A thumbnail biography of theater operator A. G. Miller in the 1937-38 International Motion Picture Almanac says that he opened the new Lyric Theatre at Atkinson on February 9, 1926. Miller had begun showing movies in Atkinson’s old Opera House on December 19, 1909, when he was 18 years old. It was the town’s first regular movie theater.
According to the Arcadia Publishing Company’s book Fort Atkinson, the auditorium of the Fort Theatre was demolished in April, 2001. The older, adjacent building at 23-25 Milwaukee Avenue E. that once housed the Lyric Theatre was demolished at the same time.
This item from the September 1, 1928 issue of Motion Picture News reveals that the Fort Theatre had earlier been known as the Crystal Theatre:
“Walter Beier, of the Beier Film
exchange, has taken over the Crystal theatre at Ft. Atkinson from Neil Thompson. Mr. Beier is closing the theatre for three weeks for extensive remodeling. The house will be opened as The Fort.”
The Crystal was the name of one of the three theaters listed at Fort Atkinson in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The Empire and the Lyric were the other two.
A new theater opened in Saguache in 1928, and it is possible that it was the house that later became the Ute Theatre. This item is from the September 1, 1928 issue of Motion Picture News:
“Chas W. Ogden of Saguache, Colorado, will open his new Ogden Theatre early in September. This will make two theatres for the little town of Saguache, the other being the Opera House, managed by Mrs. McEntyre.”
The September 1, 1928 issue of Motion Picture News had this item about the demise of the Hollywood Theatre:
“The Hollywood Theatre, Aurora, Colorado, has been closed and dismantled by Sam H. Horner, who has operated the theatre for the past year. Mr. Hennen [sic] has given the city of Aurora the best of service and a fair chance to support a theatre of its own; business, however, dropped to the point where it was impossible to continue and Mr. Horner used his only alternative in closing the theatre and selling the equipment.”
The September 1, 1928 issue of Motion Picture News said that a new partnership of V. S. Hennen and Orin C. Milburn had purchased the Gem Theatre at Durango from Marshall & Day and planned begin operating the house that day with “high-class service.”
Here is an item from the June 16, 1928 issue of Motion Picture News:
“Edwin Bluck, who is building the new theatre in Durango, Colo., was a Denver visitor this week, looking after some new equipment. The new theatre will contain about 600 seats. It has been named ‘The Kiva,’ and the grand opening is planned for June 21st.”
Here is a brief article about the Cozy Theatre and its manager, Ruth Wright, from the October 7, 1922 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Painted a Big City for a Display of Hats
“New York and the fashions are firmly linked together in the feminine mind. The manager of the Cozy theatre, Topeka, is a woman, Ruth Wright, and she was quick to see the value of the connection.
“She persuaded a leading millinery concern to make a display of the very latest styles in hats and contributed a backing supposed to be New York to carry out the idea of ‘The Crossroads of New York.’
“The painting is not going to be framed for preservation, and, to say the least, it is crude, but the big point is this: During the showing it was the most prominent window in the entire city, and it sold both hats and theatre tickets.
“The moral is that it does not pay to hang back because you cannot equal the work of the best scenic artists, but to go ahead and do the best you can. If it makes money for you it’s good, no matter how poor it may be, and this simple window stunt did more to sell this First National attraction than would a half page in the newspapers.”
This item is from the April 7, 1928 issue of Motion Picture News:
“Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Bluck of the Durango Theatre of Durango, Colorado, are in this city visiting with their son Ross Bluck who is booker at the local F B O exchange. A new theatre is being constructed at Durango by Bluck, to be ready for opening by June 1st. ”
The theater Mr. Bluck was building was the Kiva, according to later items in the same journal.
This page from Rockford Public Library’s Local History project suggests that the building occupied by Nordlof Center is the same building once occupied by the Orpheum.
