Tiger Theater

kencmcintyre on July 14, 2009 at 2:32 pm

This is excerpted from the Joplin Globe on 9/16/54:

CARTHAGE, Mo.. Sept. 15â€"Fire which is believed to have originated in a trash barrel this morning swept through the Center building, and a theater on the west side of the square causing damage estimated unofficially at $250.000. Destroyed was the 900-seat auditorium of the Tiger theater, 319 South Main street, where the blaze originated, the rear portion of Jaffe’s shoe store, 321 South Main street, and the Murray-Duncan drug store, 323 South Main street.

The fire erupted in an explosion at 2:55 o'clock this morning, which sent debris and flames flying from the rear of the Tiger theater across Lyon street. The explosion awakened Mrs. Jimmy Clubb, who lives in a second floor apartment over the Morton Sign Company, 340 Lyon street, about 300 yards from the rear of the theater.

The fire is now believed to have started in a trash barrel under the stage of the theater. It spread through the auditorium, causing complete destruction.

The theater was owned by Fox-Midwest corporation. Only recently new projection equipment and a CinemaScope screen were installed in the building at a cost in excess of $20,000. The fire spread from the theater to the rear roof of Jaffe’s and the Murray-Duncan drug store. Both roofs collapsed shortly after the theater roof fell in.

Don Lewis on December 7, 2012 at 8:42 pm

From 2012 a photo of the Tiger Theater building in Carthage.