Agnes Theatre

dallasmovietheaters on December 27, 2022 at 9:22 am

J.W. Harper of the Ideal, Melba and former Leopard Street Theatre opened the Agnes Theatre at the confluence of Agnes and 14th streets in the Northwest Corpus Christi neighborhood. The neighborhood venue launched on June 15, 1928 with silent films, “The Scarlet Dove” with Lowell Sherman supported by “White Fury Episode I: The Stampede of Death” starring the World’s Strongest Man, Joe Bonomo.

Harper didn’t time the opening well and was concerned about the cost to convert the theater to sound offering the venue for sale in classified ad listing running from January of 1929 to June of 1929. The venue had a high profile celebration of the venue’s first anniversary on June 15, 1929. Harper appears to have closed the theater with the silent, “King of Kings” on November 18, 1929 to finally install sound. The sound-era of the Agnes took place on March 4, 1930 with Janet Gaynor in “Christina” featuring Western Electric sound on film.

R&R took on the independent theater running it until just after World War II. In 1947, R&R opened the Port Theatre and the Ayers Theatre in 1947, refreshed the Palace Theatre, and showed plans for the Varsity Theatre on Leopard Street, the Cactus Theatre on Agnes Street and a $40,000 refresh of the Agnes Theatre. The Agnes closed on April 19, 1947 for the refresh that didn’t happen nor did the Varsity Theatre nor did the Cactus Theatre as post-War theatrical habits in Corpus Christi were changing rapidly. A refresh of the Palace Theatre did transpire. The Agnes Theatre building has since been demolished.

rivest266 on November 27, 2020 at 3:18 pm

The first ad found on September 4th, 1928, which I posted in the photo section. it closed in 1947. Robb & Rowley-United did business in town as Corpus-Christ theatres.