A timeline of its history says that it was occupied by a manufacturer of watch cases in 1887, housed the Orpheum from 1912 until 1936, and was occupied by the Kress variety store from 1937 until 1973. It sat vacant after that, and was bought by the City of Rockford in 1984, then sold to New American Theater in 1986.
The theeater’s web site still says “Visit our sister theatre at Lakeportcinema.com” and “Visit our drive-in theatre in Lakeport California.” Google Maps updated their satellite view not long after the fire, and very little reconstruction has been done since then, so if you look at and see the devastation you can see how unlikely it is that this theater will be able to reopen anytime soon. The town is still pretty close to empty, and it’s likely to be years before re-habitation sufficient to support a theater will take place, even with some people living in temporary housing, such as RVs, on their burned-out lots.
The interior does have some elements reminiscent of Elmslie’s designs, but the facade is way too classical for him. The Burns Building and theater were actually designed by Douglas & Hetherington (Walter Farquhar Douglas and Thompson Duncan Hetherington.) I’m now digging up a bit more information about them.
The Empire Theare was advertising in The Bakersfield Californian at least a early as July 2, 1907. The February 2, 1909 issue of the Californian said that the Empire was in its last week of operation at its then location. The space was to be converted into storefronts. The owners of the theater were negotiating with the owners of the Scribner Opera House and hoped to move their operations there, but I’ve been unable to find out if they ever did.
The Theatre Historical Society’s card for the Colonial says the building was built in 1910, and was called the Bronx Lyceum in September that year. It had 299 seats, expanded to 494 by 1921, and was listed with 600 seats later. The original architect in 1910 was Robert Lyons. Alterations were made in 1915, with plans by architect Maximilian Zipkes.
Another THS card says that the name Bronx Lyceum was in use by a theater on Courtlandt Avenue near 154th Street in 1912, so this house might have become the Colonial by that year.
Other sources, including a 1929 article in indicate that the name Bronx Lyceum belonged to yet another theater, this one on 170th Street, in the 1920s.
A Theatre Historical Society card cites a July 23, 1910 Bronx Star article saying that the annex at Niblo’s Gardens on 170th Street was to be converted into an airdome moving picture theater.
Niblo Garden Theatre was the name once used by an indoor house opened in 1870 as Zeltner’s Hall, but which later became known as the Bronx Lyceum. The building was adjacent to a large pleasure garden and picnic park originally operated as an adjunct of Zeltner’s brewery, located across the street. The complex appears to have been renamed Niblo Gardens sometime after an earlier complex of the same name, located in Manhattan, was closed and demolished in 1895.
The airdome was likely built on part of the pleasure garden site, and it may be that its opening under the name Niblo Garden Theatre was what occasioned the renaming of the indoor theater to Bronx Lyceum.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only two theaters at Boonville: the Stevens Opera House, and the Star Dome Theatre (which sounds like it might have been an outdoor house) but gives no addresses for either.
The Temple Theatre had a very brief afterlife as the Capri Theatre, which operated as an art house for a short time in late 1959 and early 1960 (undated article.)
The L.A. County Assessor’s office says that the building housing the billiard parlor was built in 1944. It is considerably wider than the building the Rose Theatre once occupied. The brick of the back wall and the style of the second floor windows as seen in this Google street view both strongly indicate mid-century construction, and the entire wall was clearly built at once.
The August 10, 1955 issue of The Portsmouth Times of Portsmouth, Ohio, reported that the stage of the Virginia Theatre at Wellston had partly collapsed during a storm the previous Sunday. Mrs. L. P. Guilfoile, owner of the building, had been ordered by the State Fire Marshall to have the remaining walls of the stage demolished. The item did not say whether the theater had still been in operation at the time of the collapse.
The Virginia Theatre was mentioned in the February 8, 1919 issue of the coal industry journal The Black Diamond, which said that the 1,000-seat house had the largest auditorium in the county.
