The January, 2001 issue of Boxoffice said that Eastern Federal had installed a device called a Tivoli Starlight Panel in their Starlight Cinema at Anderson. It projected star patterns on the ceiling of the lobby, including signs of the zodiac. The theater held a weekly contest in which the first patron to identify which constellation was being displayed received a free movie pass.
News that ABC-Southeastern Theatres had leased space in the new Anderson Mall for an 800-seat theater appeared in the March 20, 1972 issue of Boxoffice. The house most likely didn’t open until the second half of the year, but I’ve been unable to find any announcement of that event.
An announcement by Frederick Mercy Jr. of a 1,000-seat twin theater to be built near the Yakima Theatre Company’s Tower Drive-In at Union Gap appeared in the January 3, 1972 issue of Boxoffice. This was the first phase of a project that would later include the demolition of the drive-in and its replacement by retail space. The entire project was being designed by Yakima-based firm Doudna-Williams Architects (Richard Miles Doudna and Arthur Robert “Bob” Williams.)
An item in the March 15, 1976 issue of Boxoffice told of three projects then underway for the Fairlane-Litchfield circuit (mistakenly called Fairlane-Ritchfield in the article) including this house in Anderson. The three auditoriums on the Anderson location were to seat 400, 300, and 200.
The timing and description of this project noted in the August 7, 1918 issue of Building and Engineering News makes it a very good candidate to have been the Strand: “Contract Awarded. THEATRE Cost, 25,000 PHOENIX, Arizona. Washington St. Two-story Class ‘B’ moving picture theatre. Owner — A. C. Hubbard, Redlands. Cal. Architects— Alfred W. Rea and C. E. Garstang, 720 Black Bldg., Los Angeles. Contractor— A. E. Taylor, Redlands, Cal. and Y. M. C. A. Bldg., Phoenix.”
Architects Alfred W. Rea and Charles E. Garstang began their practice in Joplin, Missouri, in 1901, but were working in Los Angeles by 1914, when they designed a building for the Standard Oil company in Whittier.
Movies in Victoria predate this building. The April 1, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World mentioned “R. A. Caldwell, of South Hills, Va., who is operating a string of small houses at South Hill, Blackstone, Lawrenceville, Clarksville, Burkesville, and Victoria, Va.”
This item from the June 3, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World might be about the Cameo Theatre’s origin: “Will Build in Lawrenceville, Va.
“Lawrenceville, Va.—This place is soon to have a new and modern motion picture theater as a result of a fire in the operating room of the Opera House during which the five reel subject ‘The Sins of the Mothers,’ V-L-S-E., and a single reel Universal was destroyed. The owners of the building, which also houses a bank, refuse to allow the exhibition of motion pictures there in the future. E. K. Fox, who has been operating in the Opera House and who also has the Opera House at Snow Hill, Va., is fixing up a tent to use during the summer. He expects to have his new house ready early in the fall.”
A lawsuit underway in 1955 revealed that the Victoria Theatre occupied half of the ground floor of a three-story brick building, 50'x88, erected in 1922 as the Patrick Henry Hotel. This Facebook page has a photo. Comments below it say the house closed around 1955 or 1956, and that the building was demolished in 1973. The timing of the closure suggests that the Victoria was one of those numerous small town theaters that were unable to afford installing wide-screen equipment in the mid-1950s.
Blackstone had a house called the Bijou theatre in 1913, advertised as part of the American Motion Picture League in the December 20 issue of Moving Picture World.
I don’t know if this is the same place or not, but the September 5, 1930 issue of The National Exhibitor reported that the newly remodeled and redecorated Nottoway Theatre in Blackstone, Virginia, had reopened for the fall and winter season. Three shows a week would be presented.
The April, 1905 issue of The New York Clipper contained an ad from manager William Harris soliciting attraction for the Blackstone, Virginia Opera House, touting “new scenery, new management.” Seating capacity of the upstairs house was 606. Could that have been this place? The second floor Opera House at Blackstone, Virginia, was also listed in the 1910-1911 Cahn guide with 600 seats.
A second floor theater managed by an R. D. Patterson was listed at Chase City in the 1912-1913 Cahn guide, but no name was provided. An “Images of America” series book has a photo of the Town Hall and the caption mentions the theater, calling it the Opera House. It says that in June, 1909 it was leased to a Mr. Stearms who presented movies one or two nights a week. It also says that in 1920 (but perhaps 1916?) it was leased to C. E. Geoghegan for use as a movie house until the one he was building was completed.
