Family Theatre

Joe Vogel on April 21, 2022 at 4:52 pm

Motion Picture Herald of September 18, 1948 had this news:

“The new Rosalia Theatre, Rosalia, Wash., has opened. H. H. Wheeldon is the owner of the house, which replaces the theatre destroyed by fire several months ago. Mr. Wheeldon also operates five other houses in eastern Washington and Idaho.”

This probably accounts for the drop in seating capacity between the early 1940s and 1950. Although the item calls the house the Rosalia, I’m sure it was the Family. A 1951 Boxoffice item about Mr. Wheeldon said that he had leased his Family Theatres in two other towns to another operator. I suspect that all six of his theaters were called the Family.

The theater might have been at 606 S. Whitman Avenue (formerly Main Street.) Virtually all of Rosalia’s business are on Whitman Avenue, and this undated photo shows a theater, identifiable by the movie posters leaning against the front, at that location. Rosalia had a movie house at least as early as 1914, listed in the American Motion Picture Directory that year as the Lyric, on Main Street. The theater in the photo might have been the Lyric, and the Rose and later theaters might have been at different locations, but it’s possible that Rosalia’s theater was always at that location, even after the 1948 fire. Even if it was in a different building, it was almost certainly located on Whitman Avenue.