I have come across information leading me to believe that the Marengo Theatre originally opened in 1912 as the Orient Theatre, and that the grocery business that had previously occupied the building was long operated by the Leib family, one of whom moved it to a new location in 1911. This information comes from a biographical sketch of Mrs. E.N.(Rebecca) Leib on on this web page. It specifically says that the Leib’s grocery store was in the Eddy Building, and I have found the Eddy building mentioned in a theater industry trade journal item about the Orient Theatre.
An Orient Theater is mentioned in the January 2, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World: “L. E. ALEXANDER of Calmar has purchased the Orient theater at Marengo from C. W. Eddy and has assumed possession.
The January, 1912 issue of Motography told of the beginning of this house: “A moving picture theater will be opened at Marengo by Jos. Reynolds.” The story continued in the February issue: “Messrs. J. H. Reynolds, George Bishop and A. W. Skersick will open a moving-picture theater in the Eddy building at Marengo.” A July 20 item in the same journal indicates that one of the partners then came into full possession of the house: “The Orient Theater at Marengo has been purchased by A. W. Skersick.”
Trade journals from 1913 and 1914 mention a W. G. Eddy of Marengo who was secretary of the Iowa Motion Picture Exhibitors' League, and the July 4, 1914 issue of The Billboard even devoted a large part of a page to a letter he wrote to them regarding the evils of censorship. It appears that the Eddy family were the landlords for the theater, then one of them took over its operation for a couple of years, becoming deeply involved in the theater industry, for a while at least.
I think we’ll have to find another name for this house, as I’ve found evidence that the Oriental (or more likely Orient) Theatre opened in 1912, and so would not have been this house on the 1910 Sanborn. I now suspect that Orient was the original name of the house that later became the Strand and then the Marengo. I’ll put a comment about this on the Marengo page.
The December 28, 1907 issue of The Show World mentioned the Yale Amusement Company and the Yale film Rental Company of Kansas City, both headed by an A. D. Flinton. The Yale Amusement Company had been mentioned in passing in the June 24, 1905 issue of The Billboard.
I’m seeing four houses operated by Yale listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD: The Wonderland and Princess, plus Yale’s Crystal at 1205 Grand and Yale’s Automat Theatre, 1116 Main Street.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists a house called Yale’s Automat Theatre at 1116 Main Street. It sounds like it would have been under the footprint of the Paramount, and thus demolished to make way for the Newman.
In an October 14, 1911 Moving Picture World article about Kansas City’s movie houses, Nelson T. Stephens wrote: “I paid my next admission at Yale’s Twelfth Street theater, the Lyric, I believe.” Kansas City had two houses called the Lyric over the years, but neither was on Twelfth Street. I suspect that Mr. Stephens lost track of where he was, visiting so many theaters in a short time, and he probably attended the original 12th Street Theatre. Chances are he visited the Lyric as well, but chose not to write about it. Dallasmovietheaters' earlier comment says the 12th Street, opened April 22, 1911, closed after about a year and reopened under new management.
The current use of the Ritz Theatre building is as an art gallery (entrance to the facility is around the corner at 810 W. Walnut Avenue. The old theater entrance on 8th Street is largely unrecognizable.)
An advertisement for the Folly Theatre in the December 15, 1922 issue of The Duncan Daily Eagle and Banner touted performances by the Ferguson Bros. Stock Company continuing through the following week, so the house did present stage shows.
This item appeared in the April 5, 1952 issue of Boxoffice: “Parksville on Vancouver island will have a 300-seat quonset-type of theater which will open this summer. The house will be financed by the citizens and will be air conditioned. Parksville, which is midway between Nanaimo and Port Alberni, formerly was serviced by a 16mm outfit.”
Like many quonset-style theaters, the Park featured a plain, boxy front, as seen in this photo post on the Parksville Museum’s Facebook page. Over 100 comments on the post indicate that the house is fondly remembered by Parksvillians (Parksvillagers?) At least two comments note that the first movie shown was “The African Queen” and one commenter says that the last movie run was “Honey I Shrunk the Kids,” though another says that it was “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” It’s possible that the latter was a midnight show following the final evening performance of the former.
