Plaza Theatre
1210 Main Street,
Great Bend,
KS
67530
1210 Main Street,
Great Bend,
KS
67530
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The NRHP registration form for the Great Bend Central Business District says that the Plaza Theatre building was built in 1916 for Louis Zutavern, a member of an influential local family. It doesn’t give the name under which the house originally operated, but says that by 1920 it was operating as the Weber Theatre. By 1930 it had become the Plaza.
The Plaza was one of the earliest theaters in the Commonwealth chain, and remained in operation as part of the chain at least as late as 1954. I haven’t found a closing date, but it was definitely closed, yet still remembered and perhaps still intact, in 1968, when the September 11 Great Bend Tribune made reference to “…Republican headquarters, formerly the Plaza Theater.”
The Plaza Theatre and its manager, L. W. Morris, were mentioned in the November 22, 1930 issue of Motion Picture News. The Plaza was not among the four houses listed at Great Bend in the 1929 FDY, but I’ve been unable to discover if it was a new theater or one of the other theaters renamed.
New picture in the Photo section. Is this the old Plaza Theater? This century-old building sits at 1210 Main Street.