Mansfield theater continues revival

posted by Michael Zoldessy on June 23, 2009 at 3:50 pm

MANSFIELD, TX — In the Fort Worth Business Press, they tell the story of the nearly 100 year old Farr Best Theater and how the different owners over the years have kept this legend going.

Rhonda Meadows — and family members — are well on their way to breathing new life into one of Mansfield’s oldest businesses, the 92-year-old Farr Best Theater.

When a block of downtown Main Street in Mansfield was wiped out by fire in the early 1900s, one of the buildings that sprung up in the way of replacement represented the most modern mode of mass communication available to mankind.

Or at least it did in 1917 when the Farr Best movie theater came into being. Originally the Farr Best offered silent movies and “B” level vaudeville comedians, with a little Friday night bingo thrown in for good measure. When the talkies came along, so did Tom and Jerry cartoons, news reels outlining the tribulations and triumphs of war in the Pacific, Saturday matinees for the kids with Roy Rogers and thrilling 13-chapter serials in which in the final minutes of each segment the hero always appeared hopelessly doomed, only to somehow miraculously survive the next Saturday.

Theaters in this post

• Farr Best Theater