Casto Theatre

Joe Vogel on September 6, 2021 at 9:13 pm

A 1904 directory puts the Casto Theatre at 14 Rock Street. By 1905 the Casto was part of a small vaudeville circuit, controlled by Al Haynes, that included another Casto Theatre in Lowell, houses called the Savoy in Fall River and Lowell, and the Colonial Theatre in Lawrence. In 1906, the Casto Theatre Company lost control of the Fall River Casto, but continued to call itself the Casto Theatre Company, so it’s possible that the Fall River theater itself was renamed by the new owners, but I’ve been unable to confirm this.

I’ve been unable to find any references to the Fall River Casto after 1906. It isn’t listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, which has no theater listed at the address 14 Rock Street. The only theater listed on Rock Street was the Premier, with no number given. Our page for the Premier lists it at 20 Rock Street. Given how close 14 and 20 are, I suppose it’s possible that a bit of number shifting took place, and the Premier actually was the Casto with a new name. If that’s the case, though, the news has not reached any Internet page that I’ve been able to find.

A history of Fall River’s fires says that the Premier Theatre was a two-story wood framed building at the corner of Rock and Granite Street, and was destroyed in the great fire of 1928, along with everything else on its block, so whether the Casto was the same theater as the Premier or not, assuming it was still standing before the fire, it surely didn’t survive it.