This web page from South Dakota Public Broadcasting says the Crystal Theatre opened on January 15, 1914. An estimated 1,000 people attended the three showings of the movie program presented at that event. The Crystal was built and operated by Purl R. Matson, a farmer from Fairmont, Minnesota who also ran a theater in that town. Members of the Matson family ran the Crystal until the mid-1950s.
The theater finally fell dark in the 1980s. In 1988 a community group was formed to preserve and restore the theater, and after much work to renovate the house it began presenting a variety of events in 1997. In 2009 a severe derecho did extensive damage, destroying much of the roof and soaking the exposed areas with rain, but repairs were made and operations began again. Improvements to the facility are ongoing, and the Crystal Theatre remains popular, enjoying strong support from the local community.
Motion Picture News of May 8, 1927 said “L. E. Brewer of Paul Valley, Okla., has reopened the theatre at Maysville, Okla., and named it The Maysville.” The event was also noted in the July 20 issue of Film Daily.
One problem we are going to have with locating this house is that neither the 1916 nor the 1924 Sanborn maps show any theaters on S. 9th Street other than the Amusu, predecessor of the Ramona at 114. However, both maps do show an unidentified movie theater at 111 N. Main Street. The only other houses on the 1916 map are at 112 and 117 W. Grand Avenue, one of which had to have been the Peoples Theatre. 117 W. Grand is still a theater on the 1924 map, but 112 is a store, while the Amusu Theatre has appeared at 114 S. 9th Street.
I’m wondering if we might have the wrong street for the Ritz, as it seems very unlikely that Sanborn would have overlooked its existence. The only other thing I can think is that the Gem closed and vacated its premises in both 1916 and 1924, then reopened after Sanborn’s researchers had gone away, and that also seems very unlikely.
The April 21, 1939 issue of Motion Picture Daily said that Griffith Amusement Co. had transferred Earl Settle, manager at Okmulgee, Okla., to Frederick, Okla., to be in charge of the Ramona, Ritz and Grand. So it looks like Griffith controlled all of Frederick’s theaters by 1939.
The building in the photo above is standing at 111-113 S. 9th Street. On the 1916 Sanborn map there is a garage at 113, but 111 is a vacant lot. On the 1924 Sanborn, the building has been expanded across both lots but is still occupied by a garage. I don’t think either side of the garage was ever a theater. The 1910 Sanborn shows a “Cheap Theatre” next door at 115, and I think that must have been the Majestic.
By 1916, 115 S. 9th was also serving as a garage. If the Majestic reopened after the 1913 fire, it might have been as the Electric Theatre, one of the only two houses listed at Frederick in the 1914-1915 AMPD (the other was the Gem, which is accounted for.) In any case, the house was definitely gone by 1916.
The 1916 Sanborn map of Frederick shows a “Picture Theatre” at 117 W. Grand, and the 1924 Sanborn has “Movies” at the same address. The 1916 map also shows a “Picture Theatre” almost across the street at 112 Grand, but that house is gone by 1924. Either house might have been the Peoples Theatre.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only two houses at Frederick; the Electric and the Gem. The 1926 FDY yearbook lists three houses; the 350-seat Criterion, the 300-seat Amusu, and a 200-seat house called the Pastime. The Amusu is accounted for (the predecessor to the Ramona at 114 S. 9th) but if one of the other two names was an aka for the People’s I think it would more likely be the Pastime, as the two storefront houses on Grand Avenue were too small for the 350 seats in the Criterion.
A photo of Frederick, Oklahoma’s Grand Avenue in the 1960s shows the Montgomery Ward catalog store, which occupied the Oklahoma Theatre’s old building, in the structure that is still standing today at 115 W. Grand Avenue. The building now houses an insurance company’s office.
This notice about the proposed Cook Theatre appeared in Moving Picture World for August 16, 1919: “A new theatre, to be known as the Cook, will be erected in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. It will be of brick with stone and terra cotta trimmings. The seating will accommodate 1,500 persons.”
As the opening ad calls the house the Cook Theatre and the name Cook Theatre is on the terra cotta parapet of the building, I suspect that the aka Cook Opera House was just some sort of rumor that became established over the years. There was a Cook (or Cook’s) Opera House in Rochester, New York, but I’ve found no historic references to this house in Okmulgee as anything other than the Cook Theatre, and then the Orpheum. The aka on this page should consequently be changed to match those known facts.