The June, 1904 issue of Th Oho Architect and Builder had this item which might have been about the house that became the Virginia Theatre:
“Architect F. W. Elliott is preparing plans for a theater to be built for W. O. Yard at Wellston. Ohio, at a cost of $30,000. It will be a pressed brick structure, having a frontage of 60 feet and a depth of 120. The seating capacity will be 1,000.”
W. O. Yard was operating a theater in Wellston called the Grand Opera House at least as early as 1894. The 1909-1910 Cahn guide lists the New Virginia Theatre, W. O. Yard, proprietor, as a 1,200 seat, ground floor house. Yard was noted as manager of the Grand Opera House at Jackson, Ohio, that same year.
The Idle Hour is the only theater listed at Salisbury in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. Mr. Carl A. Barnert had bought a theater at Salisbury, according to the April 18, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World, though the item did not give the theater’s name.
I noticed that in the photo of the tornado damage the name of the house on the marquee is Cinema. I suspect that it was twinned while being repaired after the tornado, since that was 1974 and a lot of old theaters were being twinned around that time.
A thumbnail biography of theater operator A. G. Miller in the 1937-38 International Motion Picture Almanac says that he opened the new Lyric Theatre at Atkinson on February 9, 1926. Miller had begun showing movies in Atkinson’s old Opera House on December 19, 1909, when he was 18 years old. It was the town’s first regular movie theater.
According to the Arcadia Publishing Company’s book Fort Atkinson, the auditorium of the Fort Theatre was demolished in April, 2001. The older, adjacent building at 23-25 Milwaukee Avenue E. that once housed the Lyric Theatre was demolished at the same time.
This item from the September 1, 1928 issue of Motion Picture News reveals that the Fort Theatre had earlier been known as the Crystal Theatre:
The Crystal was the name of one of the three theaters listed at Fort Atkinson in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The Empire and the Lyric were the other two.Also, according to the official web site, the Ute Theatre will be reopening on June 21.
A new theater opened in Saguache in 1928, and it is possible that it was the house that later became the Ute Theatre. This item is from the September 1, 1928 issue of Motion Picture News:
The September 1, 1928 issue of Motion Picture News had this item about the demise of the Hollywood Theatre:
The September 1, 1928 issue of Motion Picture News said that a new partnership of V. S. Hennen and Orin C. Milburn had purchased the Gem Theatre at Durango from Marshall & Day and planned begin operating the house that day with “high-class service.”
Here is an item from the June 16, 1928 issue of Motion Picture News:
Here is a brief article about the Cozy Theatre and its manager, Ruth Wright, from the October 7, 1922 issue of The Moving Picture World:
This item is from the April 7, 1928 issue of Motion Picture News:
The theater Mr. Bluck was building was the Kiva, according to later items in the same journal.The Gem Theatre at Platteville is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. A second house called the Lyric Theatre was also listed.
This page from Rockford Public Library’s Local History project suggests that the building occupied by Nordlof Center is the same building once occupied by the Orpheum.
A timeline of its history says that it was occupied by a manufacturer of watch cases in 1887, housed the Orpheum from 1912 until 1936, and was occupied by the Kress variety store from 1937 until 1973. It sat vacant after that, and was bought by the City of Rockford in 1984, then sold to New American Theater in 1986.
The theeater’s web site still says “Visit our sister theatre at Lakeportcinema.com” and “Visit our drive-in theatre in Lakeport California.” Google Maps updated their satellite view not long after the fire, and very little reconstruction has been done since then, so if you look at and see the devastation you can see how unlikely it is that this theater will be able to reopen anytime soon. The town is still pretty close to empty, and it’s likely to be years before re-habitation sufficient to support a theater will take place, even with some people living in temporary housing, such as RVs, on their burned-out lots.
The interior does have some elements reminiscent of Elmslie’s designs, but the facade is way too classical for him. The Burns Building and theater were actually designed by Douglas & Hetherington (Walter Farquhar Douglas and Thompson Duncan Hetherington.) I’m now digging up a bit more information about them.
