An 1897 directory for Portland has several businesses with quarters in the Auditorium block on West Walnut Street, and the only theater listed at Portland in the Cahn guides for over a decade is the Auditorium. That had to be the Opera House.
Cahn guides list the Auditorium as a 1,000-seat, second floor house with a stage 66x32 feet. The theater was probably gutted and converted for a ground floor auditorium when it became a full-time movie house.
The Worcester Memorial Auditorium was designed by New York architect Frederic Charles Hirons in collaboration with the Worcester firm L. W. Briggs Company (Lucius Wallace Briggs.)
The “Little Theatre” sign is still in place above the entrance to the house. The approximate address would be 62 Harvard Street.
Konrad Schiecke’s Historic Movie Theatres in Illinois, 1883–1960 says that the Plaza Theatre opened in 1915 and closed in 1929. This is probably correct, as the Plaza advertised in The Dispatch, Moline’s daily paper, in the early 1920s.
The book also says that the theater has been demolished, but from Google’s satellite view it looks like the auditorium is still there, but the original entrance building has been replaced by a modern structure.
The end of Brotman’s Mirror Theatre was reported in the January 7, 1928, issue of Motion Picture News:
“The Mirror Theatre at Moline,
Illinois, owned by I. Brotman and Son, was totally destroyed by fire last week. Whether or not the house will be rebuilt is as yet undetermined.”
As it turned out, the house was not rebuilt. The building on the site now was built instead, and originally housed a Montgomery Ward department store.
This item appeared in the January 14, 1911, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Moline’s new picture house, at Sixth avenue and Fifteenth street, has been named The Mirror, a prize of $5 has been awarded to Miss Bernice Oppenheimer, in a contest. A mirror screen is a feature.”
“Runaway June” which is advertised on a banner in the vintage photo of the Mirror was a serial released in 1915. The Domino Film Company’s short “Tricked” was also a 1915 release.
Konrad Schiecke’s Historic Movie Theatres in Illinois, 1883–1960 says that the Abby Theatre opened in 1949 and closed in 1965, with a hiatus in operation between 1961 and late 1963. I did find an ad for a live concert at the Abby in the Galesburg Register-Mail of February 28, 1974, so the theater was still intact at least that late.
Schiecke also gives the location as S. Main Street, not N. Main, and says the building is still standing but the exterior has been altered, as it originally featured three colors of glass tiles. It was also the town’s first theater built specifically for movies, Abingdon’s earlier houses having all been converted storefronts, except for the old Opera House, built in 1906.
Almost all of downtown Abingdon’s surviving buildings are obviously quite old, but there is one building at 114 S. Main which would be a likely location for the Abby Theatre. It even looks as though the walls were built of concrete block instead of the red brick that prevails in most of the district. Although there are a couple of other buildings with modernized fronts in the area, none of them look as though they’d have been built as late as 1948.
I’ve been unable to find any photos of the Abby’s exterior, but this Facebook page has a photo of an audience of children inside the darkened auditorium, dating from around 1958.
I just noticed that the 1950 newspaper article Brian Paris uploaded to the photo page says that the Texan opened on April 23, 1948, so the completion of renovations just missed the theater’s 70th anniversary.
The Texan Theatre opened in 1948 and closed in 1984, according to this article about the recent renovations and imminent reopening.
An entirely new roof had to be built on the structure, which had been vacant for more than three decades. Nothing remains of the original interior, but the vintage “Texan” sign has been refurbished and reinstalled on the facade.
An open house will be held on May 15, 2018, but there is no word yet on what sort of events the theater might host. It will be available for private rentals, so perhaps for now it should be classified as an event center.
There were two theaters called the Star in Salem. The second one opened in either 1941 or 1942, and was at 27 N. Main Street (though the Google Map insists on saying it is at 213, if you zoom in you can plainly see the 27 on one of the building’s colonial style columns.)
