From the October 22, 1921 issue of Moving Picture World: “Henry Tucker opened the new Tucker Theatre at Liberal, Kans., September 28. His new house seats 900. The policy of the theatre will be to play tab shows and feature pictures. It is said that the Tucker is one of the nicest film houses in this territory.”
But it turns out that the Tucker may not have been an entirely new theater. Here is what the October 8 issue of the same journal had said: “Henry Tucker, of the Photoplay Theatre at Liberal, Kas., in re-modeling the house and will re-name it the Tucker.”
CinemaTour’s page for the Photoplay says it was demolished to make way for the Tucker, and it must have been pretty close to it, as the 1921 Cahn guide lists The Photoplay with only 300 seats, and the Tucker had over three times the capacity. If anything remained of the old theater it was probably no more than a wall.
Seth G: The Grand is a puzzle, as no Sanborns are available from its period of operation and there don’t appear to be any newspaper archives from that period available either. I’ve wondered if it might have been one of the other early theaters reopened.
The Garden City opened on March 8, 1921, and it has crossed my mind, purely as speculation, that it might have been the house that surfaced in 1931 as the Dickinson. Our photo of the Dickinson/Town certainly doesn’t look like anything that would have been built in 1931, especially in a small Kansas town on the edge of the dust bowl, but it does look like something that could have been built in a prosperous, growing prairie town in the early 1920s.
The 350-seat Garden last appears in the FDY in 1931, and the 600-seat Dickinson first appears in 1932. If the Garden had been built with an eye to future expansion, with the rear portion of the lot left unbuilt, then it would have been an easy and natural fit for Dickinson to snatch it up and do the expansion in 1931 while costs were low. I’ve done searches to see if the trade journals mentioned Dickinson’s 1931 Garden City project, but no luck. Still, it’s a tantalizing possibility.
rivest266: The Lyric Electric of 1907 was on Main Street next door to the Post Office, which was in the 200 block on both the 1905 and 1911 Sanborn maps. The 1911 Sanborn shows a bank building north of the Post Office and it was too shallow to have housed a theater. The Lyric had to have been in the storefront south of the Post Office, and that was at 209 N. Main.
I’m thinking that whoever wrote the 1910 Nickelodeon report probably got the street name for the first Edison wrong, and it was actually this one on Grant Avenue. As for the AMPD’s listing, perhaps the Edison returned to its original location for a while in its last days? Or maybe the AMPD just got ahold of some obsolete information, from an old city directory perhaps.
We don’t really know how that directory was compiled, but I suspect the information came mostly from other directories, from theater owners themselves, and from people connected with film distribution who would have had regular communication with the theaters. The latter would have been doing this as a side gig, and probably made quite a few careless mistakes. I know that the trade journals relied a lot on people from the distribution business to provide news about what was going on with theaters around the country.
The October 5, 1910 issue of The Nickelodeon said that “D. E. Rice, of Negaunee, has leased the Quayle Block at Ishpeming and will convert it into a moving picture theater.”
The January 23, 1915 issue of Motography reported that “Arthur Poali has purchased the Lyric theater in Ishpeming from Guy Freese.”
I just left a comment on the nameless theater’s page, saying why I think it was indeed the Electric. The history of the Stevens Opera House, to which I linked in that comment, says that the Opera House did show movies occasionally, but was never successful as a cinema long term. It was closed in the early 1920s and a new owner sold it to the J. C. Penney company who converted it into a store that was still in operation in the late 1960s.
The absence of Garden City from the 1926 (and 1927) FDYs was certainly an error by the publishers. The population of Garden City was nearing 4,000 in 1920 and topped 6,000 in 1930, and the idea that so large a town would have no movie theaters in the middle of that decade is preposterous. In fact I’ve found two Garden City houses, the Electric Theatre and the Garden Theatre, mentioned in trade journals during the 1920s, and both are also listed in the 1928 FDY. The Electric is listed with 300 seats and the Garden with 350.
