Palace Theatre

The Elmwood Palace Theater is OPEN. It was purchased in January of 2016 and has been showing films since. The theater is most definitely open! The new website is: http://elmwoodpalace.com Please update the listing!

One glitch with the historical report; the Hahns operated until 1979, not 1997. The Palace was at that time the Reynolds' first moviehouse purchase, and he would go on buy other smaller-market houses, and to feature day-of-release showings.

The Palace was both repaired/reopened following the 2010 tornado and recently converted to digital projection with a great deal of community support. However, the Reynolds have been withdrawing from the industry, and have been challenged in continuing to operate at a profit while servicing remaining debt from the repairs and digital updating. They have accordingly listed the Palace for sale (as well as the Garden in Canton).

It is a tremendous challenge to operate a small-town single-screen moviehouse in 2015, particularly as the major studios ratchet up terms of pricing and audience size. I recall predictions from a few years ago that the conversion to digital would ease movie availabilities and costs, with the need for producing, transporting and handling film prints eliminated, but sadly this seems not the case. The studios seem to be more out for the almighty dollar than ever.

We recently had a presentation by a manager at the Chillicothe 2-screener, which a civic group purchased from Reynolds a few years ago and operates on a not-for-profit basis to benefit youth organizations, as we in Elmwood assess the future for the Palace. He detailed the aforementioned challenges.

The local shopper paper that came in the post today has an ad from them saying theyare now opening and running the movie Zookeeper- whihc starts today.

A few months back they had an ad saying they were looking for people to sponsor seats. I was not sure what had happened to them until that point. They are about 30 miles from me and I am at the northern end of the area the paper services, they are at the southern end. Their ads stopped last summer adn were replaced by ones for a theatre another 30 miles further south for awhile.

Gald to see they are back open. I used to go there a couple fo times a year when they were open.

Chuck: I wondered about the word “country” vs “county”! None the less, I hope that the Palace is able to make their roof remains and get back to normal operations soon!

Chuck: I agree, but in the meantime I thought an email of concern would show our support during their time of upheaval.

Though Lost Memory is no longer a CT member, I wish to thank him for the photos he posted in 2008 of this theatre with a now damaged roof. I wish the Palace well and hope that it is able to reopen in the very near future!

CWalczak: I heard on the radio about a movie theater being damaged by a recent tornado, but wasn’t sure where it was located until I googled an article and it mentioned the town being 30 miles west of Peoria so I figured the theatre was in Illinois. I then found it listed on CT which led me to your post with article. Thanks for posting.

Here is a more recent photo. Note the ridiculously low gas prices at the Mobil station.
http://tinyurl.com/yktv75e