Royal Theatre
Burro Alley,
Morenci,
AZ
85540
Burro Alley,
Morenci,
AZ
85540
1 person
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While searching for information about movie theaters in Bisbee, Arizona, I came across an articlea bout Morenci in the October, 1918, issue of Safety Engineering (Google Books scan.) It says that movies were then shown in a 450-seat public hall in the Morenci Club, a building erected and maintained by Phelps Dodge & Company, the corporation that dominated this copper mining town. Its possible that the club was the same building that later became the YMCA that thegrinch remarked about in the previous comment. There are interior and exterior photos.
The photo linked in earlier comments has gone missing again, but I found this one showing the Royal Theatre at lower right in a postcard from the 1950s.
A thousand thank you’s to Lost Memory for his photo link. With it I finally cracked the code – to the Missing Link, at least partially. For years I have been trying to find out more information about a long ago Link theatre organ that was supposedly shipped to the YMCA in MOrenci, AZ in 1926. The building and that entire section of oldMorenci is apparently semi-ancient history, demolished when the huge open pit copper mine waw expanded. Possibly this occurred in the late 40s or early 50’s. Through the photo link Lost Memory of the Royal theatre I kept exploring and found a good picture of the YMCA building. Quite a impressive building for a dusty, backwater little mining town in 1926 Arizona! And when I zoomed the downloaded photo what should pop up but ANOTHER Royal theatre which appears to be part of the YMCA complex or attached to it. Further comparisons of other photos of more historic buildings in the link indicate that the first Royal was across the street from a large equally impressive original Morenci Hotel. The vertical “theatre” sign is easily seen in the 2nd photo after zooming and scrolling horizontaly across the street. I am awaiting a reply from someone the State Librarian referred me to in Greenlee CO in hopes she can provide some people and sources in that area that can provide good details on dates, architect, etc for both theatres. From looking at the wonderful pictures of the first Royal and the adjacent hotel I suspect both were designed by Henry Trost a well known early architect that did many historic buildings in Tucson and El Paso.
Contact me direct at ‘’ if anyone can shed additional light on thesubject in the meanwhile. Thx.
The link isn’t working.