Elite Theatre
324 2nd Street,
Crawford,
NE
69339
324 2nd Street,
Crawford,
NE
69339
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We should also add the AKA information supplied long ago by Joe.
Status needs to be changed to demolished. The photo is from 1950, not 1915.
If the history is accurate, this building would have been on the second empty lot south of the alley on the east side of 2nd St between Main and Elm, perhaps with an address somewhere around 324.
The Elite Was Once Severely Damaged By A Fire On August 19, 1945, But Was Rebuilt Reopening Later That September.
According to Wikipedia, the Elite was created in space which previously housed a saloon around 1910. It was owned and operated by Mrs. Georgianna Higgins who is believed to be the first woman to own a theater.
I have uploaded photo, purported to be 1915, from the Nebraska Memories site of the Nebraska State Government.
Here’s one of those transactions. Boxoffice, July 20, 1959: “Frank Barnes has sold the Elite Theatre in Crawford, Neb., to Jim Stockwell. Barnes is moving to Washington state.”
Boxoffice has the story. The April 1, 1968, issue contains an item headed “San Francisco Man Leases Crawford, Neb., Theatre” It reveals that the Elite was owned by Isabella Strohmeyer, former operator of the Surf Theatre in San Francisco. The original Elite Theatre had been built by her mother, Georgianna Higgins, and had opened on May 29, 1909. Mrs. Higgins operated the original Elite for 22 years, and then built a new theater next door to replace it in 1931.
The wording of the item is not precise, but it appears that for some time (from the early 1930s until 1944) the house was leased to Sid Wisebaum and Linn McDonnel, who operated it as the Sioux Theatre. Mrs. Higgins died in 1941, and Isabella Strohmeyer took over operation of the theater in 1944, renaming it the Elite. In 1946, operation of the Elite was taken over by Fred Barnes, and that was apparently when Mrs. Strohmeyer decamped to San Francisco.
Barnes gave up the Elite in 1959, and it was subsequently leased to a number of operators over the years, closing and reopening several times. The lessee who was the subject of the 1968 item was Gerald Thomas, a 21 year old native of San Francisco. He operated the house for about a year.
The last mention of the Elite I’ve found was from the January 19, 1976, issue of Boxoffice, which said that Clarence Moffitt had reopened the house as a weekends-only operation.