said that the roof of the former bottling plant in which the original Sunflower Cinema was located became unrepairable and funds were raised to demolish the building and replace it. At the time the article was published funds were still being raised to complete the blowing alley section of the project (probably just outfitting, but the article didn’t specify), but the theater was apparently already open.
So the current theater is the second of its name. The new building was designed by architect Rex Olson of Boulder, Colorado.
Although there are no current movie listing for the house available on any of the movie listing web sites I’ve checked, and so far no Yelp reviews of the facility, there are a number of Google reviews, the most recent of which says it was posted “five months ago,” and the reviewer said the ticket price was seven dollars for a first run movie (which he failed to name) so the place has been in operation at least that recently. The majority of the reviews have five stars, and none fewer than four, so the place appears to be well liked.
I just found this PDF (one page) with a 2010 Oberlin Herald article about the Opera House, which it says opened on December 31, 1906 with a performance of “The Mikado.” In March, 1928, the Opera House became the first theater west of Salina to present talking pictures. The Chief Theatre operated until the last weekend of September, 1973, when a major rainstorm caused the roof to collapse. It was subsequently demolished.
This house could have been the Wigwam Theatre. Its manager, Ross Riley, provided dozens of capsule movie reviews to Exhibitors Herald which appeared from early 1920 into late 1924. It was a rather primitive operation, Riley noting in one 1924 item that he had only one projection machine and would show slides while reels were being changed. An R. Ross Riley of Oberlin had a letter published in the July, 1918 issue of Photoplay, but it doesn’t mention a theater.
An October 24, 1925 Moving Picture World item said that the New Regent Theatre at Oberlin was scheduled to open the next week, but I’ve been unable to find anything more about it. I found one source saying that the Wigwam closed in 1928.
Oberlin Opera House is listed in the 1907-1908 Cahn guide as a ground floor house with 797 seats. It had a good sized stage for a small town theater, too, 29 feet to the back wall and 54 feet between side walls.
Johnson’s obituary was from 2012, so details of how long he had run the house had probably gone fuzzy. I wonder if the Lakin of 1939 could have been one of the town’s older theaters renamed and reopened for a while?
That does seem plausible. Colby’s historical population was only 1,130 in 1910 and went down to 1,114 in 1920, so certainly not a two-theater town in that decade. It grew rapidly in the 1920s, though, almost doubling to 2,153 by 1930, so that’s likely when the new Lyric was built.
The Lyric and Colby appear to have both been under the Phillips family’s ownership, so having them adjacent would have been a great convenience for ease of operation.
The reopening of the Colby Theatre was to take place on Wednesday, October 27, 1971 according to the October 25 issue of Boxoffice. The opening feature was to be “Big Jake” with John Wayne. Seating capacity was now 430. The house had opened thirty years earlier, in 1941. A notice that construction on the original project was underway had appeared in the January 4, 1941 issue of Motion Picture Herald.
The Lyric might not have appeared on the 1918 map, but an earlier Lyric Theatre operated in Colby. The April 29, 1916 Moving Picture World said that J. P. Phillips, manager of the Lyric Theatre at Colby, would soon open another house, also to be called the Lyric, at Selden, Kansas.
Interestingly, the name Phillips is still associated with the later Lyric in this item from the January 4, 1941 Motion Picture Herald: “DON PHILLIPS who operates the Lyric at Colby, Kan., is building a new house there.”
Don Phillips was mentioned in the July 17, 1948 issue of Boxoffice as operator of the Lyric and Colby theaters in Colby, Kansas. As late as 1972 he was still being mentioned in Boxoffice as the owner of the Colby Theatre.
An item datelined Colby in the March 4, 1950 issue of Boxoffice said that the 350-car drive-in being built for Don Phillips was slated to open on May 23. The project had been designed by architect Truman Schlupp of Kansas City. I haven’t been able to discover if the target date for completion was met.
Here is something from the Hutchinson News of September 20, 1949: “Lakin Theater Changes Hands
“Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Johnson have purchased the Lakin theater here from Fred Munson, builder. Included in the transaction is the building which houses the movie, Brehm’s store, and the apartment above the two business locations.
“Munson built the theater less than three years ago and leased the other location to Brehm while operating the movie house himself. Johnson has been engaged in aerial crop spraying operations in Kearny and surrounding counties the past two years. He plans to continue this business during the spring and summer seasons while also operating the theater.”
The Kearny County Museum has a bit more information in a June, 2023 post on their web site: “The Lakin Theatre building on the east side of South Main was completed in 1947 by Fred Munson. He finished the building next door at 108 S. Main in early 1948, leasing it to Howard Brehm who operated Brehm’s Department Store there. The last business to operate at this site was Jim Powers’ barber shop.”
