State Theater
213 W. Main Street,
West Frankfort,
IL
62896
213 W. Main Street,
West Frankfort,
IL
62896
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The State Theater was opened by 1928. It was closed in 1956.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 5 comments)
All that’s left of the State Theatre is the lower part of one side wall. The front end of the wall, as seen at the left side of the photo lostmemory linked to, can still be picked out in Google Street View.
We couldn’t afford to go the Strand (our family had 4 children at that time, since my older brother usually didn’t go with us) so always waited till the movies came to the State. Saw a lot of good movies there. Was sad to see it disappear.
This listing has a lot of bad information. The address is wrong, it should be 213 (the empty lot next to the old garage/Honda dealer). The dates are also wrong, since the theater appears on the 1928 map (but not 1919).
The Strand, Rex, and State Theatres in West Frankfort were all mentioned in the February 23, 1929 issue of Universal Weekly. There is some chance that the State might have been a house opened in 1924 as the Majestic Theatre by William Muhlenbach and sold by him to the Reed, Yemm & Hayes Circuit in 1927, according to the July 5 issue of Film Daily that year. Reed, Yemm & Hayes also owned the Rex Theatre at that time. The Majestic was still listed in the 1929 FDY. However, the 400-seat Majestic would have needed significant alterations to reach the State’s capacity of 698.
I added a bunch more theaters. There is at least one other candidate for the Majestic.