Star Theatre

Joe Vogel on October 16, 2014 at 12:43 pm

The Star Theatre in Sarcoxie, Missouri, was mentioned in the August 28, 1920, issue of Motion Picture News. The manager was named J. J. Sprague. The Star Theatre changed hands in 1923, noted in this item in the December 1 issue of Exhibitors Trade Review:

“J. Hoshau is the new owner of the Star Theatre at Sarcoxie, Mo., having just recently purchased same from J. L. Neman. He will conduct same as a first-class motion picture theatre.”

The nomination form for the Sarcoxie Square Historic District says that the Star Opera House was at 507 Cross Street. The opera house was a second-floor hall, and that the building was leased for use as a movie theater in 1911, but the theater was probably in a ground floor storefront rather than the old opera hall (the document doesn’t specify, but does say that the ground floor was later occupied by a feed store and the second floor by apartments.) The Star Theatre operated until ca. 1940.

Joe Vogel on October 16, 2014 at 3:17 pm

I’d have expected the Star to operate, at least intermittently, until the Avalon opened, which the nomination form implies was 1936 (the year the Avalon’s operators leased the building.) Sarcoxie doesn’t appear ever to have been large enough to have supported two theaters, though it’s always possible that someone with more hope than sense reopened the Star after the Avalon began operating, but failed to keep it going long enough for it to get listed in the Yearbook.