Tiger Theater
319 S. Main Street,
Carthage,
MO
64836
319 S. Main Street,
Carthage,
MO
64836
1 person
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The Tiger Theatre was opened October 14, 1937. The auditorium of the Tiger Theater was destroyed in a fire in September 15, 1954. It was a Fox-Midwest theater at the time.
Contributed by
Ken McIntyre
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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.
The Tiger Theatre’s entrance building is still standing. 319 S. Main is now occupied by a pizza parlor. The auditorium was probably on what is now a parking lot on Lyon Street.
From 2012 a photo of the Tiger Theater building in Carthage.
I posted a photo from 1949.
The Tiger Theatre actually opened its doors on October 13, 1937 with Gary Cooper in “If I Had A Million” along with several shorts and a newsreel. What’s strange about its opening is that it opened with a movie that came out almost five years prior despite being a first-run theater throughout its entire life.
The September 15, 1954 fire happened in the morning hours which is on its last out of its four-day run of showing Spencer Tracy’s “Broken Lance” alongside the short “Day On A Jet Aircraft Carrier” both in CinemaScope. Fox Midwest Theatres was its last operator, and the fire cost an estimate $200,000 in damages.