Amusu Theatre
Reynolds,
GA
31076
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The earliest mention of the Amusu I’ve been able to find in The Butler Herald is this item from the July 4, 1918 issue:
“Opera Chairs Being installed at the Amusu.
“All Reynolds will hail with delight the announcement that Mr. J. T. Barrow is equipping the opera house, better known as the Amusu Theatre, with handsome opera chairs, and making and making other improvements to the building that will be admired and appreciated by hundreds of people who visit his place every week, and who have learned to appreciate the attractions that he presents securing as he does only the best and most interesting. On account of the house being in disorder while the work is in progress there will be no attractions at the Amusu this week nor next week, but as soon as the workmen have completed the building attractions will be resumed, when visitors will be greeted with a modern opera house, and the best picture money can procure will be reproduced.”
I’ve been unable to find any other references to an Opera House at Reynolds. The last ad in the Herald for the Amusu was July 29, 1920, and it said that the house would be closed for remodeling the next week, and would reopen on January 1, 1921. I’ve found no evidence that it ever reopened. By 1926 the only theater listed at Reynolds in the FDY was a 300-seat house called the Grand. The Grand’s first mention in the Herald was on June 24, 1920, about a month before the Amusu’s last ad, a contraindication that the Grand was an aka for the Amusu at that time, although it could have moved into the Amusu’s location later.
The Grand was still in operation in 1951. A 1927 Sanborn map of Reynolds shows “Moving Pictures” in a building that was then numbered 112 Marion Street, north side between Winston and Macon streets, but the lots have since been renumbered and all the old buildings on that block are gone in any case, so if the Grand and the Amusu were the same house, it’s been demolished. No building labeled Opera House appears on this map, so if the Opera House/Amusu was in a different location it was gone by 1927. No other Sanborn maps of Reynolds are available.