Palace Theatre

The Palace Theatre in Corpus Christi had a Reuter organ of three manuals and eight ranks, opus 214, installed in 1926. The Reuter Organ Company of Lawrence, Kansas, is still in business. Throughout its history it has made primarily church organs, but there were about fifty installations in theaters, mostly in Texas and Kansas, from 1919 to 1929.

The Palace Theater opened at Starr and Chaparral independently in the Summer of 1924. The theatre was closed in July of 1925 for a refresh. When the theater failed to reopen, Robb & Rowley / R&R took on the vacant venue and basically rebuilt the theater now with its entrance on Chaparral Street and better fire egresses, a pipe organ.

The “all new” Palace Theatre launched / relaunched on November 18, 1926 with an organ solo by Dave Levy who also supported the big film of the evening, Mary Astor in “Forever After” supported by “Open Spaces.” On October 24, 1928, the Palace was equipped with sound to remain viable beginning with the film, “The Lion and the Mouse.”

At the end of its 20-year lease, the theater operators signed on for a new 20-year lease and it received a shocking streamline moderne makeover to the plans of architect Robert L. Volger in 1946. (The theater’s organ was either removed during this update or in a previous update according to reports.) Volger’s work totally removed the theater’s original Mission Revival architectural style and would last until its closing after a fire in 1953.

Its final showing of “A Blueprint for Murder” was interrupted by a fire that destroyed the building on December 3, 1953. Its remains were razed in favor of a parking lot. The theatre was supposed to have been rebuilt to new architectural plans but that project did not materialize.