Uptown Theater

Joe Vogel on May 28, 2018 at 3:46 pm

The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists 225 Ohio Street as the address of the Electric Theatre. A photo of the rear of the building at CinemaTour shows old red brick painted over, and several windows that have been sealed up on both the first and second floors, so the building itself is quite old.

It is probably the same building the Electric occupied, though the Electric was most likely a storefront conversion occupying only part of the ground floor, and the building was probably gutted and rebuilt inside to house the Uptown, and the Streamline Modern front put on.

The Electric is never listed in the FDY, and is mentioned in the trade journals only in the 1910s, so there was probably a long gap of more than a decade between the closing of the Electric and the rebuilding of the structure for the Uptown.

Joe Vogel on September 5, 2014 at 10:18 am

J. T. Ghosen operated an earlier theater in Sedalia called the Star, at 116 W.Second Street. It suffered a fire in 1930, as reported in the October 22 edition of The Sedalia Democrat. The article said that Ghosen operated “…several other small theatres through Central Missouri.” The Star was repaired and reopened, as it was mentioned again in a September 1, 1932, Democrat article about an event at Ghosen’s New Royal Theatre in Versailles, Missouri.

ThePossum on October 18, 2013 at 8:13 pm

Here’s a site w/ blueprints & photos:

http://www.uptownsedalia.com/index.html

bob65203 on March 20, 2012 at 4:29 pm

The building has been donated to a non profit. It has been awarded a grant for an interior design study by the National Register of Historic Places. Once completed, a fund raising campaign will ensue in order to restore the Uptown as a venue for concerts, plays, classic or non-mainstream cinema, etcetera.

Allan on December 12, 2010 at 10:15 am

What a gorgeous theatre! The blue trim really makes the details of the building pop. Hope they manage to locate windows on the side or something to keep the facade intact if they convert the building into apartments.

Blackmassmovies on November 18, 2010 at 10:32 am

I think it’s 287 S. Ohio St.

Some photos from November 2010 here: View link

We talked to one of the builders working on the property opposite. Apparently the plan now is to convert the building into apartments since the plan for a Scott Joplin museum fell through. This may mean putting window’s into Robert Boller’s Art Deco facade.

Also blogged about the building here: View link