Cozy Theatre
6222 W. Maine Street,
Spirit Lake,
ID
83869
6222 W. Maine Street,
Spirit Lake,
ID
83869
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Currently an antiques shop.
Frances Berry was owner at the time of one of the fires.
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.
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.”
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 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.
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.