The first Star Theatre was in a two-story building that might be one that now has a third floor on it. An old real photo postcard of it exists, but the full-sized version isn’t currently available on the Internet. It’s hard to make out the details in the thumbnail version, but it looks to me like the first Star might have been in the building on the northeast corner of Main and Broadway.
The “New Theaters” column in The Film Daily of March 12, 1929, said: “Delavan, Wis. — Construction of the new
Delavan is nearing completion.”
There is surprisingly little about this theater in the trade journals. In the 1940s it was a Warner Bros. house, and in 1949 the manager was named Bud Campbell, and that’s all I’ve found.
A bit more history of this theater appeared in an item in Boxoffice of November 28, 1966 which said that the house was slated to be closed on December 1. Manager Charles Thomas had reopened the house on February 23, 1962. For parts of 1960 and 1961, the Del-Van had been operated by the Delavan Better Business Club.
Edson Hart, The owner of the theater, had acquired it in 1941 and operated it for fifteen years. Closed for four years starting in 1956, the Del-Van never got wide-screen equipment until Thomas had it installed after taking over in 1962.
The adjacent building to the right of the theater in the photo is probably a narrow, two-story brick building that is still standing on the west side of the 400 block of Locust Street, just north of a parking lot for a church. On the other side of the theater was an ornate building that I don’t see anywhere on Locust Street. Both it and the theater were probably demolished for the church’s parking lot.
Konrad Schiecke’s Historic Movie Theatres in Illinois, 1883–1960 says that the Del-Van Theatre opened in 1938.
The NRHP registration form for the Noblesville Commercial Historic District indicates that we have the wrong address for the Logan Theatre. There is currently no 880 Logan Street, and the building we are showing in street view, the Evans block at 864-870 Logan, was not a theater. The Logan Theatre was in the Lacy Block, now numbered 848-856 Logan, though that was not always its number.
The NRHP form says that the Logan Theatre was in the east bay of the Lacy Block, which is now a boutique called the Linden Tree, at 856 W. Logan. The form also says that it was earlier the location of houses called the Star Theatre and the U. S. Theatre. Other sources reveal that the Star Theatre was in operation by 1911, when it was mentioned in the April 11 issue of Motography, and the U. S. Theatre was in operation as early as December, 1914, and as late as April, 1920, per mentions in The Noblesville Register.
There is also a possibility that the house operated as the Isis Theatre prior to being renamed the U. S. Theatre, and it is very likely that it was also called the American Theatre through part of 1923 and 1924, and became the Palace Theatre in late 1924, possibly continuing under that name into 1925. I’m still trying to find more evidence of these three names being used for this house. There might be additional aka’s under which the house operated as well.
The recent opening of the Karlton Theatre was noted in this item from The Moving Picture World of June 9, 1923:
“A. K. Allen has just completed booking the newest features of first-class producers for showing in his newly opened Karlton Theatre, at Quakertown, Pa., among them ‘Hunting Big Game’ and opening last week with ‘Peg o’ My Heart.‘ This will be the first showing of the African Game Hunt in the territory.”
The November 1, 1902, issue of The Engineering Record reported that architect James M. Wood was drawing the plans for the rebuilding of Bay City’s Wood Opera House.
This house had still another aka, according to this item from the January 7, 1936, issue of The Film Daily:
“Bay City-Rialto Theater Co. has been incorporated as operating company for the Temple, Bay City, being renamed the Rialto upon acquisition by Associated Theaters.”
The Colonial Theatre at Hamburg, Iowa, is listed in the 1926 FDY, but no seating capacity is given.
The December 1, 1917, issue of The Moving Picture World had an item datelined Hamburg saying “Howard Cohen plans to erect a moving picture theater here.” That might have been the Colonial.
Or maybe not. The 1914-1915 edition of The American Motion Picture Directory lists a remarkable three movie theaters in the tiny town of Hamburg: the Empire, the Lyric, and the Favorite, any of which might later have become the Colonial.