The buildings at 219 W. 6th Street in Google street view are not the ones in the vintage photo of the Rex, and the Rex building is supposed to have burned down anyway. 219 houses a restaurant called Kirby’s Café. I’m sure we have the wrong address for the theater. The July, 1920 Sanborn map shows a retail shop at 219 W. 6th, though our history suggests that the house remained in operation into the early 1940s.
The 1920 Sanborn does show a theater on this block, but it was at 207-209 W. 6th. The theater on the map is not configured like the Rex in the photo (it has a center entrance flanked by a small office on one side and a cigar store on the other) but it could have been remodeled at some point. The 1926 FDY lists the Cozy with 450 seats. The theater at 207-209 in 1920 was big enough to have accommodated that many seats, but the building at 219 definitely wasn’t.
The Sanborn map of Okmulgee dated July, 1920, shows a lot on North Grand between 5th and 6th Streets with the address 108 and the address (506) in parentheses. I believe the parenthetic address is old, and the modern address is 108 N. Grand. The numbers apparently had been changed fairly recently as of 1920. In any case, the former 506 no longer held a theater, but a variety store.
Here is an item about the proposed Plaza Theatre from Moving Picture World of November 6, 1915: “SIOUX CITY GETS A PLAZA THEATER.
“The Plaza Theater Company, of Waterloo, Iowa, has taken a ten-year lease on a site in Pierce street, Sioux City, Iowa, upon which it will build a moving picture theater with a seating capacity of 1,200. The exterior dimensions of the new theater are to be 50 by 150 feet. It is estimated that $40,000 will be expended, and the name of the structure
will be the Plaza. The entrance will be composed of a half dozen arched doorways, built of terra cotta. The front of the building will be of enameled brick. There will be a large lobby, and all the conveniences of the modern motion picture theater will be installed. A big pipe
organ will be used. Work will be begun in a few months, and the theater is expected to be opened by March of next year. J. E. Bryant, assisted by St. Elmo Bateman, will be in charge of the projected Plaza.”
Mentions of Salem are few in the trade journals, and the earliest mention of the Regale Theater I’ve found is in the July 4, 1925 issue of Moving Picture World. It is a capsule movie review from the manager of the house, Ed Mahan.
The November 23, 1955 Motion Picture Exhibitor said that “N. A. and L. E. Jorgensen’s Regale, Salem, S. D., celebrated its 25th anniversary.” This was apparently only the anniversary of the Jorgensens ownership, and Leonard Jorgensen’s 1999 obituary in the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader said that in 1930 he “…moved to Salem, where he owned and operated the Regale Theater and Bowling Alley until the early 1970’s.” Presumably, the bowling alley was the one that had been in the basement by 1917 and was probably part of the original construction in 1915.
Lee Memorial Town Hall was built in 1873-1874 and dedicated on March 30, 1874, as a memorial to 38 local citizens who died in the Civil War. It was designed in the French Second Empire style by architect Charles T. Rathbun. The building’s modern fame outside of Lee is largely the result of the police court it houses (among other municipal offices) having been the site of young Arlo Guthrie’s 1965 trial for littering, a tale recounted in his comic talking blues recording from 1967, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree.” (SPOILER ALERT: He was found guilty and had to pay a fifty dollar fine and pick up the garbage.)
The first listing of the State in the FDY is in the 1932 edition. It had 450 seats. The last listing of the 300-seat Ruby was 1931.
Madison also had a house called the Princess, around 1915. The July 3 issue of Moving Picture World that year said" “MADISON, S. D. Cox & Malvey, who conduct the Princess theatre, have purchased the Ruby theatre.”
A page headed “Changes in Publix Theatre Holdings” in the July 1, 1933 Motion Picture Herald includes a list reading:
“Madison Theatre Co. (Partnership Operation)
"Madison, S. D.
