Arcade Theater

75 W Main Street,
Waynesboro, PA 17268

Unfavorite No one has favorited this theater yet

Showing 2 comments

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on April 8, 2014 at 6:22 pm

Here is an item from the January 30, 1915, issue of The American Contractor:

“Waynesboro, Pa. — Opera House, Apt. & Store Bldg.: 5 sty. 75x75, 84x85 & 75x100. Archt. J. W. Woltz. Owner Arcade Corp. Plans ready for bids Feb. 15.”
It took almost two years for the project to be completed, though. This announcement appeared in the October 14, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Waynesboro, Pa.— Manager A. R. Zook announces that his new opera house, Waynesboro. Pa., will soon be thrown open to the public. This theater is one of the most beautiful in the entire state of Pennsylvania and should meet with the greatest success.”
Page 151 of Waynesboro as We Knew it, by Todd Andre Dorsett (Google Books preview) has a large version of the photo Lost Memory linked to earlier.

J. W. Woltz was Waynesboro’s leading architect of the period, practicing in the city from 1893 until his death in 1918. He must have been a very conservative fellow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so Victorian a building as the Arcade Theatre that was built as late as 1916. It would have fit right in to San Francisco of the 1870s.

Ken Roe
Ken Roe on July 23, 2007 at 4:39 pm

The Strand Theatre was located at 11 E. Main Street, Waynesboro, PA. It had a seating capacity of 448 and was operating from at least 1941 into the 1950’s.