Dreamland Theatre

This entry is actually for two different venues. The first is the Hippodrome Theatre that was an 800-seat venue built on Main Street roughly where the City of Wilson’s post office currently is. It was built in 1921 and run by Alva Matthews. The theatre launched March 3, 1921 with Clara Kimball Young in “Hush”. It was a wood framed building and, while very large, not an impressive structure.

Cleland Lysle had started the Rialto Theatre in 1921 as competition located where the city’s public library is. Operator Bill Koutsigos moved from South Texas and gave the Dreamland Theatre moniker to the that venue on February 13, 1922. First show for the Dreamland Theatre was Ruth Rowland in “The White Eagle”.

Gilliam & Powers bought out Lysle and Koustsigos. It’s a bit unclear but the Dreamland Theatre appears to have returned to its original home. On September 15, 1924, the Hippodrome Theatre fixtures and equipment were definitely moved to the Dreamland Theatre as a single theatre by Gilliam & Powers. The Hippodrome Theatre was torn down days later.

The Empress Theatre and Dreamland Theatre continued (and the Empress Theatre / former Rialto Theatre has its own Cinema Treasure page). So this entry continues here in the Fall of 1924 as the Dreamland Theatre incorporating the former Hippodrome Theatre. But that history is quite short from that point. In December of 1924, the Dreamland Theatre’s final booking was “American Manners” starring Richard Talmadge. Unfortunately, the theatre burned down ending its run. In a period of three months, the Dreamland Theatre and the Hippodrome Theatre were separate, combined, and then razed after the December 1924 fire.

Ferris M. Thompson, son of the West Coast movie theatre operator, read the news of the disastrous theatre fire and moved to Wilson constructing the Thompson Theatre that would launch less than five months later and buying out the Empress Theatre. He ran the Empress Theatre for two more years closing it early in 1928. And that’s how Wilson became a one-owner and one-theatre town heading into the sound era.

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