"Lyric State”
I have come across information leading me to believe that the Marengo Theatre originally opened in 1912 as the Orient Theatre, and that the grocery business that had previously occupied the building was long operated by the Leib family, one of whom moved it to a new location in 1911. This information comes from a biographical sketch of Mrs. E.N.(Rebecca) Leib on on this web page. It specifically says that the Leib’s grocery store was in the Eddy Building, and I have found the Eddy building mentioned in a theater industry trade journal item about the Orient Theatre.
An Orient Theater is mentioned in the January 2, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World: “L. E. ALEXANDER of Calmar has purchased the Orient theater at Marengo from C. W. Eddy and has assumed possession.
The January, 1912 issue of Motography told of the beginning of this house: “A moving picture theater will be opened at Marengo by Jos. Reynolds.” The story continued in the February issue: “Messrs. J. H. Reynolds, George Bishop and A. W. Skersick will open a moving-picture theater in the Eddy building at Marengo.” A July 20 item in the same journal indicates that one of the partners then came into full possession of the house: “The Orient Theater at Marengo has been purchased by A. W. Skersick.”
Trade journals from 1913 and 1914 mention a W. G. Eddy of Marengo who was secretary of the Iowa Motion Picture Exhibitors' League, and the July 4, 1914 issue of The Billboard even devoted a large part of a page to a letter he wrote to them regarding the evils of censorship. It appears that the Eddy family were the landlords for the theater, then one of them took over its operation for a couple of years, becoming deeply involved in the theater industry, for a while at least.
I think we’ll have to find another name for this house, as I’ve found evidence that the Oriental (or more likely Orient) Theatre opened in 1912, and so would not have been this house on the 1910 Sanborn. I now suspect that Orient was the original name of the house that later became the Strand and then the Marengo. I’ll put a comment about this on the Marengo page.
The December 28, 1907 issue of The Show World mentioned the Yale Amusement Company and the Yale film Rental Company of Kansas City, both headed by an A. D. Flinton. The Yale Amusement Company had been mentioned in passing in the June 24, 1905 issue of The Billboard.
I’m seeing four houses operated by Yale listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD: The Wonderland and Princess, plus Yale’s Crystal at 1205 Grand and Yale’s Automat Theatre, 1116 Main Street.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists a house called Yale’s Automat Theatre at 1116 Main Street. It sounds like it would have been under the footprint of the Paramount, and thus demolished to make way for the Newman.
Drat, I just realized that Yale’s Wonderland was on 12th Street, so it might have been the house Mr. Stephens had attended.
In an October 14, 1911 Moving Picture World article about Kansas City’s movie houses, Nelson T. Stephens wrote: “I paid my next admission at Yale’s Twelfth Street theater, the Lyric, I believe.” Kansas City had two houses called the Lyric over the years, but neither was on Twelfth Street. I suspect that Mr. Stephens lost track of where he was, visiting so many theaters in a short time, and he probably attended the original 12th Street Theatre. Chances are he visited the Lyric as well, but chose not to write about it. Dallasmovietheaters' earlier comment says the 12th Street, opened April 22, 1911, closed after about a year and reopened under new management.
The current use of the Ritz Theatre building is as an art gallery (entrance to the facility is around the corner at 810 W. Walnut Avenue. The old theater entrance on 8th Street is largely unrecognizable.)
An advertisement for the Folly Theatre in the December 15, 1922 issue of The Duncan Daily Eagle and Banner touted performances by the Ferguson Bros. Stock Company continuing through the following week, so the house did present stage shows.
This item appeared in the April 5, 1952 issue of Boxoffice: “Parksville on Vancouver island will have a 300-seat quonset-type of theater which will open this summer. The house will be financed by the citizens and will be air conditioned. Parksville, which is midway between Nanaimo and Port Alberni, formerly was serviced by a 16mm outfit.”
Like many quonset-style theaters, the Park featured a plain, boxy front, as seen in this photo post on the Parksville Museum’s Facebook page. Over 100 comments on the post indicate that the house is fondly remembered by Parksvillians (Parksvillagers?) At least two comments note that the first movie shown was “The African Queen” and one commenter says that the last movie run was “Honey I Shrunk the Kids,” though another says that it was “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” It’s possible that the latter was a midnight show following the final evening performance of the former.
