Gem Theatre

You’re correct, Sir, regarding that building being much too small. Google maps are always a few numbers off on the exact address. Perhaps the Gem Theatre sat a couple of doors to the left, or on that now vacant lot to the right.
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The Gem was operated by my Grandfather, Troy Combs. Built in the early 1920’s it no longer exists. There is now a vacant lot where it once stood.

My father, Harold Combs, born in 1926 and my mother, Joanna Barton was born the previous day. My father’s family operated the Gem theater in Davenport and my mother’s family operated the Cozy theater in Stroud. Both small town theater owners from neighboring towns, they shared runs into Oklahoma City for films and supplies so my parents were thrown together in their cribs as both sets of grandparents became colleagues and even competitors. My parents were married after WWII and my father eventually went to work for the Bartons.

The Gem didn’t last and Troy Combs went on to become the Davenport Postmaster, while the Barton theater chain expanded from Stroud to Oklahoma City and beyond.

Joe E. Stribling ran the Gem from at least 1955, the date of a photo I just uploaded.

And we know when the Gem closed. Joe Vogel found the following one-paragraph story from Boxoffice, Aug. 13, 1962, under the Oklahoma City column:

Another little town, Davenport, a few miles east of Chandler, has lost its theatres. Joe E. Stribling and wife, who have operated the Gem Theatre and Rig Drive-In there for years, called it quits and closed both. The drive-in is being dismantled and the equipment stored in the Gem. They have a fine set of CinemaScope lenses and about 50 Simplex speakers, all for sale at a very reasonable price. Stribling was a manager for Griffith Amusement Co. and its successor, Video Independent, for many years, then entered exhibition on his own at the Ritz in Stroud, also in the Chandler area. For several years he has had a job with the telephone company which keeps him out of town during the week, while his wife is busy teaching piano. They admit they have not had time to look after the theatres properly. That and a decline in business caused them to call it quits.