United Artists Theatre

Joe Vogel on September 5, 2024 at 5:25 am

The March 7, 1936 issue of Motion Picture Herald had this item about the United Artists:

:“J. J. Parker’s new United Artists theatre in Pendleton, Ore., has been opened following remodeling. The house has a seating capacity of 600. Victor M. Keady, for the past six years assistant manager at the Broadway in Portland, and prior to that for a number of years with Loew’s State in Los Angeles, has been named manager.”

The reference to remodeling made me wonder if the house had operated earlier under a different name, but if it did I’ve been unable to track it down. Through the early 1930s the only theaters active in Pendleton were the Alta and the Rivoli, both of which are accounted for. Earlier houses called the Arcade and the Rialto closed before 1929. As the earliest photos of the United Artists show a façade indicating construction no later than the 1920s, the building certainly had an earlier life, but perhaps only as a retail store or some other non-theatrical use.

Don Lewis on August 16, 2009 at 6:19 am

An icy wintry night time view from 1949 of downtown Pendleton and the United Artists Theatre.