DePere Cinema

Joe Vogel on May 31, 2012 at 1:54 pm

A 1938 issue of Motion Picture Herald said that W. R. Vincent had opened the 499-seat De Pere Theatre at De Pere, Wisconsin. The theater was located in a former storage garage, and the conversion had been designed by Green Bay architects Geniesse & Connell. The item also noted that the new house gave De Pere six operating movie theaters, the same number as nearby Green Bay, which had more than five times the population of De Pere.

Information about theaters in De Pere is scant in the early trade publications, but I’ve found a 1913 reference to a Dreamland Theatre which had just moved to a new location in the Roffers Building on Main Avenue; a 1916 reference to a Pearl Theatre, which had reopened on March 4 after being damaged by fire; and a 1915 reference to a planned but yet unnamed theater, two stories and 60x120 feet, to be built that spring.

Joe Vogel on September 22, 2014 at 11:23 am

This page at Facebook has four photos, including one showing the theater building when it still housed a livery stable.

Here is the exact text of the March 5, 1938, item from Motion Picture Herald I cited in my earlier comment:

“W. R. Vincent opened his new 499-seat De Pere theatre at De Pere, Wis., constructed in a building formerly a storage garage. Geniesse and Connell, Green Bay, Wis., were the architects. The new theatre gives Mr. Vincent six houses in Wisconsin. Incidentally, there are six theatres in De Pere, a town of 5,000, while Green Bay, just adjoining and a city of 28,000, also has six theatres.”

I now suspect that the item was mistaken. The 1938 Film Daily Yearbook lists six theaters at Green Bay, but only the 450-seat Majestic and the 370-seat Pearl at De Pere. The FDY, not always too accurate itself, didn’t get around to listing the De Pere Theatre until 1941, but the Pearl and Majestic were still both listed then, too, so De Pere had three theaters during that period (if the FDY is to be believed.) Green Bay dropped to five in 1939.