As of the last time Google’s camera car went by the Valley Theatre had not been demolished. The auditorium has gotten fenestration though, so it has been converted to either offices or possibly housing.
The Valley Theatre had a Link organ installed in 1923. The Valley is first listed in the FDY in 1927, with 900 seats.
A 20-watt radio station, WGBW, had been licensed to the Valley Theatre, according to a notice in the March 7, 1925, issue of Radio Digest.
Boxoffice of March 30, 1959, reported that fourteen boys, the oldest being twelve, had petitioned the Spring Valley City Council to have the Valley Theatre reopened. The Council resolved to contact the owners of the theater building about the matter, but it looks like the boys never got their wish.
Boxoffice of March 30, 1959, said that the Little River Drive-In had opened on Friday, March 20. Owner Bill Crosby was also the operator of Wright City’s indoor house, the Choctaw Theatre.
Boxoffice of March 30, 1959, reported that H. A. Greenlin, operator of the Avenue Theatre, had reopened the Garden Theatre with Spanish language films. Several Latin American live performers and a feature film made up the opening program.
The March 30, 1959, issue of Boxoffice said that the Princess Theatre in Meredosia was to be remodeled for use as part of Steinberg Motors, an auto dealership. C. F. Skinner had established the Princess in 1919, in a remodeled building previously owned by the Sanitary Flush Manufacturing Company. Presumably this was a company that made either toilets or the mechanism for flushing them.
The March 30, 1959, issue of Boxoffice reported that the 340-seat Empire Theatre at Chrisman, Illinois, had been destroyed by a fire on March 19. The owners, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley R. Kent, indicated no plans to rebuild.
The two buildings flanking the theater in the vintage photo are still standing on the south side of the town square. The bank on the corner has built an addition on the space once occupied by the theater. The bank uses the address 147 W. Monroe, so the theater’s address must have been slightly lower, perhaps 143 W. Monroe.
Two brief items in the March 30, 1959 issue of Boxoffice mention the Liberty Theatre. One notes that the old Grand Theatre was scheduled to be demolished and that
Alliance Theatre Corporation would move its operations to the old Liberty. The other says that Alliance intended to spend $100,000 to renovate the Liberty, which had been dark for some time.
This theater’s ads in the Ligonier Leader use the name White Light Theatre, not Whitelite.
An 1897 directory for Portland has several businesses with quarters in the Auditorium block on West Walnut Street, and the only theater listed at Portland in the Cahn guides for over a decade is the Auditorium. That had to be the Opera House.
Cahn guides list the Auditorium as a 1,000-seat, second floor house with a stage 66x32 feet. The theater was probably gutted and converted for a ground floor auditorium when it became a full-time movie house.
The Worcester Memorial Auditorium was designed by New York architect Frederic Charles Hirons in collaboration with the Worcester firm L. W. Briggs Company (Lucius Wallace Briggs.)
The “Little Theatre” sign is still in place above the entrance to the house. The approximate address would be 62 Harvard Street.
Konrad Schiecke’s Historic Movie Theatres in Illinois, 1883–1960 says that the Plaza Theatre opened in 1915 and closed in 1929. This is probably correct, as the Plaza advertised in The Dispatch, Moline’s daily paper, in the early 1920s.
The book also says that the theater has been demolished, but from Google’s satellite view it looks like the auditorium is still there, but the original entrance building has been replaced by a modern structure.
The end of Brotman’s Mirror Theatre was reported in the January 7, 1928, issue of Motion Picture News:
As it turned out, the house was not rebuilt. The building on the site now was built instead, and originally housed a Montgomery Ward department store.This item appeared in the January 14, 1911, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Runaway June” which is advertised on a banner in the vintage photo of the Mirror was a serial released in 1915. The Domino Film Company’s short “Tricked” was also a 1915 release.Konrad Schiecke’s Historic Movie Theatres in Illinois, 1883–1960 says that the Abby Theatre opened in 1949 and closed in 1965, with a hiatus in operation between 1961 and late 1963. I did find an ad for a live concert at the Abby in the Galesburg Register-Mail of February 28, 1974, so the theater was still intact at least that late.
