Tekoa Empire Theater

Neat little theater. :)

I operated this theatre as a cinema for about a year in 1971. Tekoa was a farm town of about 500 population, in Washington’s “Inland Empire” area. The theatre had been closed by its builder, Rex Hevel, in 1958. His widow kept it clean and in good condition for all those years. We had quite a bit of a challenge to get the Century projection booth (installed by Western Theatre Supply of Spokane) going again after nearly 15 years of disuse. I lived in the unfinished suite upstairs. There was no bath facility, so I paid 25 cents to take a bath occasionally at the local hotel.

The theatre had been used one week a year for the summer festival “Slippery Gulch Days” for some time prior to my renting it, and has been used for that since. It is quite a cute little theatre (350 seats when I ran it), with all the original painting and detail still intact in 1971. The auditorium ceiling had nice graphics painted on it, and the blue damask acoustic panels were quite pretty on the walls. Nice decorative light fixtures, too.

After I closed the theatre, the Century equipment was sold to Hector Ross in Calgary and was installed in the Canfilm Screening Room there. Original equipment at the Empire was something else, probably Simplex with incandescent lamps, moved from the old theatre in Tekoa (also operated by Hevel). The Century stuff was put in after the war. I understand that Devry equipment has been put in after that by the Community.

The same architect also designed the Garland in Spokane, Washington; the Rena in Kellogg, Idaho, the Wilma in Coeur d'Alene Idaho, the Bungalo in St. Maries Idaho, among others.

I don’t know. It is possible, but I am not sure. I have no idea who installed the Devry equipment or whether it is currently operational.

Website: http://www.tekoaempiretheatre.com/home.html