This web page from South Dakota Public Broadcasting says the Crystal Theatre opened on January 15, 1914. An estimated 1,000 people attended the three showings of the movie program presented at that event. The Crystal was built and operated by Purl R. Matson, a farmer from Fairmont, Minnesota who also ran a theater in that town. Members of the Matson family ran the Crystal until the mid-1950s.
The theater finally fell dark in the 1980s. In 1988 a community group was formed to preserve and restore the theater, and after much work to renovate the house it began presenting a variety of events in 1997. In 2009 a severe derecho did extensive damage, destroying much of the roof and soaking the exposed areas with rain, but repairs were made and operations began again. Improvements to the facility are ongoing, and the Crystal Theatre remains popular, enjoying strong support from the local community.
Motion Picture News of May 8, 1927 said “L. E. Brewer of Paul Valley, Okla., has reopened the theatre at Maysville, Okla., and named it The Maysville.” The event was also noted in the July 20 issue of Film Daily.
One problem we are going to have with locating this house is that neither the 1916 nor the 1924 Sanborn maps show any theaters on S. 9th Street other than the Amusu, predecessor of the Ramona at 114. However, both maps do show an unidentified movie theater at 111 N. Main Street. The only other houses on the 1916 map are at 112 and 117 W. Grand Avenue, one of which had to have been the Peoples Theatre. 117 W. Grand is still a theater on the 1924 map, but 112 is a store, while the Amusu Theatre has appeared at 114 S. 9th Street.
I’m wondering if we might have the wrong street for the Ritz, as it seems very unlikely that Sanborn would have overlooked its existence. The only other thing I can think is that the Gem closed and vacated its premises in both 1916 and 1924, then reopened after Sanborn’s researchers had gone away, and that also seems very unlikely.
The April 21, 1939 issue of Motion Picture Daily said that Griffith Amusement Co. had transferred Earl Settle, manager at Okmulgee, Okla., to Frederick, Okla., to be in charge of the Ramona, Ritz and Grand. So it looks like Griffith controlled all of Frederick’s theaters by 1939.
The building in the photo above is standing at 111-113 S. 9th Street. On the 1916 Sanborn map there is a garage at 113, but 111 is a vacant lot. On the 1924 Sanborn, the building has been expanded across both lots but is still occupied by a garage. I don’t think either side of the garage was ever a theater. The 1910 Sanborn shows a “Cheap Theatre” next door at 115, and I think that must have been the Majestic.
By 1916, 115 S. 9th was also serving as a garage. If the Majestic reopened after the 1913 fire, it might have been as the Electric Theatre, one of the only two houses listed at Frederick in the 1914-1915 AMPD (the other was the Gem, which is accounted for.) In any case, the house was definitely gone by 1916.
The 1916 Sanborn map of Frederick shows a “Picture Theatre” at 117 W. Grand, and the 1924 Sanborn has “Movies” at the same address. The 1916 map also shows a “Picture Theatre” almost across the street at 112 Grand, but that house is gone by 1924. Either house might have been the Peoples Theatre.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only two houses at Frederick; the Electric and the Gem. The 1926 FDY yearbook lists three houses; the 350-seat Criterion, the 300-seat Amusu, and a 200-seat house called the Pastime. The Amusu is accounted for (the predecessor to the Ramona at 114 S. 9th) but if one of the other two names was an aka for the People’s I think it would more likely be the Pastime, as the two storefront houses on Grand Avenue were too small for the 350 seats in the Criterion.
A photo of Frederick, Oklahoma’s Grand Avenue in the 1960s shows the Montgomery Ward catalog store, which occupied the Oklahoma Theatre’s old building, in the structure that is still standing today at 115 W. Grand Avenue. The building now houses an insurance company’s office.
This notice about the proposed Cook Theatre appeared in Moving Picture World for August 16, 1919: “A new theatre, to be known as the Cook, will be erected in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. It will be of brick with stone and terra cotta trimmings. The seating will accommodate 1,500 persons.”
As the opening ad calls the house the Cook Theatre and the name Cook Theatre is on the terra cotta parapet of the building, I suspect that the aka Cook Opera House was just some sort of rumor that became established over the years. There was a Cook (or Cook’s) Opera House in Rochester, New York, but I’ve found no historic references to this house in Okmulgee as anything other than the Cook Theatre, and then the Orpheum. The aka on this page should consequently be changed to match those known facts.
