Hetrick Theatre
220 E. Main Street,
Chanute,
KS
66720
220 E. Main Street,
Chanute,
KS
66720
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A Grand may have opened in 1925, but Chanute had a Grand Theatre at least as early as 1918. I’ve though it might be that Grand was the opening name of the house that later operated as the Main Street, though both names were in use simultaneously by 1926. I haven’t found the Main Street mentioned before the mid-1920s.
I haven’t found the Williams Opera House mentioned in movie theater trade journals, but the March 10, 1906 issue of The Billboard has an item about the closing of the Williams. It was apparently unable to compete against the newer Hetrick. It might be that the closed Williams was taken over as a movie venue for a while, and being the only theater in town for many years (it was built in 1880) it almost certainly hosted early exhibitions of moving pictures either as stand-alone entertainments or as adjuncts of travelling vaudeville shows. But so far I’ve found no evidence it ever operated as a regular movie house.
I think I found the Grand, and I even have a picture of it. It does not appear on the 1924 map because it hadn’t been built yet. It was at 205 E Main, now an insurance office. In 1924 there was a one story wooden printing operation there.
Any idea whether the Williams Opera House showed movies? It was open in 1906, but is condemned on the 1911 map, and was remodeled into a Montgomery Ward.
About 1920, Sanborn maps switched to being maddeningly vague. Everything is just a ‘store’. Banks, garages, and a few other things are still identified. Theaters should have been noted, as they carry an obvious insurance risk.
This item is from the June 9, 1923 issue of Exhibitors Trade Review: “Hedrick Opera House, Chanute, Kas., remodeled by Mark Wilson, will be re-opened soon.” The Hetrick had been operating as a movie house earlier though, as the following item from the August 2, 1919 issue of Moving Picture World indicates: “Chanute Theatres Under One Control.
“M. C. Wilson, of Chanute, Kansas, has bought out the Barker interests in the People’s Theatre. This purchase gives Mr. Wilson, who is already owner of the Hetrick and Grand, control of all the moving picture houses in Chanute.”
Chanute still had three movie houses in 1926, though the Hetrick had burned down. The FDY lists the Peoples, the Grand and the Main Street that year. Facebook posts indicate that the Main Street was at 122-124 W. Main, a location that housed a movie theater on the 1924 Sanborn, and that it lasted at least into the 1950s. The remains of the box office, just a protrusion on the façade, can still be seen on Google street view. I’ve been unable to track down the location of the Grand. Sanborn fell down on the job with the 1924 map, which has many buildings that lack any information about what they housed. One of those might have been the Grand.
Needs a history written up with the information Joe provided. The dates must be correct. The Jan. 1902 Sanborn shows a small wooden hotel on this corner.
The address was 220-224 E Main. The block is in pitiful shape, with only the 2 story building just to the left of the white (wooden?) building remaining. The site of the theater is a parking lot.
A newspaper page from the Norwood News, dated November 7, without a year displayed but from the period 1903-1905, has this item about the Hetrick Opera House:
As the Hetrick Opera House is mentioned in the February 13, 1904, issue of The Billboard, it must have opened either in 1903 or in early 1904.It’s possible that the Hetrick dated from the very early 20th century. The earliest reference to it I can find in Julius Chan’s guides is in the edition of 1904-1905.
The Hetrick Theatre dated to the late 19th century, and was also known as the Hetrick Opera House. The 1904 Cahn Guide lists it as a 1,050-seat second-floor theater. This photo shows that it was a three-story building in the Romanesque Revival style.
The Emporia Gazette of July 20, 1925, reported that half a block of business buildings at Chanute, Illinois, had been destroyed on July 10 by fire that had started in the Hetrick Theatre. The total loss was estimated at $500,000.