From what I’ve been able to glean from various scattered sources, I’m certain that the house at 413 N. Main was the Electric Theatre. This house is the only movie theater appearing on the May, 1920 Sanborn map, and the Garden City Theatre (opening name of the Garden) did not open until March 18, 1921, according to a history of the Stevens Opera House (good-sized PDF here.)
The Electric Theatre was in operation by January, 1908, and was to be Garden City’s first long-running cinema, still open in 1929. An earlier house called the Lyric Theatre opened next door to the Post Office (probably at 209 N. Main) in July, 1907, but had apparently closed by October that same year.
Various sources I’ve come across indicate that houses called the Edison Theatre operated in at least four different locations in Garden City, starting at least as early as 1910. The May 1, 1910 issue of The Nickelodeon said that the 359-seat New Edison Theatre had opened at 202 N. Main Street under the same ownership as the old Edison Theatre on Jones Avenue. 202 N. Main housed a grocery store on the November, 1911 Sanborn map.
A history of the Stevens Opera House says that the then-owner of that place had leased one of the ground floor storefronts under the Opera House to a J. T. Gilman of Lamar, Colorado, on March 2, 1912, and Gilman opened the Edison Theatre in that space shortly thereafter. This third Edison Theatre closed in December, 1913. And then of course we have this fourth Edison on Grant Avenue listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD.
A history of Garden City’s Stevens Opera House has this bit of information about one of that house’s early competitors: “A second motion picture theatre, the Alamo, was opened May 10, 1910. This false front, open air theatre, was operated by the owners of the Electric Theatre during the hot summer months, another good reason for the prolonged closing of the opera house in the summer.”
In its early days, Monterey Park’s Mission There spent some time under the control of the Principal Theatres chain, as revealed in this item from the January 28, 1928 issue of The Billboard: “MONTEREY PARK, Calif. - The Mission Theater reopened January 14 as a motion picture house. It is a link in the chain of Principal Theaters, Inc., of which M. Rosenberg is general manager.”
The Yale Theatre building appears on the February, 1909 Sanborn map of Sapulpa, designated only as “Motion Pictures.” The house is still there on the April, 1911 Sanborn, but has been joined by two other moving picture houses on the same block, one at 1 S. Main, southeast corner of Dewey, and one at 17 S. Main. The latter was a house called the Lyric, which featured a small stage and a balcony. The small theater on the corner of Dewey was merely a storefront nickelodeon, and I haven’t found a name for it.
The biggest change comes with the August, 1915 Sanborn. The house that will be the Yale has been expanded into the storefront next door at 9 S. Main, and has acquired a stage. The name Yale is not listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD, but two Main Street houses are listed as the Scenic Theatre and the Thompson Theatre. There is also a house called the Grand Theatre with no location given. One of those three names must have been an aka for the Yale. The Lyric is gone, the Sanborn marking its site with the notation “Fire ruins burned June 1915.”
The 1915 Sanborn also shows a new theater that did not appear on the 1911 map, at 14-16 S. Main, across the street from the Lyric’s site. This was a house that was called the Empress during the 1920s, though it too might have opened under a different name, if it opened before the AMPD went to press.
The Iris might have been partly built on the site of a smaller house called the Lyric Theatre, which opened at 17 S. Main Street by 1911 and burned down in June, 1915. The Lyric appears on the April 1911 Sanborn map of Sapulpa, and its burned out site is noted on the August, 1915 map. Unfortunately, no later Sanborn maps of the town are available online.
One of the many transfers of the St Denis was noted in the August 2, 1919 Moving Picture World: “J. H. (Speedy) Molder, proprietor of theatres in Northern Oklahoma, has leased his St. Denis Theatre at Sapulpa to Miss M. A. Arnold.”
