Strand Theater
102 E. Main Street,
West Frankfort,
IL
62896
102 E. Main Street,
West Frankfort,
IL
62896
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Boxoffice of March 25, 1974 reported that bricks had fallen from the west wall of the Strand Theatre in West Frankfort. The house had been shuttered since October, 1973, and had ben the towns' last operating movie theater.
A James Clayton, of the Strand Theatre at West Frankfort, was publishing capsule movie reviews in Exhibitors Herald at least as early as the issue of December 30, 1922. I suspect that an item in the July 24, 1918 Film Daily pertained to the Star/Strand. It said simply that Frank Lowry, owner of the Princess Theatre at Salem, Illinois, planned to build a 900-seat movie theater at West Frankfort. The timing is right for the project to have been in operation as the Star in 1919.
Another very poor listing with no information. It may have become the Strand in 1927, but the 1919 map shows it as the Star. The building does not appear on the 1914 map. The ‘Opera House’ aka is spurious; this was never an opera house. The 1928 map shows the address as 104-106. 100-102 belonged to a lumber yard closer to the railroad.
The Strand was the “first run” theater in West Frankfort and charged more than the other theaters. Saw my first “horror” film there. They also showed films for schools, like “Macbeth” (with Orson Welles) and “Julius Caesar” (with Marlon Brando).
When the Strand Theatre opened in 1927 it seated 700.
According to this suit, Fox Midwest Amusements owned the Strand and the Roxy in West Frankfort in the mid fifties:
http://tinyurl.com/y72tk9