This was the Cozy Theatre, according to the NRHP registration form for the Chase City Warehouse and Commercial Historic District. It was built ca.1920 by C. E. Geoghegan (though the registration form misspells his name as Geogehan.) I think the form may have gotten more than Mr. Geoghegan’s name wrong. The December 23, 1915 issue of Manufacturers Record ran this item under “Theaters”: “Va., Chase City.-C. E. Geoghegan let contract to J. T. & S. J. Reynolds, Chase City, to erect motion-picture theater at 1231⁄2 Main St., 2 stories; 26x90 ft.; brick; metal roof; concrete floor; electric light; concrete walk; cost $3500. (Lately noted.)”
On the 1913 Sanborn, 123 ½ Main would have been just north of the drug store on the corner of 4th St. and Main. The drug store’s old number (124) still appears on the 1921 Sanborn, along with its new number, 400, right next door to the movie theater. Unless there was a very long construction delay (which is quite possible), Mr. Geoghegan’s Cozy Theatre could have opened in 1916.
As Mr. Geoghegan owned the adjacent stores as well, it seems likely that the Cozy was expended into at least part of that space by 1926, accounting for the larger seating capacity then. Geoghegan was still operating the Cozy as late as 1930, when the May 5 issue of National Exhibitor reported that he would reopen his redecorated Cozy Theatre that day with new seats, new flooring, and a new Royal Amplitone sound system.
The brief item reporting the destruction by fire of the Mecca Theatre that appeared in the March 6, 1948 issue of Boxoffice said that the house had seated 750. Perhaps an error? The NRHP registration form for the Chase City Warehouse and Commercial Historic District says it had 600. The August 28, 1948 Boxoffice said that Ridley Green was planning to open the rebuilt Mecca on September 15.
The Mecca theatre was purchased by a local group in 2016, and they have been working toward its restoration and reopening since. They maintain this web site for the project.
If the page Rob found is accurate, and the Princess opened in 1913, then this is not the Princess unless the 1913 opening was just a re-opening under a new name. But 120 N. Wabash having been a theater on the 1912 Sanborn, and the Princess dating from 1913, makes it more likely that this was the Star Theatre, at least in 1912.
The 300-seat Apex Theatre is first listed at Lumberton in the 1942 FDY, along with a 200-seat Royal Theatre and a 250-seat Ladner Theatre which is listed as closed. The 1941 yearbook had listed the Ladner, the Royal, and a Royal Portable Theatre. One local reminiscing on a Facebook page recalls seeing “Mad Max” and “The Amityville Horror” at the Apex, so it operated at least as late as 1979.
Another Facebook comment says that the theater is now occupied by a church called His Place Worship Center. The church’s address is 209 W. Main Avenue. Google street view shows a very modern front section on the building, but the view along the side shows an older structure farther back, which was surely the theater’s auditorium.
I wonder if this house could have been the Princess Theatre? This web page lists movies being shown at the Princess Theatre in Howard, Kansas, as published in the January 29, 1914 issue of the Howard Courant.
Howard also once had a five and ten cent movie house called the Star Theatre, but all I’ve found out about it is that it once had a manager named C. E. Shull. As far as I’ve been able to discover, Star and Princess were the only two theater names used in Howard prior to the 1925 opening of Crook’s Opera house. Of course we can’t rule out the possibility that Star and Princess were both name used by this house at different times.
I’ve had no luck discovering anything about the Aer Dome, or the anonymous theater across the street, but I did find that the town’s later theater was on this same block. This web page has a bit about it, and a rather dark and blurry photo. It was next door south of the two-story brick building currently housing the Bear Den bar, and was built in 1925 as Crook’s Opera House, replacing an upstairs house of the same name that had burned. It was later called the Howard Theatre, and in 1940 was remodeled and renamed the Plaza Theatre.
A Facebook page for Ash Grove has a thread mentioning the Gaiety Theatre on this post. I also came across an item in the January 11, 1930 issue of The Billboard saying that the Gaiety Theatre at Ash Grove had been remodeled and reopened. The Gaiety doesn’t appear in the FDY until the 1932 edition, when it had 250 seats. The 200-seat Grand was also still listed that year.
The March 16, 1959 issue of Boxoffice said that John Cawlfield had recently had wide screen equipment installed in his theater at Ash Grove and would present his first CinemaScope feature that week. The May 23, 1960 issue of the same journal said that Cawlfield was discontinuing unprofitable operations on Tuesday and Friday nights, and would henceforth open the theater only on Wednesday and Saturday.