The April 26, 1947 issue of Boxoffice reported that renovations were planned for the Zaring Theatre, under new management:
“Marcus will renovate Zaring at Indianapolis
INDIANAPOLIS —The Central Avenue Theatre Corp., headed by M. Marcus is planning to reseat and otherwise improve the Zaring Theatre, 1,082-seat neighborhood house which it acquired April 1 on a five-year lease. The theatre also will get a new marquee, according to Rex Carr, general
manager for the circuit. The Zaring was opened in 1925 and was one of the city’s first de luxe neighborhood theatres.“
Arcata’s historic Minor Theatre escaped damage on Friday, January 2, when a fire driven by high winds and fueled in part by a ruptured natural gas line ripped through several buildings in the block across 10th Street. Firefighters from Arcata and several nearby communities, as well as CalFire personnel, worked through the night to prevent the spread of the fire from the block where it began, which was in the commercial and residential apartment building directly across Tenth Street from the theater.
Several businesses along Tenth and H Streets were destroyed, but there have been no reported fatalities or serious injuries. The theater remains open, though one of the current features being shown seems a bit too on point; “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”
This Facebook post from the Eveleth Heritage Society says the Grant Theatre opened on Thanksgiving Day, 1938 (November 24 that year.) The first movies shown were “Gangster’s Boy” with Jackie Cooper and a western called “Romance of the Limberlost.”
The local paper described the façade as featuring an ivory and blue Vitrolite finish with a granite base. The lobby had a terrazzo floor, and the auditorium was 48 x 75 feet, with 606 red, black and green seats. The house was designed by local architect Elwin Harris Berg. At the time of its closing, the Grant was Eveleth’s last traditional indoor cinema, the Regent and State Theatres having both closed in 1955.
A notice about plans for this house appeared in Moving Picture World of April 8, 1916: “DETROIT, MICH. -Christian W. Brandt is preparing plans for a moving picture theater to be erected at the corner of Mack and Holcomb avenues, with seating capacity of 1,000.”
I’ve managed to find a few trade journal items about the Holbrook-Grant Theatre: The October 14, 1922 issue of Universal Weekly had this news from the house: “THE Holbrook Theatre, Detroit, managed by R. S. Fisher will be redecorated and remodeled, making it a first class house in every respect, Mr. Fisher has decided.”
In 1937, the Holbrook was apparently struggling. The January 14 Film Daily had this to say: “Detroit — Holbrook Theater, north end Negro house, recently opened by Lee Carrow and Carl Retter, has been closed again.”
The February 13 issue had more news: “Detroit—Latest house change is the Holbrook Theater reported taken over by Anthony Klein and Carl Reiter from Lee Carrow.”
February 16 brought this information: “Detroit—Carl Reiter and Anthony
Klein have reopened the Holbrook Theater, north end Negro house, Klein taking over half interest from Lee Carrow. The house is operating three gift nights.”
In March, 1942, the Grant Theatre’s manager provided several capsule movie reviews for Motion Picture Herald, including this rather drolly unimpressed March 7 review of a now well-known classic: “CITIZEN KANE: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten— High priced picture. But I made a little money on my help. They took off three days because they were afraid of being all alone in the theatre. Running time, 120 minutes. Played February 17-19. —Saul Korman, Grant Theatre, Detroit, Mich. General patronage.”
Detroit related items in the October 22, 1943 Film Daily included a reference to “Stanley Anushko, former manager of the Grant Theater”
A Pasadena Theatre is listed at Mack Avenue and Belvedere Street in the 1914-1915 AMPD. It appears at 9232 Mack in the 1926 FDY, which is closer to McClellan Avenue than to Belvedere Street, so the house might have moved to a new building at some point during that period. From 1916 it had to compete for neighborhood patrons with the larger, architect-designed Delthe Theatre two blocks down Mack Avenue.
This house was still listed as the Caniff Theatre in the 1927 FDY. No theaters were listed on Caniff Street in the 1928 edition, but the Eagle Theater is listed at 2026 Caniff in 1929 (an Eagle was listed in 1928, but at 6345 Michigan.) In 1930 and 1931 no houses are listed on Caniff Street, but in 1932 a 360-seat New Eagle Theatre makes an appearance on Caniff Avenue, though without a street number.