Jerry Johnson and the Lakin Theatre were mentioned in the December 16, 1950 issue of Boxoffice. He attended an exhibitors convention in Kansas City in 1954, noted in the May 15 issue of Boxoffice. An obituary for Gerald Lee Johnson says that he “…ran the Lakin Theater for many years….”
Here is the only trade journal reference to the Electric I’ve been able to unearth so far, from the November 10, 1917 Moving Picture World: “Lakin, Kan.—Frank Weber has been making some improvements in the Electric theater.”
The NRHP registration form for the Great Bend Central Business District says that the Plaza Theatre building was built in 1916 for Louis Zutavern, a member of an influential local family. It doesn’t give the name under which the house originally operated, but says that by 1920 it was operating as the Weber Theatre. By 1930 it had become the Plaza.
The Plaza was one of the earliest theaters in the Commonwealth chain, and remained in operation as part of the chain at least as late as 1954. I haven’t found a closing date, but it was definitely closed, yet still remembered and perhaps still intact, in 1968, when the September 11 Great Bend Tribune made reference to “…Republican headquarters, formerly the Plaza Theater.”
Sanborn maps from 1913 and 1927 show the McFerren Opera House upstairs at 224-226 Main Street. The 1904-1905 Cahn guide lists it as the New McFerren Opera House with 1000 seats, while the 1884 Harry Miner guide lists a smaller McFerren’s with only 600 seats and a much smaller stage. I would presume that the original house was probably replaced early in the 20th century. By 1913 the Cahn guide is calling it simply McFerren Opera House, with no “New.”
A letter from Herbert Walsh, projectionist at the Lorraine Theatre, was published in the May 13, 1922 issue of Motion Picture News, in which Walsh said that the house had opened on March 6.
Descriptions of the Lorraine’s original configuration indicate that it had a section of stadium seating, with entrance to the auditorium from the lobby through a passage at the center to a broad cross aisle. The description reminded me of the theaters C. Howard Crain had been designing in Detroit in the late 1910s, made me wonder if he had been the architect of the Lorraine. So far I haven’t found any evidence that he was, but it’s an interesting possibility.
Hoopeston had an earlier Princess Theater, listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD along with houses called the Colonial and the Virginian. The latter was the only one with an address listed, that being 310 E. Main Street. The Virginian and McFerren’s Opera House are the only theaters appearing on the 1913 Sanborn map of Hoopeston. An August 14, 1915 item and a May 20, 1916 item in Moving Picture World mention the Princess and a house called the Lyric at Hoopeston.
Okay, here is information about the first Princess from the July 3, 1909 issue of The Billboard. An item says that the Princess Amusement Company of Chicago had taken control of the Virginian Theatre at Hoopeston and it would be operated as a first class vaudeville and motion picture house called the Princess. This doesn’t explain the double listing of the Princess and Virginian in the 1914-1915 AMPD, but maybe it does explain why only the one theater (other than McFerren’s) appears on the 1913 Sanborn. The Colonial and the Lyric remain complete mysteries.
This is from a list of historic businesses in Akron: “Swastika Theatre. Located in 1919, at 110 W. Rochester St., next to hardware. Theatre owned by Clarence Erb and Horace LaRue, who sold it in 1919 to Karl B. Gast, who moved it to the E side of Mishawaka St., middle of first block N of Rochester St., and renamed it Argonne Theatre. During the thirties, name was changed to Madrid Theatre. Closed in 1957. Furniture store opened same location in 1959.”
A thumbnail biography of Karl Gast published in 1923 described the Argonne Theatre as “…one of the most commodious moving picture theaters in the county, with a seating capacity for 315 people.” The Argonne was the only theater listed at Akron in the 1926 FDY.
Here is what became of the first Kai-Gee Theatre, according to the January 5, 1914 Rochester Sentinel: “John and Milton Felts have rented the room formerly occupied by the K. G. theater and will open an up-to-date pool and billiard hall. The front is now being torn out and carpenters expect to have the building ready in two weeks.”
This item is from a compendium of excerpts from newspaper articles about various Fulton County towns:
“In the corner room of the Odd Fellows Building, Fred Wilson operated a hardware store and the location later housed the Earle Theatre, one of Rochester’s earliest movie houses where you could see a ‘feature’ for a five-cent piece. The Earle Theatre brought Rochester its first mechanical talking pictures. Adjoining the theatre, Al Fristoe operated Rochester’s earliest ‘five and 10 cent’ store in what is now the north half of the Kroger market.
