Fort Theatre
2205 Central Avenue,
Kearney,
NE
68847
2205 Central Avenue,
Kearney,
NE
68847
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Additional Info
Architects: Edward J. Sessinghaus
Functions: Medical Center
Previous Names: Empress Theatre
Nearby Theaters
The Empress Theatre in downtown Kearney, Nebraska opened September 21, 1914. The main floor and the balcony seated 654. Depending on the seats admission was 5 cents, 10 cents or 15 cents for loge seats. It was destroyed by fire on January 9, 1940.
The Fort Theatre was built on the site, opening on August 1, 1940 with Deanna Durbin in “It’s a Date”. It was designed by architect Edward J. Sessinghaus and operated by new ownership. Seating was reduced to 450 with the addition of double-wide love seats at the ends of every other row. These seats allowed two people to sit together, plus they offset each row so that you were never looking into the back of someone’s head.
The Fort Theatre ceased operation in September of 1993. The building is now home to Fort Theatre Dentistry, Cosmetic Dentists.
Contributed by
TomScott
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Recent comments (view all 11 comments)
You may see a night time photo of the Fort Theatre with a brief description at the following website.
http://userweb.esu16.org/~cgodfrey/theater.html
More recent photo here:
View link
Here is a photo, circa 1979:
http://tinyurl.com/2vkc4q
From 2010 a photo of the Fort Theatre building and an additional view in Kearney.
A Photo I took back in Nov of 2007..
View link ..
RAC Photography
A few blocks from the World Theatre, the Fort Theatre occupies a prominent place on Central Avenue. It was originally built in 1914 in a Classical Revival style with decorative brickwork laid out in a Greek temple motif. After a fire gutted the building in 1940 it was gussied up with its current Art Moderne marquee. But the only film you’ll see there today is an X-Ray of your overbite since it is now the offices of Fort Theatre Dentistry. In lieu of an upcoming film the marquee states “New Patients Welcome.” The original lobby has been retained and converted into a waiting room complete with popcorn popper and red velvet ropes. As adaptive reuses go it’s pretty clever; better than tearing the old theater down as has happened in so many small towns across America.
The link to a nocturnal photo of the Empress Theatre in an earlier comment is dead, but it might have been the undated photo on this web page. Judging from the cars parked along Central Avenue I’d say the photo was taken within a couple of years of the theater’s opening.
Several interior photos of the Fort Theatre after its conversion to other uses can be found in the building’s NRHP Registration Form, currently available in the PDF format here. The house served as a bar and grill with live entertainment for a while before being converted into a dental office.
Grand opening ad posted.
The Empress theatres burns down on January 19th, 1940 and rebuilt and reopened as Fort on August 1st, 1940.
Fort theatre reopening 01 Aug 1940, Thu The Kearney Daily Hub (Kearney, Nebraska) Newspapers.com
Closed on November 1st, 1984, as the mall cinemas opened the next day.