Isis Theater
615 Main Street,
Lynchburg,
VA
24504
615 Main Street,
Lynchburg,
VA
24504
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Closed February 1st, 1954
Isis theatre closing 03 Feb 1954, Wed The News and Advance (Lynchburg, Virginia) Newspapers.com
Isis ad: Isis theatre reopening 19 Mar 1916, Sun The News and Advance (Lynchburg, Virginia) Newspapers.com
Became Isis (Not the Islamic state) on March 23rd, 1916. National Theatre opening 18 Mar 1916, Sat The News and Advance (Lynchburg, Virginia) Newspapers.com
The Belvedere theatre is first mentioned on August 10th, 1909 and reopened as National on November 23rd, 1914. National theatre opening 20 Nov 1914, Fri The News and Advance (Lynchburg, Virginia) Newspapers.com
Here is a photo of the Isis Theatre, with a photo of the sprawling Holiday Inn that now occupies the sites of both the Isis and the Paramount Theatre. The caption notes that the Isis was a reverse theater, with the screen at the entrance end of the auditorium.
The August 12, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World said that Jake Wells had secured Fred Karch to play the Seeburg organ at the Isis Theatre. Wells was one of the leading vaudeville impresarios and movie exhibitors in the south before selling his holdings in 1919.
I was a bit surprised to see the mention of a Seeburg organ. J. P. Seeburg Co., later known for its jukeboxes, was then known for making coin-operated player pianos and orchestrions, and I had no idea they had ever made theater organs. Apparently they were quite popular around 1916, when The Music Trade Review ran an article about the expansion of the Seeburg plant to accommodate the demand for theater pipe organs.
It isn’t there anymore.