[Earle A. Miller, The News-Sentinel, Monday, July 14, 1958]”
The 1907 (April) and 1913 Sanborn maps identify the building on northwest corner of 9th and Main as the location of the IOOF lodge, so we do have have the right location for the theater. It is clear that the building did not burn down, so obviously the theater simply got burned out.
One of the unidentified theaters in Rochester might have been a house called the Star, which was the subject of several newspaper articles in the Rochester Sentinel. It’s first appearance was in an ad on March 23, 1910, and the last an item on June 7, 1912, but given this building’s history as a buggy repository, and the theater’s appearance on the 1907 Sanborn, this one is more likely the house mentioned in this item from the July 15, 1907 issue of the Sentinel: “John Fieser will move his stock of buggies back into the room occupied by the Theatorium.”
The Star Theatre, at Toledo and Wayne streets, is listed at Fremont in the 1914-1915 AMPD. The 1914 Sanborn map of Fremont shows “Moving Pictures” in the third storefront east of Wayne Street on the north side of Toledo Street. The building is still standing, with Masonic symbols on it and the name “North Eastern Lodge.” A Google Street View notation says “Permanently Closed.” The address is 105 Toledo Street.
A house called the Lyric was still in operation at Mineral Point in 1914, listed on High Street in the AMPD. It was the only theater listed for the town.
In 1912, L. C. Stevens was manager of the Crescent Theatre. His letter to the IMP film company, dated February 8, 1912, was printed in the March 2 issue of the company’s magazine, The Implet.
The July 1, 1910 issue of The Nickelodeon published an article about F. O. Weber’s plans to build a new theater, which turned out to be the Comet. The article also had a bit of information about Mr. Weber’s first Amuzu Theatre, saying that “[t]he Amuzu has never known a losing week since its opening, June 15, 1909, and it will also be continued on the same high plane.” The Amuzu had been operated by Weber since its opening.
This item from the July 1, 1910 issue of The Nickelodeon must be about the Comet Theatre, though it had not yet been given a name: “ROANOKE, VA.-F. O. Webber, proprietor of the Amuzu Theater, will erect a new theater at 309 South Jefferson street, which will be completed about September 1st, and will have a seating capacity of 400. When the theater is completed it will be one of the handsomest in the city. The entire front of 40 feet will be plaster relief with designs symbolic of the theater. A mass of electric lights will bring out every line of the building and a big flashing sign spell the name to all parts of the city. The front lobby will be tile with walls of patented marble effect, giving the place a rich and appropriate setting for the handsome interior. A small stage will fill the rear of the theater, which is for variety acts and illustrated song singers. The policy of the theater will be moving pictures and songs, the same as Mr. Webber has given so successfully at the Amuzu, which he has been operating for the past year, although the performance at the new theater will be more extensive than the Amuzu. The Amuzu has never known a losing week since its opening, June 15, 1909, and it will also be continued on the same high plane. Mr. Webber has always catered to ladies and children, and always offered a large amount of highgrade amusement for a nominal sum. He will soon open a new theater at Bluefield.”
Bad news for Roanoke’s Paramount Theatre from Moving Picture World of July 31, 1915: “The Paramount theater of this city has closed its doors. This theater was formerly the Jefferson and has been termed a lemon by the local showmen for a good many years, stock, vaudeville and pictures being tried with little success.”
A September 29, 2010 article in The Oberlin Herald said that the roof of the former bottling plant in which the original Sunflower Cinema was located became unrepairable and funds were raised to demolish the building and replace it. At the time the article was published funds were still being raised to complete the blowing alley section of the project (probably just outfitting, but the article didn’t specify), but the theater was apparently already open.
So the current theater is the second of its name. The new building was designed by architect Rex Olson of Boulder, Colorado.
Although there are no current movie listing for the house available on any of the movie listing web sites I’ve checked, and so far no Yelp reviews of the facility, there are a number of Google reviews, the most recent of which says it was posted “five months ago,” and the reviewer said the ticket price was seven dollars for a first run movie (which he failed to name) so the place has been in operation at least that recently. The majority of the reviews have five stars, and none fewer than four, so the place appears to be well liked.
I just found this PDF (one page) with a 2010 Oberlin Herald article about the Opera House, which it says opened on December 31, 1906 with a performance of “The Mikado.” In March, 1928, the Opera House became the first theater west of Salina to present talking pictures. The Chief Theatre operated until the last weekend of September, 1973, when a major rainstorm caused the roof to collapse. It was subsequently demolished.
