Moore Opera House

Joe Vogel on November 24, 2009 at 3:15 am

In 1949 Moore’s Opera House was taken over on a lease by Madge Stout, who was already operating the Robinson Grand Theatre for the estate of Claude Robinson. Madge Stout (sometimes appearing in Boxoffice items as Madge Stout Douds, or Madge Douds, her married name) was still operating Moore’s as late as 1957, as mentioned in the December 7 issue of Boxoffice- which means the theater was probably still open for at least part of 1958.

When Ralph Douds, Madge Stout’s husband, died in 1959, the notice in the May 11 issue of Boxoffice referred to Madge only as operator of the Robinson Grand, so it’s likely that Moore’s had been closed by then.

Boxoffice noted that “Colonel” Moore was still the owner of the building in 1949 when Madge Stout signed the new lease on the house. It’s likely that Claude Robinson had been operating Moore’s Opera House since the late 1930s at least. When the Grand burned in 1939, Boxoffice reported that its programs would be shifted to Moore’s until the Grand was rebuilt.

Erasmusinwv2 on July 4, 2012 at 9:36 pm

Is this theater still around? I am in the process of buying and rehabbing the Philippi Grand and if it proves profitable I want to work on reopening other theaters in WV, KY, OH, PA, MD, and VA. There are so many wonderful old theaters with more character than any modern cookie cutter places.

Joe Vogel on July 5, 2012 at 3:51 pm

There are issues with this theater’s reported opening year. This PDF of a walking tour of Clarksburg dates Moore’s Opera House to 1917, but also says that it opened on June 10, 1911 with a Charlie Chaplin movie called A Dog’s Lips. Chaplin’s first appearance in a movie was in 1914, and he never made a movie about a dog’s lips, though in 1918 he made one called A Dog’s Life.

I believe the walking tour text is the source of the current description for this theater, as part of it is identical. However, there was evidently no donation of land involved, and Frank Moore continued to own the property long after the theater was built on it as a speculative venture. An item datelined Clarksburg in the March 27, 1918, issue of show business journal The New York Clipper said this:

“What is said to be one of the handsomest and best appointed theatres in the entire South will be opened in Clarksburg shortly. It will be known as the Opera House, and will cost $150,000.

“Frank Moore, formerly a clerk in the United States Supreme Court, is the owner of the theatre. Jack Marks, who made a fortune with a movie theatre here, is manager”

The NRHP Registration form for the Downtown Clarksburg Historic District is more accurate than the guide for the walking tour. It says that the Opera House was built by Jack Marks on land owned by Frank Moore, that it cost $54,000 to build, and that it opened on June 10, 1918, and closed in 1956. It even gets the name of the Chaplin movie shown on opening night right. The document’s estimate of the cost of the project is probably more accurate than the one in the Clipper, too. The Clipper item was most likely sent in by either Jack Marks or Frank Moore, and such press releases typically gave exaggerated estimates of costs.

Opera House was a somewhat grandiose name for this theater. It was a smaller house than the earlier Robinson Grand (AKA Rose Garden) Theatre, and was apparently intended to serve as a movie house from the beginning, though it also had adequate stage facilities. An item in the February 19, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World says “Frank R. Moore is having plans prepared for a $30,000 moving picture theatre.” This is most likely the project that evolved into the Opera House.

I’m also wondering about the reported seating capacity of 1,150. I’ve seen that exact number on other web sites, CinemaTour and Silent Era, but none cite a source for the number. I came across something about the Powers trial in 1931 (which I have since lost track of) that gave the seating capacity of the Opera House as 600. I don’t know if that was the actual capacity of the theater, or its capacity as it was reconfigured for the trial. Maybe a Film Daily Yearbook would give a different capacity (though that not-always-reliable publication might have been the unnamed source for the 1,150 the three web sites all give, of course.)

Joe Vogel on June 29, 2015 at 12:54 pm

The second to last photo on this web page shows the entrance to the Moore Opera House sometime after the introduction of talking pictures. The marquee advertises “Vitaphone Presentations.”

Joe Vogel on June 30, 2015 at 11:20 am

Also in the photo Rob uploaded, at the right, is a partial view of the Orpheum Theatre after it had been converted for use by the Monongahela Power Company.