Elroy Theatre (I)

Joe Vogel on August 23, 2023 at 10:15 am

The October 2, 1933 issue of Film Daily reveals another aka for this house: “Elroy, Wis. — The Majestic has been renamed the Juneau and is now being operated by Edmund Mohns and Donald Wilcox.”

Yet another name was presented in the issue of April 9, 1934: “Elroy, Wis. — The Juneau theater has been renamed the Star and is now being operated by J. Eskin.”

This name might have been used only briefly, though, as the May 28 issue had this item: “ELROY—Star (formerly Juneau), transferred to Elroy Theater, Inc. by A. A. Suczycki.”

An October, 1914 Sanborn map of Elroy shows a “Motion Picture Theatre” on the second floor of a building at the southeast corner of Main and Franklin streets (modern address 140 Main Street.) As it is upstairs, I suspect that it was an existing hall converted to show movies, and was probably the Opera House that was listed in a 1911 Polk directory of Wisconsin businesses. The Opera House was also the only theater listed at Elroy in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.

While the Sanborn map proves a theater was at this location in 1914, the 1926 FDY lists the Majestic with 329 seats, and I doubt that this small structure could have held half that many. It might be that the Majestic began in the Opera house in 1914 but later found larger quarters. Or the FDY might have just gotten the capacity wrong.