This house could have been the Wigwam Theatre. Its manager, Ross Riley, provided dozens of capsule movie reviews to Exhibitors Herald which appeared from early 1920 into late 1924. It was a rather primitive operation, Riley noting in one 1924 item that he had only one projection machine and would show slides while reels were being changed. An R. Ross Riley of Oberlin had a letter published in the July, 1918 issue of Photoplay, but it doesn’t mention a theater.
An October 24, 1925 Moving Picture World item said that the New Regent Theatre at Oberlin was scheduled to open the next week, but I’ve been unable to find anything more about it. I found one source saying that the Wigwam closed in 1928.
Oberlin Opera House is listed in the 1907-1908 Cahn guide as a ground floor house with 797 seats. It had a good sized stage for a small town theater, too, 29 feet to the back wall and 54 feet between side walls.
Johnson’s obituary was from 2012, so details of how long he had run the house had probably gone fuzzy. I wonder if the Lakin of 1939 could have been one of the town’s older theaters renamed and reopened for a while?
That does seem plausible. Colby’s historical population was only 1,130 in 1910 and went down to 1,114 in 1920, so certainly not a two-theater town in that decade. It grew rapidly in the 1920s, though, almost doubling to 2,153 by 1930, so that’s likely when the new Lyric was built.
The Lyric and Colby appear to have both been under the Phillips family’s ownership, so having them adjacent would have been a great convenience for ease of operation.
The reopening of the Colby Theatre was to take place on Wednesday, October 27, 1971 according to the October 25 issue of Boxoffice. The opening feature was to be “Big Jake” with John Wayne. Seating capacity was now 430. The house had opened thirty years earlier, in 1941. A notice that construction on the original project was underway had appeared in the January 4, 1941 issue of Motion Picture Herald.
The Lyric might not have appeared on the 1918 map, but an earlier Lyric Theatre operated in Colby. The April 29, 1916 Moving Picture World said that J. P. Phillips, manager of the Lyric Theatre at Colby, would soon open another house, also to be called the Lyric, at Selden, Kansas.
Interestingly, the name Phillips is still associated with the later Lyric in this item from the January 4, 1941 Motion Picture Herald: “DON PHILLIPS who operates the Lyric at Colby, Kan., is building a new house there.”
Don Phillips was mentioned in the July 17, 1948 issue of Boxoffice as operator of the Lyric and Colby theaters in Colby, Kansas. As late as 1972 he was still being mentioned in Boxoffice as the owner of the Colby Theatre.
An item datelined Colby in the March 4, 1950 issue of Boxoffice said that the 350-car drive-in being built for Don Phillips was slated to open on May 23. The project had been designed by architect Truman Schlupp of Kansas City. I haven’t been able to discover if the target date for completion was met.
Here is something from the Hutchinson News of September 20, 1949: “Lakin Theater Changes Hands
“Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Johnson have purchased the Lakin theater here from Fred Munson, builder. Included in the transaction is the building which houses the movie, Brehm’s store, and the apartment above the two business locations.
“Munson built the theater less than three years ago and leased the other location to Brehm while operating the movie house himself. Johnson has been engaged in aerial crop spraying operations in Kearny and surrounding counties the past two years. He plans to continue this business during the spring and summer seasons while also operating the theater.”
The Kearny County Museum has a bit more information in a June, 2023 post on their web site: “The Lakin Theatre building on the east side of South Main was completed in 1947 by Fred Munson. He finished the building next door at 108 S. Main in early 1948, leasing it to Howard Brehm who operated Brehm’s Department Store there. The last business to operate at this site was Jim Powers’ barber shop.”
Jerry Johnson and the Lakin Theatre were mentioned in the December 16, 1950 issue of Boxoffice. He attended an exhibitors convention in Kansas City in 1954, noted in the May 15 issue of Boxoffice. An obituary for Gerald Lee Johnson says that he “…ran the Lakin Theater for many years….”
Here is the only trade journal reference to the Electric I’ve been able to unearth so far, from the November 10, 1917 Moving Picture World: “Lakin, Kan.—Frank Weber has been making some improvements in the Electric theater.”
The NRHP registration form for the Great Bend Central Business District says that the Plaza Theatre building was built in 1916 for Louis Zutavern, a member of an influential local family. It doesn’t give the name under which the house originally operated, but says that by 1920 it was operating as the Weber Theatre. By 1930 it had become the Plaza.