A 360-seat Caniff Theater reappears on Caniff Avenue in 1933, but is listed as closed. The names Caniff, Eagle and Poland are all conspicuously absent from the 1934,‘35 and '36 FDYs. I haven’t checked later editions. If this house was ever called the Poland Theatre, I haven’t found when. It might have operated under that name too briefly to have made an appearance in the FDY.
The 375-seat Campau Theater at 9643 Joseph Campau is listed in the 1929 FDY. The 1926 FDY had listed the same address for the Free Poland Theatre, with the same capacity. The Free Poland Theatre is listed at old address 2181-83 (corresponding to modern address 9643) Joseph Campau in the 1919 Polk Michigan Gazetteer. The lot was vacant on the 1915 Sanborn map of Hamtramck.
A June 22, 1933 article in the Detroit Free Press concerned a fire in the 9700 block of Joseph Campau Avenue which “…badly scorched the New Campau Theater….” across the street.
The formal opening of the Ishpeming Theatre took place on December 15, 1903. Walker Whiteside and his company of players opened the house with the satirical comedy “We Are King.” The local Elk’s club had been a major force behind the project to build the theater. The architect was M. E. Bell (probably Mifflin Emlen Bell, a well-established Michigan architect of the period.)
Despite an auspicious beginning, the playhouse was suffering financial difficulty by 1913, and manager Ed Butler turned to movies to improve revenues. This led to the demise of the Royal Theatre, one of Ishpeming’s two regular movie houses of the time. The 1914-1915 AMPD listed only the Ishpeming and the Lyric Theatre for the town.
Judging from this item that appeared in the October 30, 1915 issue of Michigan Contractor and Builder, the Butler Theatre might have been completed before the end of that year: “Ishpeming-According to the pace thus far followed in the construction of the Butler theater on Main street, Contractor J. S. Wahlman will make a record in building construction on the job. Within two weeks the building will be enclosed. The construction of the building will be of brick and steel. Charlton & Kuenzli, architects.”
An item in the October 16 issue of the same publication had said that the foundations for the building were in and that Mr. Butler hoped to have the theater open in time for the holidays. I haven’t found any source confirming a December opening, or giving an exact date, but it does seem possible. No 1915 newspapers from Ishpeming are available online.
The Strand was open in time to be listed in the 1926 FDY. It was listed with 800 seats, and was the only theater in St. Charles through the rest of the decade.
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.”
From the October 22, 1921 issue of Moving Picture World: “Henry Tucker opened the new Tucker Theatre at Liberal, Kans., September 28. His new house seats 900. The policy of the theatre will be to play tab shows and feature pictures. It is said that the Tucker is one of the nicest film houses in this territory.”
But it turns out that the Tucker may not have been an entirely new theater. Here is what the October 8 issue of the same journal had said: “Henry Tucker, of the Photoplay Theatre at Liberal, Kas., in re-modeling the house and will re-name it the Tucker.”
CinemaTour’s page for the Photoplay says it was demolished to make way for the Tucker, and it must have been pretty close to it, as the 1921 Cahn guide lists The Photoplay with only 300 seats, and the Tucker had over three times the capacity. If anything remained of the old theater it was probably no more than a wall.
Seth G: The Grand is a puzzle, as no Sanborns are available from its period of operation and there don’t appear to be any newspaper archives from that period available either. I’ve wondered if it might have been one of the other early theaters reopened.
The Garden City opened on March 8, 1921, and it has crossed my mind, purely as speculation, that it might have been the house that surfaced in 1931 as the Dickinson. Our photo of the Dickinson/Town certainly doesn’t look like anything that would have been built in 1931, especially in a small Kansas town on the edge of the dust bowl, but it does look like something that could have been built in a prosperous, growing prairie town in the early 1920s.
The 350-seat Garden last appears in the FDY in 1931, and the 600-seat Dickinson first appears in 1932. If the Garden had been built with an eye to future expansion, with the rear portion of the lot left unbuilt, then it would have been an easy and natural fit for Dickinson to snatch it up and do the expansion in 1931 while costs were low. I’ve done searches to see if the trade journals mentioned Dickinson’s 1931 Garden City project, but no luck. Still, it’s a tantalizing possibility.
rivest266: The Lyric Electric of 1907 was on Main Street next door to the Post Office, which was in the 200 block on both the 1905 and 1911 Sanborn maps. The 1911 Sanborn shows a bank building north of the Post Office and it was too shallow to have housed a theater. The Lyric had to have been in the storefront south of the Post Office, and that was at 209 N. Main.
