Moon Theatre

This page was about the first Moon Theatre. The first Moon Theatre was first operated by the one-and-only Walter Bradley who had started his theatre business there right when the Moon Theatre opened, which it opened its doors on July 30, 1925 with Colleen Moore in “Sally” along with an Our Gang comedy in “In Big Business” and a performance by the theatre’s 4-piece orchestra named after the theatre.

After a 19½ year run, the theatre was caught in an explosion and a fire on March 9, 1944, which was considered as the worst fire in the city of Neligh’s history, caused by an electric failure. The explosion occurred an hour after the fire began gutting caused by accumulated gas that blew out both ends of the theatre and lifted the roof about ten feet into the air. Plate glass windows nearly a block away were broken by the force of the blast. Two men were injured with one completely critical. The list of Fire Departments that responded to the call were Neligh, Elgin, Oakdale, Tilden, Clearwater, and Brunswick. This caused an estimated $200,000 of damage though substantially covered by insurance from the destruction of the Moon Theatre, the J.C. Penney store, the Hewitt jewelry store, and the Wanek Drug Store. Right when the fire occurred, an alarm hasn’t been sounded until 20 minutes later. The Moon Theatre was originally scheduled to show its second out of its two-day run of “Nine Girls” and “Uncensored” but was cancelled due to the explosion and fire.

Walter Bradley survived the explosion and fire. As he made up his mind to continue his theatre operation at the Palace Theatre in the nearby town of Clearwater for the following few months until being time for the rebuilt of the Moon Theatre. The brick work on the front was done by Mr. Overton, and Bradley (the long time owner of the Moon) had returned back to his duties at the Moon. Grant Bailey would then take over operations at the Palace Theatre in Clearwater until the Palace Theatre was heavily damaged by a fire on June 14, 1945.

The Moon Theatre was then rebuilt as the New Moon Theatre with a 562 seating capacity, a 25ft stage, fireproof machinery, and a 35ft tower marquee. It then opened its doors on September 28, 1944 with Red Skelton in “Bathing Beauty” along with a few unnamed short subjects (but a strange error shows that the short subjects were not listed on the grand opening advertisement page, but were listed on the article). The New Moon Theatre has its own Cinema Treasures page.

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