Didsbury Theatre
51 Main Street,
Walden,
NY
12586
51 Main Street,
Walden,
NY
12586
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Additional Info
Previous Names: Didsbury Opera House, Viking Theatre
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Built in the 1903 as the 1,050-seat Didsbury Opera House, it was upstairs on the 2nd floor of the building. Projection equipment was installed in 1907 and in 1918 the building was reconstructed for the theatre to be at ground floor level. It had been renamed Didsbury Theatre and was screening movies. It was still open in 1957. In June 1968 it was renamed Viking Theatre. The building was destroyed by fire in 1974.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
This site mentions the Didsbury Opera House at the same location:
http://tinyurl.com/cb2vqk
From 1956-57 a postcard view of the DidsburyTheatre in Walden.
Appears to have been demolished prior to 2009. The May `09 street view shows a different building where the Didsbury Theatre stood.
Photo added by KFD in 2018 shows the Didsbury burned down in 1974.
The Didsbury Theatre was listed in the 1906-1907 Cahn guide as an upstairs house with 1,050 seats, 500 on the main floor, 300 in the balcony and 250 in the gallery. The caption of a photo in Montgomery, New York, by Robert L. Williams refers to “…the Didsbury Theater, which dated to 1903….”
A William B. Didsbury was still operating the house as late as 1965, when the February 15 issue of Boxoffice published a letter from him in which he asked for advice from anyone who knew how to rid the theater of a bat who had taken up residence about a year earlier. The creature only appeared during shows, and all efforts to eliminate it had failed.
By 1968, Mr. Didsbury was gone. A Gus Kreykenbohm noted in the October 7 issue of Boxoffice that he had taken over operation of the old Didsbury Theatre in June. He had changed the name of the house to Viking Theatre. A June 5, 2025 article in the Hudson Valley Times notes the destruction of the building by fire in 1974, but does not mention the name change to Viking Theatre. It does, however, provide the useful information that projection equipment had first been installed at the Didsbury in 1907, and the reconstruction of the house as a ground floor theater had taken place in 1918. It also confirms 1903 as the original year of construction.