State Theatre
201 W. Main Street,
Pawhuska,
OK
74056
201 W. Main Street,
Pawhuska,
OK
74056
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Additional Info
Previous Names: Jackson Theatre
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Opened as the Jackson Theatre on June 7, 1910. It was remodelled and became the State Theatre from July 21, 1928. Built inside existing retail space the State Theatre offered little in the way of ornamentation, depending instead on the strength of the current picture playing to draw a crowd. The State Theatre was closed in 1958. It was demolished on March 6, 1963.
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Rance
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Recent comments (view all 18 comments)
The last paragraph of this weblog post by Stevie Joe Payne says that the State Theatre was south of the courthouse, so it must have been on or near the northwest corner of Main and Grandview. As the Constantine Theatre is at 110 W. Main and is across the street and a bit farther east, 121 W. Main sounds about right for the State Theatre’s address.
109 W. Main must have been the lot between Kihekah Avenue and Grandview Avenue. As the building was listed as vacant on the 1927 insurance map, I’m thinking that it might have housed the Jackson Theatre.
Joe you were right about the location of the State theater…NW corner of Main and Grandview. It was still there when I moved to Oklahoma City after PHS graduation in class of 39. I have never seen a box office line as shown in a pic above. Gone with the Wind opened at the Kihekah with a “Whopping 25 cent ticket price.
I’ve been following the trail of Reproduco organs (photoplayer) mentioned in an ad from 1926. There are two references to Pawhuska OK in that ad. One is for the Jackson Theatre and there is a suggestion that the Jackson might have been owned by one Albert Jackson. The other reference in the ad is the sale of photoplayer to F.B. Pickrell also of Pawhuska. Any thoughts which hall Mr. Pickrell owned? If the State was around in 1924, it would be a candidate. (Of course, Reproducos other market was funeral homes, so for all we know Mr. Pickrell might have been a mortician!)
Will, the theater in which Mr. Pickrell (or Pickrel, as Motion Picture News spelled it) installed the organ in 1926 was probably the Constantine. See my comment of today on that page for more details.
This house was called the Jackson theater for many years before being remodeled and renamed the State in 1928. Here is an item about the reopening from the July 21, 1928, issue of Motion Picture News:
Albert Jackson had sold the Jackson Theatre to A. B. Momand and his partners in 1926. Albert Jackson of Pawhuska is listed in the November 8, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World as one of the movie exhibitors who had attended a recent convention in Oklahoma City. Given that the fire insurance map cited in an earlier comment by Lauren Durbin showed that there was a theater at the State’s location at least as early as 1912, it seems pretty likely that it was this house that Albert Jackson was operating in 1913.The house probably goes back even farther. The December 24, 1910, issue of The Moving Picture World has an ad for movies of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, and it says that the Oklahoma and Kansas rights to the films had been sold to Albert Jackson, Jackson Theatre, Pawhuska.
A list of movie theaters in the July 28, 1917, issue of The Billboard has only the Constantine Theatre listed for Pawhuska, with Albert Jackson as the manager of the 715-seat house. A list in the February 22, 1919, issue of The Billboard has only the Jackson Theatre in Pawhuska, and gives its seating capacity as 715. Again, Albert Jackson is the manager. I’m wondering if the identical seating capacities were a coincidence, or if the magazine conflated one theater with another one year, or if the names of theaters in Pawhuska did actually get shifted about during this period.
First rate detective work Joe!
Closed In 1958, Demolished In March 1963.
Opened on June 7, 1910.
In 1909, Albert Jackson took a lease for the ground floor of the new-build Floyd Building for Jackson’s Theater, a 640-seat auditorium. The third floor housed the Elks Lodge. The Hatfield Confectionery moved from across the street to be the de facto concession stand for the Jackson.
Under new ownership, Momand Enterprises Circuit, the building became the State Theatre on July 16, 1928 with audiences wowed by its new $25,000 Wicks Pipe Organ played by Lloyd Hamilton of Tulsa. On March 14, 1929, the venue added Vitaphone to play sound films. Assuring audiences that the “talkies” weren’t a distraction, the fad caught on. The State Theatre closed on February 26, 1956 with Randolph Scott in “Ridin' Shotgun” and Gary Cooper in “Blowing Wild” as the Coral Drive-In Theatre season started. It does not appear to have reopened. The building was demolished in March of 1963.
The untrue line in the entry is: Built inside existing retail space the State Theatre offered little in the way of ornamentation, depending instead on the strength of the current picture playing to draw a crowd. It was a theater at the building’s inception, remaining vacant from 1956 to demolition in 1963. Not a retail store - ever.