The Regent is mentioned in the June 16, 1923 issue of Exhibitors Trade Review which said the house had just been purchased by Messrs. F. W. Meade, Jr. and Sr., who had also acquired the Cozy and Elite Theatres of Pratt, Kansas.
The October 30, 1926 issue ofMoving Picture World said that the Regent Theatre at Eureka, Kansas was being remodeled.
This item from the December 18, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World had to have been about the New Aristo Theatre (Gaulbert Avenue was formerly called A Street.) There is an interesting bit of information about Architects Joseph & Joseph at the end: “New House at Second and A Streets.
“Joseph & Joseph, Louisville architects, have applied to the building department for a permit for the erection of the new moving picture theater at Second and A streets, and it is now certain that the new theater will shortly be in operation. The permit will probably be issued this week and calls for a theater to seat 750 people, to be built at a cost of approximately $15,000 for the building proper, without estimating the cost of heating, lighting or ventilation installations, which will bring the total cost of the house up to about $25,000. An interesting feature of the plans for this theater are that it is the thirty-eighth theater which the architects have built during the past few years, showing that the concern is obtaining a monopoly on this business in Louisville.”
The Western Plaza Theatre was earlier than I’d thought. An article about it appeared in the December 18, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World. It began thusly: “ON JULY 31 the Western Hills Amusement Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, threw open for business the doors of a new moving picture theater which is very nearly the handsomest in Cincinnati, and this is the more significant in view of the fact that the house is one of the numerous and rapidly increasing class located at a considerable distance from the heart of the city, in a residence suburb. Price Hill, whose location suggested the name of the company and of the theater, is the suburb in question, and the new house, which is known as the Western Plaza, is easily the most luxurious and complete house in that part of the city.”
The article goes on to note many features of the design, which was by local firm Zettel & Rapp. The whole article can be read on this page at Internet Archive.
Historic Detroit.com says that the Fox Washington Theatre was designed by Frederick T. Barcroft, though it was for many years mistakenly attributed to Arland Johnson.
This was one of eight theaters designed by C. Howard Crane that had so far been built for John Kunsky, according to the December 11, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World.
The January, 2001 issue of Boxoffice said that Eastern Federal had installed a device called a Tivoli Starlight Panel in their Starlight Cinema at Anderson. It projected star patterns on the ceiling of the lobby, including signs of the zodiac. The theater held a weekly contest in which the first patron to identify which constellation was being displayed received a free movie pass.
News that ABC-Southeastern Theatres had leased space in the new Anderson Mall for an 800-seat theater appeared in the March 20, 1972 issue of Boxoffice. The house most likely didn’t open until the second half of the year, but I’ve been unable to find any announcement of that event.
An announcement by Frederick Mercy Jr. of a 1,000-seat twin theater to be built near the Yakima Theatre Company’s Tower Drive-In at Union Gap appeared in the January 3, 1972 issue of Boxoffice. This was the first phase of a project that would later include the demolition of the drive-in and its replacement by retail space. The entire project was being designed by Yakima-based firm Doudna-Williams Architects (Richard Miles Doudna and Arthur Robert “Bob” Williams.)
An item in the March 15, 1976 issue of Boxoffice told of three projects then underway for the Fairlane-Litchfield circuit (mistakenly called Fairlane-Ritchfield in the article) including this house in Anderson. The three auditoriums on the Anderson location were to seat 400, 300, and 200.
The timing and description of this project noted in the August 7, 1918 issue of Building and Engineering News makes it a very good candidate to have been the Strand: “Contract Awarded. THEATRE Cost, 25,000 PHOENIX, Arizona. Washington St. Two-story Class ‘B’ moving picture theatre. Owner — A. C. Hubbard, Redlands. Cal. Architects— Alfred W. Rea and C. E. Garstang, 720 Black Bldg., Los Angeles. Contractor— A. E. Taylor, Redlands, Cal. and Y. M. C. A. Bldg., Phoenix.”
Architects Alfred W. Rea and Charles E. Garstang began their practice in Joplin, Missouri, in 1901, but were working in Los Angeles by 1914, when they designed a building for the Standard Oil company in Whittier.
Movies in Victoria predate this building. The April 1, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World mentioned “R. A. Caldwell, of South Hills, Va., who is operating a string of small houses at South Hill, Blackstone, Lawrenceville, Clarksville, Burkesville, and Victoria, Va.”