The Plaza was one of the earliest theaters in the Commonwealth chain, and remained in operation as part of the chain at least as late as 1954. I haven’t found a closing date, but it was definitely closed, yet still remembered and perhaps still intact, in 1968, when the September 11 Great Bend Tribune made reference to “…Republican headquarters, formerly the Plaza Theater.”
Sanborn maps from 1913 and 1927 show the McFerren Opera House upstairs at 224-226 Main Street. The 1904-1905 Cahn guide lists it as the New McFerren Opera House with 1000 seats, while the 1884 Harry Miner guide lists a smaller McFerren’s with only 600 seats and a much smaller stage. I would presume that the original house was probably replaced early in the 20th century. By 1913 the Cahn guide is calling it simply McFerren Opera House, with no “New.”
A letter from Herbert Walsh, projectionist at the Lorraine Theatre, was published in the May 13, 1922 issue of Motion Picture News, in which Walsh said that the house had opened on March 6.
Descriptions of the Lorraine’s original configuration indicate that it had a section of stadium seating, with entrance to the auditorium from the lobby through a passage at the center to a broad cross aisle. The description reminded me of the theaters C. Howard Crain had been designing in Detroit in the late 1910s, made me wonder if he had been the architect of the Lorraine. So far I haven’t found any evidence that he was, but it’s an interesting possibility.
Hoopeston had an earlier Princess Theater, listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD along with houses called the Colonial and the Virginian. The latter was the only one with an address listed, that being 310 E. Main Street. The Virginian and McFerren’s Opera House are the only theaters appearing on the 1913 Sanborn map of Hoopeston. An August 14, 1915 item and a May 20, 1916 item in Moving Picture World mention the Princess and a house called the Lyric at Hoopeston.
Okay, here is information about the first Princess from the July 3, 1909 issue of The Billboard. An item says that the Princess Amusement Company of Chicago had taken control of the Virginian Theatre at Hoopeston and it would be operated as a first class vaudeville and motion picture house called the Princess. This doesn’t explain the double listing of the Princess and Virginian in the 1914-1915 AMPD, but maybe it does explain why only the one theater (other than McFerren’s) appears on the 1913 Sanborn. The Colonial and the Lyric remain complete mysteries.
This is from a list of historic businesses in Akron: “Swastika Theatre. Located in 1919, at 110 W. Rochester St., next to hardware. Theatre owned by Clarence Erb and Horace LaRue, who sold it in 1919 to Karl B. Gast, who moved it to the E side of Mishawaka St., middle of first block N of Rochester St., and renamed it Argonne Theatre. During the thirties, name was changed to Madrid Theatre. Closed in 1957. Furniture store opened same location in 1959.”
A thumbnail biography of Karl Gast published in 1923 described the Argonne Theatre as “…one of the most commodious moving picture theaters in the county, with a seating capacity for 315 people.” The Argonne was the only theater listed at Akron in the 1926 FDY.
Here is what became of the first Kai-Gee Theatre, according to the January 5, 1914 Rochester Sentinel: “John and Milton Felts have rented the room formerly occupied by the K. G. theater and will open an up-to-date pool and billiard hall. The front is now being torn out and carpenters expect to have the building ready in two weeks.”
This item is from a compendium of excerpts from newspaper articles about various Fulton County towns:
The 1907 (April) and 1913 Sanborn maps identify the building on northwest corner of 9th and Main as the location of the IOOF lodge, so we do have have the right location for the theater. It is clear that the building did not burn down, so obviously the theater simply got burned out.One of the unidentified theaters in Rochester might have been a house called the Star, which was the subject of several newspaper articles in the Rochester Sentinel. It’s first appearance was in an ad on March 23, 1910, and the last an item on June 7, 1912, but given this building’s history as a buggy repository, and the theater’s appearance on the 1907 Sanborn, this one is more likely the house mentioned in this item from the July 15, 1907 issue of the Sentinel: “John Fieser will move his stock of buggies back into the room occupied by the Theatorium.”
The Star Theatre, at Toledo and Wayne streets, is listed at Fremont in the 1914-1915 AMPD. The 1914 Sanborn map of Fremont shows “Moving Pictures” in the third storefront east of Wayne Street on the north side of Toledo Street. The building is still standing, with Masonic symbols on it and the name “North Eastern Lodge.” A Google Street View notation says “Permanently Closed.” The address is 105 Toledo Street.
A house called the Lyric was still in operation at Mineral Point in 1914, listed on High Street in the AMPD. It was the only theater listed for the town.
In 1912, L. C. Stevens was manager of the Crescent Theatre. His letter to the IMP film company, dated February 8, 1912, was printed in the March 2 issue of the company’s magazine, The Implet.