Vernon Theatre

Joe Vogel on March 24, 2018 at 6:34 pm

The May 14, 1927, issue of The Moving Picture World had a brief item saying “The Vernon Theatre at Vernon, Texas, has been opened, the house seating 1,000.” This must have been a rebuilding job, as the Vernon Theatre was advertised in the local newspaper earlier.

A “Fifty Years Ago” feature in the February 13, 1977, issue of The Vernon Daily Record said “Work on the new Vernon Theater is being rushed and it is expected that all construction work will be finished by March 15, according to Charles Ellis, superintendent in charge of construction.”

The project must have suffered delays, as the March 24 issue of the newspaper carried a page of congratulatory notices to Dent Theatres on the opening of the new house that day. I haven’t discovered what occasioned the rebuilding of the house, but it might simply have been that the original building was antiquated.

The Vernon was remodeled just a few months before it was destroyed by fire in 1952. An announcement in the February 28 Daily Record said: “Your whole face will lift in a happy smile when you see THE WONDERFUL JOB OF REMODELING AT THE NEW VERNON THEATRE OPEN SOON.” Sic Transit Gloria.