Ritz Theatre
122 SE 4th Street,
Topeka,
KS
66603
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Additional Info
Previous Names: Apex Theatre
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The first Apex Theatre was opened December 27, 1912 and was located at 302 Kansas Avenue It had 300 seats.
Around 1928/1929 a new Apex Theatre opened at 122 SE 4th Street with 550 seats. Like its predecessor it was an African American theatre. A grand two story stand alone brick theater building. Three round windows at top center above three cathedral windows. A vertical blade sign centered in front of these windows with a canopy below covering the entrance. Additional windows on each side of the second story with four cathedral type brickwork inlays to accommodate theater posters on the street level.
In 1940 it was renamed Ritz Theatre still operating as an African American theatre until at least 1955.
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Recent comments (view all 3 comments)
Apex Theater on Flickr.
I’ve found quite a few references to the Apex Theatre, dating as far back as its opening on December 27, 1912, but the sources all give the address as 302 Kansas Avenue. It must have had two different locations, but the second one, on Fourth Street, must have opened sometime between 1928 and 1933, when the photo currently displayed above was taken.
This entry from the 1928 Topeka Colored Directory tells of Mr B. F. Payne, operator of the Apex:
The original Apex was also mentioned in an article about Topeka in the June 27, 1914, issue of The African-American newspaper The Freeman, which said: “The Apex Theatre, on the main street, in the very heart of the business district, is a pretty and finely appointed Negro enterprise which Mrs. Wright manages.”A strange thing in this picture, my friend Stephen has one of his fathers pictures of a Meadow Gold Ice Cream truck in font of the Granada Theatre in St. Louis. Meadow Gold must have been a Midwest Dairy.