Cozy Theatre
6222 W. Maine Street,
Spirit Lake,
ID
83869
6222 W. Maine Street,
Spirit Lake,
ID
83869
No one has favorited this theater yet
The Idaho State Historical Society notes that Henry Krech built the first store in Spirit Lake in 1907 and in the 1920’s it became the Cozy Theatre.
The Spokane Daily Chronicle reported on April 24th, 1928, that the Cozy Theatre was reopening after being destroyed by fire the previous December. The Film Daily Yearbook of 1928 listed it with 200 seats while the FDY of 1945 listed it with 249 seats. In the early-1940’s it was listed for a while as the Family Theatre.
In May of 1978 the Chronicle reported that the building was being reopened as a laundromat and the owner had found the original Cozy sign, which he placed on the building. The Spirit Lake Historic District, which includes Maine Street, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
It’s the second building from the corner of 4th Street and Maine Street, between Old West Hardware Co. and Jo’s Hole Saloon. According to the Chamber of Commerce listings, C’s Train & Antique Shop was the occupant of the building in 2013. Flickr also has some very good photos of the building.
Contributed by
rpierce
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 7 comments)
There was a house called the Cozy Theater operating in Spirit Lake at least as early as 1919. That year, the February 12 issue of The Insurance Press reported that the building and contents of the Cozy Theater had been destroyed by a fire on January 18. It must not have been a costly building, as the loss was estimated at a mere $3,000. This might have been a predecessor of the Cozy Theatre in the Kregh building.
The building as shown in the ‘70s photo says “1907” over the door and the architecture looks more typical of a store of that era (the article above says the original Cozy started life as a store built in 1907) than of a rebuilt theater in the '20s…it may well be that the fire gutted the building but left at least some of the original brick/stone (hard to tell) walls standing.
What a trippy place.
Correction: two fires. Does seem a bit improbable…until I look at the building! Looks like it might have been through a fire or two.
The founder of the Cozy Theatre was named Henry Krech, not Kregh. Every document, both modern and historic, that I’ve seen on the Internet uses the name Krech, including this item from the April 6, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World: “Spirit Lake, Idaho. — H. Krech has opened a new motion picture theater here.”
It was because the letter in the photo looked more like a C than a G to me that I decided to check the Internet for period sources. I think the stone carver just used a boxy style and overdid the extensions. Also, enlarging the picture I don’t see the cross-bar on the lower extension that would indicate a G.
Frances Berry was owner at the time of one of the fires.
Currently an antiques shop.