Ritz Theatre

Joe Vogel on April 19, 2022 at 2:44 am

The Queen Theatre was mentioned in the February 2, 1922 issue of The Celina Record. A 1937 article about the theater’s operators, Mr. and Mrs. J. T. McClure and their son Richard, said that the Queen had been in the last building on the street running along the north side of the square. The article did not specify which of the two storefronts in that building housed the theater, but it would have been at either 301 or 303 West Pecan Street. When the first Ritz Theatre burned in 1946, the new Ritz was built in the former Queen building, but being larger it occupied both storefronts.

The first Ritz was down the block from the Queen’s location, probably at either 307 or 309 Pecan. The 1937 article said that the McClures had been in the theater business at Celina for most of the previous twenty years, and that their original theater (no name was given) had been on the south side of the square. It didn’t say how long that house had remained in operation, but did note that prior to the McClures arrival movies had been shown in the town’s old opera house, which had been upstairs over the old Post Office.