This item from the June 3, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World might be about the Cameo Theatre’s origin: “Will Build in Lawrenceville, Va.
“Lawrenceville, Va.—This place is soon to have a new and modern motion picture theater as a result of a fire in the operating room of the Opera House during which the five reel subject ‘The Sins of the Mothers,’ V-L-S-E., and a single reel Universal was destroyed. The owners of the building, which also houses a bank, refuse to allow the exhibition of motion pictures there in the future. E. K. Fox, who has been operating in the Opera House and who also has the Opera House at Snow Hill, Va., is fixing up a tent to use during the summer. He expects to have his new house ready early in the fall.”
A lawsuit underway in 1955 revealed that the Victoria Theatre occupied half of the ground floor of a three-story brick building, 50'x88, erected in 1922 as the Patrick Henry Hotel. This Facebook page has a photo. Comments below it say the house closed around 1955 or 1956, and that the building was demolished in 1973. The timing of the closure suggests that the Victoria was one of those numerous small town theaters that were unable to afford installing wide-screen equipment in the mid-1950s.
Blackstone had a house called the Bijou theatre in 1913, advertised as part of the American Motion Picture League in the December 20 issue of Moving Picture World.
I don’t know if this is the same place or not, but the September 5, 1930 issue of The National Exhibitor reported that the newly remodeled and redecorated Nottoway Theatre in Blackstone, Virginia, had reopened for the fall and winter season. Three shows a week would be presented.
The April, 1905 issue of The New York Clipper contained an ad from manager William Harris soliciting attraction for the Blackstone, Virginia Opera House, touting “new scenery, new management.” Seating capacity of the upstairs house was 606. Could that have been this place? The second floor Opera House at Blackstone, Virginia, was also listed in the 1910-1911 Cahn guide with 600 seats.
A second floor theater managed by an R. D. Patterson was listed at Chase City in the 1912-1913 Cahn guide, but no name was provided. An “Images of America” series book has a photo of the Town Hall and the caption mentions the theater, calling it the Opera House. It says that in June, 1909 it was leased to a Mr. Stearms who presented movies one or two nights a week. It also says that in 1920 (but perhaps 1916?) it was leased to C. E. Geoghegan for use as a movie house until the one he was building was completed.
This was the Cozy Theatre, according to the NRHP registration form for the Chase City Warehouse and Commercial Historic District. It was built ca.1920 by C. E. Geoghegan (though the registration form misspells his name as Geogehan.) I think the form may have gotten more than Mr. Geoghegan’s name wrong. The December 23, 1915 issue of Manufacturers Record ran this item under “Theaters”: “Va., Chase City.-C. E. Geoghegan let contract to J. T. & S. J. Reynolds, Chase City, to erect motion-picture theater at 1231⁄2 Main St., 2 stories; 26x90 ft.; brick; metal roof; concrete floor; electric light; concrete walk; cost $3500. (Lately noted.)”
On the 1913 Sanborn, 123 ½ Main would have been just north of the drug store on the corner of 4th St. and Main. The drug store’s old number (124) still appears on the 1921 Sanborn, along with its new number, 400, right next door to the movie theater. Unless there was a very long construction delay (which is quite possible), Mr. Geoghegan’s Cozy Theatre could have opened in 1916.
As Mr. Geoghegan owned the adjacent stores as well, it seems likely that the Cozy was expended into at least part of that space by 1926, accounting for the larger seating capacity then. Geoghegan was still operating the Cozy as late as 1930, when the May 5 issue of National Exhibitor reported that he would reopen his redecorated Cozy Theatre that day with new seats, new flooring, and a new Royal Amplitone sound system.
The wikitree page for Christopher Wilson Geoghegan says that he was still operating the Star Theatre at the time of his death on August 26, 1964.
The brief item reporting the destruction by fire of the Mecca Theatre that appeared in the March 6, 1948 issue of Boxoffice said that the house had seated 750. Perhaps an error? The NRHP registration form for the Chase City Warehouse and Commercial Historic District says it had 600. The August 28, 1948 Boxoffice said that Ridley Green was planning to open the rebuilt Mecca on September 15.
The Mecca theatre was purchased by a local group in 2016, and they have been working toward its restoration and reopening since. They maintain this web site for the project.
If the page Rob found is accurate, and the Princess opened in 1913, then this is not the Princess unless the 1913 opening was just a re-opening under a new name. But 120 N. Wabash having been a theater on the 1912 Sanborn, and the Princess dating from 1913, makes it more likely that this was the Star Theatre, at least in 1912.