I’m thinking that whoever wrote the 1910 Nickelodeon report probably got the street name for the first Edison wrong, and it was actually this one on Grant Avenue. As for the AMPD’s listing, perhaps the Edison returned to its original location for a while in its last days? Or maybe the AMPD just got ahold of some obsolete information, from an old city directory perhaps.
We don’t really know how that directory was compiled, but I suspect the information came mostly from other directories, from theater owners themselves, and from people connected with film distribution who would have had regular communication with the theaters. The latter would have been doing this as a side gig, and probably made quite a few careless mistakes. I know that the trade journals relied a lot on people from the distribution business to provide news about what was going on with theaters around the country.
The October 5, 1910 issue of The Nickelodeon said that “D. E. Rice, of Negaunee, has leased the Quayle Block at Ishpeming and will convert it into a moving picture theater.”
The January 23, 1915 issue of Motography reported that “Arthur Poali has purchased the Lyric theater in Ishpeming from Guy Freese.”
I just left a comment on the nameless theater’s page, saying why I think it was indeed the Electric. The history of the Stevens Opera House, to which I linked in that comment, says that the Opera House did show movies occasionally, but was never successful as a cinema long term. It was closed in the early 1920s and a new owner sold it to the J. C. Penney company who converted it into a store that was still in operation in the late 1960s.
The absence of Garden City from the 1926 (and 1927) FDYs was certainly an error by the publishers. The population of Garden City was nearing 4,000 in 1920 and topped 6,000 in 1930, and the idea that so large a town would have no movie theaters in the middle of that decade is preposterous. In fact I’ve found two Garden City houses, the Electric Theatre and the Garden Theatre, mentioned in trade journals during the 1920s, and both are also listed in the 1928 FDY. The Electric is listed with 300 seats and the Garden with 350.
From what I’ve been able to glean from various scattered sources, I’m certain that the house at 413 N. Main was the Electric Theatre. This house is the only movie theater appearing on the May, 1920 Sanborn map, and the Garden City Theatre (opening name of the Garden) did not open until March 18, 1921, according to a history of the Stevens Opera House (good-sized PDF here.)
The Electric Theatre was in operation by January, 1908, and was to be Garden City’s first long-running cinema, still open in 1929. An earlier house called the Lyric Theatre opened next door to the Post Office (probably at 209 N. Main) in July, 1907, but had apparently closed by October that same year.
Various sources I’ve come across indicate that houses called the Edison Theatre operated in at least four different locations in Garden City, starting at least as early as 1910. The May 1, 1910 issue of The Nickelodeon said that the 359-seat New Edison Theatre had opened at 202 N. Main Street under the same ownership as the old Edison Theatre on Jones Avenue. 202 N. Main housed a grocery store on the November, 1911 Sanborn map.
A history of the Stevens Opera House says that the then-owner of that place had leased one of the ground floor storefronts under the Opera House to a J. T. Gilman of Lamar, Colorado, on March 2, 1912, and Gilman opened the Edison Theatre in that space shortly thereafter. This third Edison Theatre closed in December, 1913. And then of course we have this fourth Edison on Grant Avenue listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD.
A history of Garden City’s Stevens Opera House has this bit of information about one of that house’s early competitors: “A second motion picture theatre, the Alamo, was opened May 10, 1910. This false front, open air theatre, was operated by the owners of the Electric Theatre during the hot summer months, another good reason for the prolonged closing of the opera house in the summer.”
In its early days, Monterey Park’s Mission There spent some time under the control of the Principal Theatres chain, as revealed in this item from the January 28, 1928 issue of The Billboard: “MONTEREY PARK, Calif. - The Mission Theater reopened January 14 as a motion picture house. It is a link in the chain of Principal Theaters, Inc., of which M. Rosenberg is general manager.”