The Empire Theare was advertising in The Bakersfield Californian at least a early as July 2, 1907. The February 2, 1909 issue of the Californian said that the Empire was in its last week of operation at its then location. The space was to be converted into storefronts. The owners of the theater were negotiating with the owners of the Scribner Opera House and hoped to move their operations there, but I’ve been unable to find out if they ever did.
This virtual historic tour of Malta says that the Palace Theatre was built in 1916.
The Theatre Historical Society’s card for the Colonial says the building was built in 1910, and was called the Bronx Lyceum in September that year. It had 299 seats, expanded to 494 by 1921, and was listed with 600 seats later. The original architect in 1910 was Robert Lyons. Alterations were made in 1915, with plans by architect Maximilian Zipkes.
Another THS card says that the name Bronx Lyceum was in use by a theater on Courtlandt Avenue near 154th Street in 1912, so this house might have become the Colonial by that year.
Other sources, including a 1929 article in indicate that the name Bronx Lyceum belonged to yet another theater, this one on 170th Street, in the 1920s.
A Theatre Historical Society card cites a July 23, 1910 Bronx Star article saying that the annex at Niblo’s Gardens on 170th Street was to be converted into an airdome moving picture theater.
Address should be 170th Street and Third Avenue.
Niblo Garden Theatre was the name once used by an indoor house opened in 1870 as Zeltner’s Hall, but which later became known as the Bronx Lyceum. The building was adjacent to a large pleasure garden and picnic park originally operated as an adjunct of Zeltner’s brewery, located across the street. The complex appears to have been renamed Niblo Gardens sometime after an earlier complex of the same name, located in Manhattan, was closed and demolished in 1895.
The airdome was likely built on part of the pleasure garden site, and it may be that its opening under the name Niblo Garden Theatre was what occasioned the renaming of the indoor theater to Bronx Lyceum.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only two theaters at Boonville: the Stevens Opera House, and the Star Dome Theatre (which sounds like it might have been an outdoor house) but gives no addresses for either.
The Temple Theatre had a very brief afterlife as the Capri Theatre, which operated as an art house for a short time in late 1959 and early 1960 (undated article.)
The L.A. County Assessor’s office says that the building housing the billiard parlor was built in 1944. It is considerably wider than the building the Rose Theatre once occupied. The brick of the back wall and the style of the second floor windows as seen in this Google street view both strongly indicate mid-century construction, and the entire wall was clearly built at once.
The August 10, 1955 issue of The Portsmouth Times of Portsmouth, Ohio, reported that the stage of the Virginia Theatre at Wellston had partly collapsed during a storm the previous Sunday. Mrs. L. P. Guilfoile, owner of the building, had been ordered by the State Fire Marshall to have the remaining walls of the stage demolished. The item did not say whether the theater had still been in operation at the time of the collapse.
The Virginia Theatre was mentioned in the February 8, 1919 issue of the coal industry journal The Black Diamond, which said that the 1,000-seat house had the largest auditorium in the county.
The June, 1904 issue of Th Oho Architect and Builder had this item which might have been about the house that became the Virginia Theatre:
W. O. Yard was operating a theater in Wellston called the Grand Opera House at least as early as 1894. The 1909-1910 Cahn guide lists the New Virginia Theatre, W. O. Yard, proprietor, as a 1,200 seat, ground floor house. Yard was noted as manager of the Grand Opera House at Jackson, Ohio, that same year.The Idle Hour is the only theater listed at Salisbury in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. Mr. Carl A. Barnert had bought a theater at Salisbury, according to the April 18, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World, though the item did not give the theater’s name.
I noticed that in the photo of the tornado damage the name of the house on the marquee is Cinema. I suspect that it was twinned while being repaired after the tornado, since that was 1974 and a lot of old theaters were being twinned around that time.