Aztec Theater
Van Alstyne,
TX
75495
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Additional Info
Previous Names: Royal Theater
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No theaters found within 30 miles
The Aztec Theater was the third, last and most popular theater for Van Alstyne. Reeves Cleaners opened on the lot where the Aztec Theater had stood for 27 successful years.
It had a big dedication day August 27, 1936 with its first manager being L.B. Crow. Later in its run the owners were June Meredith and the Lutzer brothers. Theater patrons of the time will remember Marlene Hill who in the year 1950 always made sure everyone in the theater had a box of popcorn. In its final years of operation it had been renamed Royal Theater. As with so many theaters the Aztec Theater was destroyed by a fire on December 9, 1956, which ended this busy little town’s theater history.
Contributed by
Billy Holcomb / Billy Smith / Don Lewis
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A 1941 image of the Aztec Theater in Van Alstyne. Showing at the time was “Billy the Kid” starring Robert Taylor.
The Aztec Theatre was renamed the Royal Theatre during its final years of operation until the theater’s destruction from the December 9, 1956 fire.
The fire was first witnessed by Howard Moore who was walking on the streets of Van Alstyne exactly an hour after midnight. He rushed to the telephone booth and called the only operator online, Mrs. Janice Overstreet. She sounded the siren from the fire department but was either broken or malfunctioned, so she ended up calling one of the firemen. Alongside Van Alstyne comes neighboring fire departments from Anna, Sherman, and McKinney who raced on-scene to fight the blaze. The fire melted the only telephone cable in the alley as well as the rear of the theater building and damage being reported by some of the T&PL Co. electric lines, causing 3/4th of the town’s phones being disconnected and dead. Only those east of the Southern Pacific railroad line were unaffected. The fire left Van Alstyne without a movie theater for the rest of time, leaving residents to watch movies either in McKinney or Sherman.