The Yale Theatre building appears on the February, 1909 Sanborn map of Sapulpa, designated only as “Motion Pictures.” The house is still there on the April, 1911 Sanborn, but has been joined by two other moving picture houses on the same block, one at 1 S. Main, southeast corner of Dewey, and one at 17 S. Main. The latter was a house called the Lyric, which featured a small stage and a balcony. The small theater on the corner of Dewey was merely a storefront nickelodeon, and I haven’t found a name for it.
The biggest change comes with the August, 1915 Sanborn. The house that will be the Yale has been expanded into the storefront next door at 9 S. Main, and has acquired a stage. The name Yale is not listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD, but two Main Street houses are listed as the Scenic Theatre and the Thompson Theatre. There is also a house called the Grand Theatre with no location given. One of those three names must have been an aka for the Yale. The Lyric is gone, the Sanborn marking its site with the notation “Fire ruins burned June 1915.”
The 1915 Sanborn also shows a new theater that did not appear on the 1911 map, at 14-16 S. Main, across the street from the Lyric’s site. This was a house that was called the Empress during the 1920s, though it too might have opened under a different name, if it opened before the AMPD went to press.
The Iris might have been partly built on the site of a smaller house called the Lyric Theatre, which opened at 17 S. Main Street by 1911 and burned down in June, 1915. The Lyric appears on the April 1911 Sanborn map of Sapulpa, and its burned out site is noted on the August, 1915 map. Unfortunately, no later Sanborn maps of the town are available online.
One of the many transfers of the St Denis was noted in the August 2, 1919 Moving Picture World: “J. H. (Speedy) Molder, proprietor of theatres in Northern Oklahoma, has leased his St. Denis Theatre at Sapulpa to Miss M. A. Arnold.”
The April 26, 1947 issue of Boxoffice reported that renovations were planned for the Zaring Theatre, under new management:
Arcata’s historic Minor Theatre escaped damage on Friday, January 2, when a fire driven by high winds and fueled in part by a ruptured natural gas line ripped through several buildings in the block across 10th Street. Firefighters from Arcata and several nearby communities, as well as CalFire personnel, worked through the night to prevent the spread of the fire from the block where it began, which was in the commercial and residential apartment building directly across Tenth Street from the theater.
Several businesses along Tenth and H Streets were destroyed, but there have been no reported fatalities or serious injuries. The theater remains open, though one of the current features being shown seems a bit too on point; “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”
This Facebook post from the Eveleth Heritage Society says the Grant Theatre opened on Thanksgiving Day, 1938 (November 24 that year.) The first movies shown were “Gangster’s Boy” with Jackie Cooper and a western called “Romance of the Limberlost.”
The local paper described the façade as featuring an ivory and blue Vitrolite finish with a granite base. The lobby had a terrazzo floor, and the auditorium was 48 x 75 feet, with 606 red, black and green seats. The house was designed by local architect Elwin Harris Berg. At the time of its closing, the Grant was Eveleth’s last traditional indoor cinema, the Regent and State Theatres having both closed in 1955.
A notice about plans for this house appeared in Moving Picture World of April 8, 1916: “DETROIT, MICH. -Christian W. Brandt is preparing plans for a moving picture theater to be erected at the corner of Mack and Holcomb avenues, with seating capacity of 1,000.”
I’ve managed to find a few trade journal items about the Holbrook-Grant Theatre: The October 14, 1922 issue of Universal Weekly had this news from the house: “THE Holbrook Theatre, Detroit, managed by R. S. Fisher will be redecorated and remodeled, making it a first class house in every respect, Mr. Fisher has decided.”
In 1937, the Holbrook was apparently struggling. The January 14 Film Daily had this to say: “Detroit — Holbrook Theater, north end Negro house, recently opened by Lee Carrow and Carl Retter, has been closed again.”
The February 13 issue had more news: “Detroit—Latest house change is the Holbrook Theater reported taken over by Anthony Klein and Carl Reiter from Lee Carrow.”
