Center Theatre

rivest266 on September 22, 2019 at 1:22 pm

Also closed in 1955

Joe Vogel on September 16, 2014 at 1:34 pm

The Center Theatre had a brief life. It would open on Monday, January 26, 1948, according to the article in the previous day’s edition of The Kingsport Times.

The newspaper also ran a brief article about the theater’s architect, Erle G. Stillwell, and his firm, Six Associates. Stillwell, though a master of the streamlined style of the day, revealed to the reporter that he much preferred to design theaters in the atmospheric style, which had by 1948 fallen out of fashion, and that he had a special affection for the Spanish and Mediterranean styles.

The article also gave the names of the other five of the Six Associates at that time: engineer Samuel Clinton Minnich, Jr., architects Henry Irving Gaines and W. Stewart Rogers, plus William Waldo Dodge, Jr. and Anthony Lord, each of whom was both an architect and an engineer.

Joe Vogel on November 22, 2010 at 4:30 am

The description accompanying this photo of the Center Theatre from the Kingsport Public Library collection, gives the address as 119-121 Commerce Street.

The public library of Henderson County, North Carolina, has published a book titled “Buildings as History” which is about the works of Hendersonville architect Erle G. Stillwell. The Center Theatre in Kingsport is listed as one of the many theaters he designed.

JackCoursey on October 20, 2007 at 5:32 am

Here is an archive photo of the Center Theatre.