Rialto Theatre
417 Broadway Street,
Paducah,
KY
42001
417 Broadway Street,
Paducah,
KY
42001
No one has favorited this theater yet
Additional Info
Architects: A.L. Lassiter
Previous Names: New Kozy Theatre, Little Theatre
Nearby Theaters
The Kozy Electric Theatre was opened on March 12, 1907. It closed on March 21, 1914. It was demolished and was replaced by the New Kozy Theatre which opened on May 21, 1914 with “The Triumph of an Emperor”. It had seating for 500. Following a Streamline Moderne style makeover it was renamed Little Theatre on May 30, 1936. In 1938 & 1939 it went over to live theatre use. On June 24, 1939 it went back to use as a movie theatre and was renamed Rialto Theatre.
The Rialto Theatre was operated by the Keiler family’s Columbia Amement Company, and they had also operated an Orpheum Theatre in Paducah, as well as the Arcade Theatre, Columbia Theatre and the Kentucky Theatre.
The Rialto Theatre was closed on October 24, 1954 with Dorothy McGuire in “The Enchanted Cottage”.
Contributed by
Ken Roe
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater.
Recent comments (view all 5 comments)
The Rialto has been demolished. It was located on the north side of the 400 block of Broadway Street, about mid-block. The site is now occupied by one end of a modern, two-story building housing an outfit called Four Rivers Behavioral Health.
The historic buildings to the east of the Rialto’s site are all still standing, though some have been considerably altered from the year (I’d guess around 1952) when this photo of Broadway Street, with the Rialto’s marquee at far left, appeared in Life magazine.
Given this theater’s location in the 400 block of Broadway Street, I’m almost certain that Rialto was a new name for the Kozy Theatre, which was operating in the 1910s.
The December 27, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World said that Rodney C. Davis and Rankin Kirkland intended to raze Davis’s 240-seat Kozy Theatre at 417 Broadway Street early the next year and replace it with a 500-seat house on the same site. I’ve found the Kozy Theatre mentioned as late as 1918, and what was probably the same house mentioned as the Cozy Theatre as late as 1925.
In the 1910s, Paducah also had a house called the Star Theatre, at 426 Broadway Street, almost across the street from the Kozy.
Here is information about the Kozy Theatre from the April 11, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World:
Architect A. L. Lassiter also designed the Auditorium Theatre at Dawson Springs, Kentucky.Chuck, Leo Keiler (the more frequent spelling I’ve found for his surname) was a partner in the Strand Amusement Company, at least as of 1921 and in 1929. Here’s an article about a partnership formed with the Switlow interests of Louisville, which appeared in The Film Daily of January 21, 1921:
An article in the same publication the following year noted that Leo Keiler and Harry Switow jointly oversaw construction of the new Columbia Theatre in Paducah.The Sunday, June 15, 1930, issue of The Film Daily had an article about a pending deal between the Strand Amusement Co. and Warner Bros.:
Find a Grave has Leo Keiler’s obituary, and it confirms that Keiler and Levy sold their theater buisness to Warners. The Keiler family apparently retained at least part ownership of at least some the the theater buildings, though, through the Columbia Amusement and Realty Company, which had been formed in 1923. Strand Amusements must have leased the buildings from Columbia, which owned the Arcade, the Orpheum (formerly the Opera House) and the Columbia itself.The Kozy Theatre is mentioned in the October 24, 1908 issue of The Billboard, along with the Star Theatre (also a movie house) and a vaudeville house called the Paducah Theatre.