Schiecke also gives the location as S. Main Street, not N. Main, and says the building is still standing but the exterior has been altered, as it originally featured three colors of glass tiles. It was also the town’s first theater built specifically for movies, Abingdon’s earlier houses having all been converted storefronts, except for the old Opera House, built in 1906.
Almost all of downtown Abingdon’s surviving buildings are obviously quite old, but there is one building at 114 S. Main which would be a likely location for the Abby Theatre. It even looks as though the walls were built of concrete block instead of the red brick that prevails in most of the district. Although there are a couple of other buildings with modernized fronts in the area, none of them look as though they’d have been built as late as 1948.
I’ve been unable to find any photos of the Abby’s exterior, but this Facebook page has a photo of an audience of children inside the darkened auditorium, dating from around 1958.
I just noticed that the 1950 newspaper article Brian Paris uploaded to the photo page says that the Texan opened on April 23, 1948, so the completion of renovations just missed the theater’s 70th anniversary.
The Texan Theatre opened in 1948 and closed in 1984, according to this article about the recent renovations and imminent reopening.
An entirely new roof had to be built on the structure, which had been vacant for more than three decades. Nothing remains of the original interior, but the vintage “Texan” sign has been refurbished and reinstalled on the facade.
An open house will be held on May 15, 2018, but there is no word yet on what sort of events the theater might host. It will be available for private rentals, so perhaps for now it should be classified as an event center.
There were two theaters called the Star in Salem. The second one opened in either 1941 or 1942, and was at 27 N. Main Street (though the Google Map insists on saying it is at 213, if you zoom in you can plainly see the 27 on one of the building’s colonial style columns.)
The first Star Theatre was in a two-story building that might be one that now has a third floor on it. An old real photo postcard of it exists, but the full-sized version isn’t currently available on the Internet. It’s hard to make out the details in the thumbnail version, but it looks to me like the first Star might have been in the building on the northeast corner of Main and Broadway.
The “New Theaters” column in The Film Daily of March 12, 1929, said: “Delavan, Wis. — Construction of the new
Delavan is nearing completion.”
There is surprisingly little about this theater in the trade journals. In the 1940s it was a Warner Bros. house, and in 1949 the manager was named Bud Campbell, and that’s all I’ve found.
A bit more history of this theater appeared in an item in Boxoffice of November 28, 1966 which said that the house was slated to be closed on December 1. Manager Charles Thomas had reopened the house on February 23, 1962. For parts of 1960 and 1961, the Del-Van had been operated by the Delavan Better Business Club.
Edson Hart, The owner of the theater, had acquired it in 1941 and operated it for fifteen years. Closed for four years starting in 1956, the Del-Van never got wide-screen equipment until Thomas had it installed after taking over in 1962.
American Classic Images has a photo of the Del-Van Theatre dated March, 1985.
The adjacent building to the right of the theater in the photo is probably a narrow, two-story brick building that is still standing on the west side of the 400 block of Locust Street, just north of a parking lot for a church. On the other side of the theater was an ornate building that I don’t see anywhere on Locust Street. Both it and the theater were probably demolished for the church’s parking lot.
Konrad Schiecke’s Historic Movie Theatres in Illinois, 1883–1960 says that the Del-Van Theatre opened in 1938.
The NRHP registration form for the Noblesville Commercial Historic District indicates that we have the wrong address for the Logan Theatre. There is currently no 880 Logan Street, and the building we are showing in street view, the Evans block at 864-870 Logan, was not a theater. The Logan Theatre was in the Lacy Block, now numbered 848-856 Logan, though that was not always its number.
