Pix Theatre

The Morningside / Hyde Park Addition neighborhood had a short-lived movie theatre called the Pix Theatre during and just after World War II. D.O. “Boyd” and Imogene Milligan ran the diminutive theatre on a subleasing agreement with a local church. The theatre launched August 25, 1944 with the film, “Song of Russia” starring Robert Taylor.

Milligan had worked at the Majestic Theatre in downtown Fort Worth from 1926 to 1930 moving on to run a newsstand. But running the Pix Theatre changed the couple’s lives forever. Granted, the Pix Theatre was rather forgettable. The 1926-built brick building replaced a greenhouse that was moved off the lot that year to make way for a lumber store turned O.B. Phillips Tavern following prohibition. The Tavern suffered a fire in 1937 gutting the interior.

The building remained vacant until from 1937 to 1943. The Glad Tidings Tabernacle of of the Assembly of God Church took on the location on August 1, 1943 on a short-term basis. The Milligan’s approached the Church operators about running a movie theatre that would share the space as a sub-run, discount double-feature house. Their Tabernacle of the Assembly the Calvary Church took on the location. The theatre was limited in presentational abilities and the Milligan’s designed their new dream theatre - the 7th Street Theatre in a better neighborhood.

As the theatre was in construction, the dominant exhibitor in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, Interstate Theaters, took the 7th Street Theatre over so the couple moved on to designing and creating the Poly Theatre in the Polytechnic Heights neighborhood of Fort Worth.

The Pix Theatre would close on December 19, 1946 with a successful third week of the exploitation film, “The Story of Bob and Sally” closing with two all-female screenings and the final all-male screening with Roger T. Miles live on the stage to provide life lessons. The building was used by another church, a florist and was home to a liquor store in the 2020’s as the neighborhood fortunes downtrended.

The Milligan’s, however, found their stride in film exhibition and would go on to run the Poly Thetare for its thirty-year leasing period from 1951 to 1981. And the locally-legendary Milligan’s would not retire though Mr. Milligan was 77 years old when they were able to reclaim their 7th Street Theatre in 1992. The Milligan family operated it until 1999 when the 94-year old Milligan retired from independent theatrical exhibition in 1999 followed by his son’s death on September 7, 1999 ending the family’s storied theatrical run.

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