The 300-seat Apex Theatre is first listed at Lumberton in the 1942 FDY, along with a 200-seat Royal Theatre and a 250-seat Ladner Theatre which is listed as closed. The 1941 yearbook had listed the Ladner, the Royal, and a Royal Portable Theatre. One local reminiscing on a Facebook page recalls seeing “Mad Max” and “The Amityville Horror” at the Apex, so it operated at least as late as 1979.
Another Facebook comment says that the theater is now occupied by a church called His Place Worship Center. The church’s address is 209 W. Main Avenue. Google street view shows a very modern front section on the building, but the view along the side shows an older structure farther back, which was surely the theater’s auditorium.
I wonder if this house could have been the Princess Theatre? This web page lists movies being shown at the Princess Theatre in Howard, Kansas, as published in the January 29, 1914 issue of the Howard Courant.
Howard also once had a five and ten cent movie house called the Star Theatre, but all I’ve found out about it is that it once had a manager named C. E. Shull. As far as I’ve been able to discover, Star and Princess were the only two theater names used in Howard prior to the 1925 opening of Crook’s Opera house. Of course we can’t rule out the possibility that Star and Princess were both name used by this house at different times.
I’ve had no luck discovering anything about the Aer Dome, or the anonymous theater across the street, but I did find that the town’s later theater was on this same block. This web page has a bit about it, and a rather dark and blurry photo. It was next door south of the two-story brick building currently housing the Bear Den bar, and was built in 1925 as Crook’s Opera House, replacing an upstairs house of the same name that had burned. It was later called the Howard Theatre, and in 1940 was remodeled and renamed the Plaza Theatre.
A Facebook page for Ash Grove has a thread mentioning the Gaiety Theatre on this post. I also came across an item in the January 11, 1930 issue of The Billboard saying that the Gaiety Theatre at Ash Grove had been remodeled and reopened. The Gaiety doesn’t appear in the FDY until the 1932 edition, when it had 250 seats. The 200-seat Grand was also still listed that year.
The March 16, 1959 issue of Boxoffice said that John Cawlfield had recently had wide screen equipment installed in his theater at Ash Grove and would present his first CinemaScope feature that week. The May 23, 1960 issue of the same journal said that Cawlfield was discontinuing unprofitable operations on Tuesday and Friday nights, and would henceforth open the theater only on Wednesday and Saturday.
The Regent is mentioned in the June 16, 1923 issue of Exhibitors Trade Review which said the house had just been purchased by Messrs. F. W. Meade, Jr. and Sr., who had also acquired the Cozy and Elite Theatres of Pratt, Kansas.
The October 30, 1926 issue ofMoving Picture World said that the Regent Theatre at Eureka, Kansas was being remodeled.
This item from the December 18, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World had to have been about the New Aristo Theatre (Gaulbert Avenue was formerly called A Street.) There is an interesting bit of information about Architects Joseph & Joseph at the end: “New House at Second and A Streets.
“Joseph & Joseph, Louisville architects, have applied to the building department for a permit for the erection of the new moving picture theater at Second and A streets, and it is now certain that the new theater will shortly be in operation. The permit will probably be issued this week and calls for a theater to seat 750 people, to be built at a cost of approximately $15,000 for the building proper, without estimating the cost of heating, lighting or ventilation installations, which will bring the total cost of the house up to about $25,000. An interesting feature of the plans for this theater are that it is the thirty-eighth theater which the architects have built during the past few years, showing that the concern is obtaining a monopoly on this business in Louisville.”
The Western Plaza Theatre was earlier than I’d thought. An article about it appeared in the December 18, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World. It began thusly: “ON JULY 31 the Western Hills Amusement Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, threw open for business the doors of a new moving picture theater which is very nearly the handsomest in Cincinnati, and this is the more significant in view of the fact that the house is one of the numerous and rapidly increasing class located at a considerable distance from the heart of the city, in a residence suburb. Price Hill, whose location suggested the name of the company and of the theater, is the suburb in question, and the new house, which is known as the Western Plaza, is easily the most luxurious and complete house in that part of the city.”
The article goes on to note many features of the design, which was by local firm Zettel & Rapp. The whole article can be read on this page at Internet Archive.
Historic Detroit.com says that the Fox Washington Theatre was designed by Frederick T. Barcroft, though it was for many years mistakenly attributed to Arland Johnson.
This was one of eight theaters designed by C. Howard Crane that had so far been built for John Kunsky, according to the December 11, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World.