The NRHP form says that the Logan Theatre was in the east bay of the Lacy Block, which is now a boutique called the Linden Tree, at 856 W. Logan. The form also says that it was earlier the location of houses called the Star Theatre and the U. S. Theatre. Other sources reveal that the Star Theatre was in operation by 1911, when it was mentioned in the April 11 issue of Motography, and the U. S. Theatre was in operation as early as December, 1914, and as late as April, 1920, per mentions in The Noblesville Register.
There is also a possibility that the house operated as the Isis Theatre prior to being renamed the U. S. Theatre, and it is very likely that it was also called the American Theatre through part of 1923 and 1924, and became the Palace Theatre in late 1924, possibly continuing under that name into 1925. I’m still trying to find more evidence of these three names being used for this house. There might be additional aka’s under which the house operated as well.
The recent opening of the Karlton Theatre was noted in this item from The Moving Picture World of June 9, 1923:
The November 1, 1902, issue of The Engineering Record reported that architect James M. Wood was drawing the plans for the rebuilding of Bay City’s Wood Opera House.
This house had still another aka, according to this item from the January 7, 1936, issue of The Film Daily:
The family’s surname was Frels. No apostrophe in it.
Rubin Frels.
The Colonial Theatre at Hamburg, Iowa, is listed in the 1926 FDY, but no seating capacity is given.
The December 1, 1917, issue of The Moving Picture World had an item datelined Hamburg saying “Howard Cohen plans to erect a moving picture theater here.” That might have been the Colonial.
Or maybe not. The 1914-1915 edition of The American Motion Picture Directory lists a remarkable three movie theaters in the tiny town of Hamburg: the Empire, the Lyric, and the Favorite, any of which might later have become the Colonial.
As of the last time Google’s camera car went by the Valley Theatre had not been demolished. The auditorium has gotten fenestration though, so it has been converted to either offices or possibly housing.
The Valley Theatre had a Link organ installed in 1923. The Valley is first listed in the FDY in 1927, with 900 seats.
A 20-watt radio station, WGBW, had been licensed to the Valley Theatre, according to a notice in the March 7, 1925, issue of Radio Digest.
Boxoffice of March 30, 1959, reported that fourteen boys, the oldest being twelve, had petitioned the Spring Valley City Council to have the Valley Theatre reopened. The Council resolved to contact the owners of the theater building about the matter, but it looks like the boys never got their wish.
Boxoffice of March 30, 1959, said that the Little River Drive-In had opened on Friday, March 20. Owner Bill Crosby was also the operator of Wright City’s indoor house, the Choctaw Theatre.
Boxoffice of March 30, 1959, reported that H. A. Greenlin, operator of the Avenue Theatre, had reopened the Garden Theatre with Spanish language films. Several Latin American live performers and a feature film made up the opening program.
The March 30, 1959, issue of Boxoffice said that the Princess Theatre in Meredosia was to be remodeled for use as part of Steinberg Motors, an auto dealership. C. F. Skinner had established the Princess in 1919, in a remodeled building previously owned by the Sanitary Flush Manufacturing Company. Presumably this was a company that made either toilets or the mechanism for flushing them.
The March 30, 1959, issue of Boxoffice reported that the 340-seat Empire Theatre at Chrisman, Illinois, had been destroyed by a fire on March 19. The owners, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley R. Kent, indicated no plans to rebuild.
The two buildings flanking the theater in the vintage photo are still standing on the south side of the town square. The bank on the corner has built an addition on the space once occupied by the theater. The bank uses the address 147 W. Monroe, so the theater’s address must have been slightly lower, perhaps 143 W. Monroe.
Two brief items in the March 30, 1959 issue of Boxoffice mention the Liberty Theatre. One notes that the old Grand Theatre was scheduled to be demolished and that Alliance Theatre Corporation would move its operations to the old Liberty. The other says that Alliance intended to spend $100,000 to renovate the Liberty, which had been dark for some time.