Tokay Theatre
202 Duryea Street,
Raymond,
WA
98577
202 Duryea Street,
Raymond,
WA
98577
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George Reizner built a total of three Tokay Theatre’s in these Washington state towns: Raymond, South Bend, and Pe Ell from around 1910 until his death in 1927. All Tokay Theatre’s were movie and stage (vaudeville) theatres.
The Basil Family in Raymond were early theatre pioneers and built this theatre’s competitor, the Raymond Theatre in the late-1920’s. After George Reizner’s death, the Basil family purchased all three of the Tokay Theatre’s. The Raymond Federal Bank now occupies the site.
Contributed by
Ken Layton
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Old phots & organ history at this link:
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This enormous web page (dial-up warning) from the Pacific County Historical Society features a brief biography of George Reizner. It says that Raymond’s Tokay Theatre was built in 1920, at a cost of$150,000, and seated 1200.
The page also contains several photos of Duryea Street at various times, a few of which show the Tokay Theatre. Among them is this 1950s photo, from which it can be seen that the Tokay was a good-sized building, and probably had a balcony, so the large seating capacity is surely plausible.
In this undated aerial view of Raymond, the Tokay can be picked out in side view as the large, dark building with a stage house, a couple of blocks inland from the water tower.
A time line for 1920 on page 22 of the web document mentions the opening of the Tokay on October 4 of that year, and lists the names of the ushers.
The biography says that Reizner was from Lodi, California, and that at the time of his death he still owned a vineyard there. I came across a card in the L.A. library’s California Index which cited a May 1, 1937, article in Motion Picture Herald which said that T&D Jr. Enterprises was taking over the Tokay Theatre in Lodi. I wonder if George Reizner or some other member of the Reizner family had owned that Tokay theater?
The July 19, 1919, issue of trade journal The Lumber Manufacturer and Dealer reported that architect E.W. Houghton was preparing plans for a theater to be erected at Raymond, Washington.
The journal Engineering and Contracting reported on September 3, 1919, that George Reisner (spelling error) had awarded the contracts for the construction of the Tokay Theater at Raymond.
As no other theaters were being built in Raymond at that time, the Tokay must have been the Houghton project.