The buildings at 219 W. 6th Street in Google street view are not the ones in the vintage photo of the Rex, and the Rex building is supposed to have burned down anyway. 219 houses a restaurant called Kirby’s Café. I’m sure we have the wrong address for the theater. The July, 1920 Sanborn map shows a retail shop at 219 W. 6th, though our history suggests that the house remained in operation into the early 1940s.
The 1920 Sanborn does show a theater on this block, but it was at 207-209 W. 6th. The theater on the map is not configured like the Rex in the photo (it has a center entrance flanked by a small office on one side and a cigar store on the other) but it could have been remodeled at some point. The 1926 FDY lists the Cozy with 450 seats. The theater at 207-209 in 1920 was big enough to have accommodated that many seats, but the building at 219 definitely wasn’t.
The Sanborn map of Okmulgee dated July, 1920, shows a lot on North Grand between 5th and 6th Streets with the address 108 and the address (506) in parentheses. I believe the parenthetic address is old, and the modern address is 108 N. Grand. The numbers apparently had been changed fairly recently as of 1920. In any case, the former 506 no longer held a theater, but a variety store.
This house had closed by July, 1920, when the Sanborn map showed oil well supplies being sold at this address.
This address was still a vacant lot on the Sanborn map dated July, 1920.
Here is an item about the proposed Plaza Theatre from Moving Picture World of November 6, 1915: “SIOUX CITY GETS A PLAZA THEATER.
“The Plaza Theater Company, of Waterloo, Iowa, has taken a ten-year lease on a site in Pierce street, Sioux City, Iowa, upon which it will build a moving picture theater with a seating capacity of 1,200. The exterior dimensions of the new theater are to be 50 by 150 feet. It is estimated that $40,000 will be expended, and the name of the structure will be the Plaza. The entrance will be composed of a half dozen arched doorways, built of terra cotta. The front of the building will be of enameled brick. There will be a large lobby, and all the conveniences of the modern motion picture theater will be installed. A big pipe organ will be used. Work will be begun in a few months, and the theater is expected to be opened by March of next year. J. E. Bryant, assisted by St. Elmo Bateman, will be in charge of the projected Plaza.”
Mentions of Salem are few in the trade journals, and the earliest mention of the Regale Theater I’ve found is in the July 4, 1925 issue of Moving Picture World. It is a capsule movie review from the manager of the house, Ed Mahan.
The November 23, 1955 Motion Picture Exhibitor said that “N. A. and L. E. Jorgensen’s Regale, Salem, S. D., celebrated its 25th anniversary.” This was apparently only the anniversary of the Jorgensens ownership, and Leonard Jorgensen’s 1999 obituary in the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader said that in 1930 he “…moved to Salem, where he owned and operated the Regale Theater and Bowling Alley until the early 1970’s.” Presumably, the bowling alley was the one that had been in the basement by 1917 and was probably part of the original construction in 1915.
Lee Memorial Town Hall was built in 1873-1874 and dedicated on March 30, 1874, as a memorial to 38 local citizens who died in the Civil War. It was designed in the French Second Empire style by architect Charles T. Rathbun. The building’s modern fame outside of Lee is largely the result of the police court it houses (among other municipal offices) having been the site of young Arlo Guthrie’s 1965 trial for littering, a tale recounted in his comic talking blues recording from 1967, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree.” (SPOILER ALERT: He was found guilty and had to pay a fifty dollar fine and pick up the garbage.)
The first listing of the State in the FDY is in the 1932 edition. It had 450 seats. The last listing of the 300-seat Ruby was 1931.
Madison also had a house called the Princess, around 1915. The July 3 issue of Moving Picture World that year said" “MADISON, S. D. Cox & Malvey, who conduct the Princess theatre, have purchased the Ruby theatre.”
A page headed “Changes in Publix Theatre Holdings” in the July 1, 1933 Motion Picture Herald includes a list reading: “Madison Theatre Co. (Partnership Operation) "Madison, S. D. "Lyric State”