February 16 brought this information: “Detroit—Carl Reiter and Anthony Klein have reopened the Holbrook Theater, north end Negro house, Klein taking over half interest from Lee Carrow. The house is operating three gift nights.”
In March, 1942, the Grant Theatre’s manager provided several capsule movie reviews for Motion Picture Herald, including this rather drolly unimpressed March 7 review of a now well-known classic: “CITIZEN KANE: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten— High priced picture. But I made a little money on my help. They took off three days because they were afraid of being all alone in the theatre. Running time, 120 minutes. Played February 17-19. —Saul Korman, Grant Theatre, Detroit, Mich. General patronage.”
Detroit related items in the October 22, 1943 Film Daily included a reference to “Stanley Anushko, former manager of the Grant Theater”
A Pasadena Theatre is listed at Mack Avenue and Belvedere Street in the 1914-1915 AMPD. It appears at 9232 Mack in the 1926 FDY, which is closer to McClellan Avenue than to Belvedere Street, so the house might have moved to a new building at some point during that period. From 1916 it had to compete for neighborhood patrons with the larger, architect-designed Delthe Theatre two blocks down Mack Avenue.
This house was still listed as the Caniff Theatre in the 1927 FDY. No theaters were listed on Caniff Street in the 1928 edition, but the Eagle Theater is listed at 2026 Caniff in 1929 (an Eagle was listed in 1928, but at 6345 Michigan.) In 1930 and 1931 no houses are listed on Caniff Street, but in 1932 a 360-seat New Eagle Theatre makes an appearance on Caniff Avenue, though without a street number.
A 360-seat Caniff Theater reappears on Caniff Avenue in 1933, but is listed as closed. The names Caniff, Eagle and Poland are all conspicuously absent from the 1934,‘35 and '36 FDYs. I haven’t checked later editions. If this house was ever called the Poland Theatre, I haven’t found when. It might have operated under that name too briefly to have made an appearance in the FDY.
The 375-seat Campau Theater at 9643 Joseph Campau is listed in the 1929 FDY. The 1926 FDY had listed the same address for the Free Poland Theatre, with the same capacity. The Free Poland Theatre is listed at old address 2181-83 (corresponding to modern address 9643) Joseph Campau in the 1919 Polk Michigan Gazetteer. The lot was vacant on the 1915 Sanborn map of Hamtramck.
A June 22, 1933 article in the Detroit Free Press concerned a fire in the 9700 block of Joseph Campau Avenue which “…badly scorched the New Campau Theater….” across the street.
The formal opening of the Ishpeming Theatre took place on December 15, 1903. Walker Whiteside and his company of players opened the house with the satirical comedy “We Are King.” The local Elk’s club had been a major force behind the project to build the theater. The architect was M. E. Bell (probably Mifflin Emlen Bell, a well-established Michigan architect of the period.)
Despite an auspicious beginning, the playhouse was suffering financial difficulty by 1913, and manager Ed Butler turned to movies to improve revenues. This led to the demise of the Royal Theatre, one of Ishpeming’s two regular movie houses of the time. The 1914-1915 AMPD listed only the Ishpeming and the Lyric Theatre for the town.
Judging from this item that appeared in the October 30, 1915 issue of Michigan Contractor and Builder, the Butler Theatre might have been completed before the end of that year: “Ishpeming-According to the pace thus far followed in the construction of the Butler theater on Main street, Contractor J. S. Wahlman will make a record in building construction on the job. Within two weeks the building will be enclosed. The construction of the building will be of brick and steel. Charlton & Kuenzli, architects.”
An item in the October 16 issue of the same publication had said that the foundations for the building were in and that Mr. Butler hoped to have the theater open in time for the holidays. I haven’t found any source confirming a December opening, or giving an exact date, but it does seem possible. No 1915 newspapers from Ishpeming are available online.
The Strand was open in time to be listed in the 1926 FDY. It was listed with 800 seats, and was the only theater in St. Charles through the rest of the decade.
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.”