EM-AR Theater

In 1911, the Mowbray & Robinson Lumber Company of Cincinnati purchased roughly 15,000 acres in Quicksand, Kentucky, building one of the largest sawmills in the region. Extension of the Ohio & Kentucky (O&K) Railway aided in the transportation. The influx of jobs led to a hotel, businesses, and the creation of a silent movie house by the company - the Gem Theatre - operated by Grover C. Blanton. Blanton died in August of 1915 leaving the operation to his wife.

In June of 1918, Jackson showman Colonel Tonie Zoellers took on the venue, renaming it as the EM-AR Theatre in honor of “M-R” / Mowbray & Robinson Lumber. It relaunched under that name June 22, 1918 with “Quo Vadis.” Meanwhile, Mowbray & Robinson churned out millions of board feet of hardwood as the self-titled “largest hardwoods operations in the world.”

Despite warnings about Mowbray & Robinson’s practices, by 1921, the overzealousness of the operation wiped out all of the mature, valuable hardwood trees leading to massive layoffs and the closure of the EM-AR Theatre. Then the clearcutting of the less valuable trees that took place into 1923 without replanting wiped out the entirety of the Quicksand lumber trade. Mowbray & Robinson had exhausted the lumber and left a shambles of the area. Reforestation would take too long to be profitable so they donated the land and some money to the State. The O&K railroad line was deemed abandoned in 1933. Quicksand never recovered, becoming an unincorporated community. All but one of the local buildings of the lumber boom era were gone by the 1990s, including the movie house.

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