This article from the Baxter Bulletin of May 30, 2014, says that the Evans Theatre opened in 1939, and was located where the Old Tyme Restaurant is today, which is 609 S. Baker Street.
The former theater is now one of two buildings on the block occupied by First Security Bank. I’m not sure what the bank uses this building for, as their retail operation for Mountain Home appears to be in the building across Baker Street, but it might contain offices as the south wall has been fenestrated. The distinctive masonry detailing on the facade is still there, though it is now painted gray.
In early 1909, E. H. Martin’s son bought the Unique Theatre. A few months later the July 3 issue of The Improvement Bulletin reported that E.H.Martin had begun construction on a new building for the Unique Theatre. As there is no evidence that the Unique ever moved from its original location, I suspect that this project became the first Orpheum instead.
The project was designed by J. R. White, Webster City’s best known architect of the period, who had designed the Martin Telephone Company building in 1904. As Martin had hired White to design at least two projects prior to building the second Orpheum, it seems likely that he would have hired White for that job as well, though I haven’t found documentation that he did. Although the second Orpheum is more ornate than the first, the two buildings have certain elements in common, most notably the oblong, horizontal clerestory windows near the top of each facade.
This article from the January 19, 2016, issue of Webster City’s paper, The Daily Freeman-Journal has a fairly detailed history of the Isis Theatre. A. C. Schuneman bought a half interest in the Isis in 1912, and eventually became sole owner. He sold the house to Finklestein Theatres in early 1931.
Although the theater was dismantled in 1954, the building is still standing, the front portion housing a hearing aid center and the rear occupied by seating for the restaurant next door, the Second Street Emporium. The 1990 restaurant expansion included a small banquet facility called The Isis Room, which displays photos of the theater.
The reopening of the rebuilt Isis following the January, 1927, fire was on June 11, 1927.
A new organ was installed in the Isis Theatre in 1917, as noted in this item from the March 3 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Webster City, Ia. — A. C. Schuneman, of the Isis theater in Webster City, is installing a new organ in his theater at a cost of $10,000. This theater will open about the 1st of March with Clara Kimball Young in ‘The Common Law.’”
Schuneman was manager of the Isis at least as early as 1914, when he and the theater were mentioned in the February 10 issue of the Webster City Freeman:
“Pictures of Real War.
“Manager A. C. Schunaman [sic] of the Isis theater states that he expects soon to have moving pictures of actual warfare taken in northern Mexico. These films have been widely written of and are taken by the Mutual Film company, whose president made an agreement with General Villa, head of the rebel army in northern Mexico, whereby they are to be taken of the campaign waged against Huerta’s forces and even on the march to Mexico City, if Villa gets that far south. The first batch of films have been received in this country and it is expected that in a week or so will be released to jobbers, who will book them and Mr. Schunaman hopes to be able to get the first group of films for Webster City.”
Schuneman’s career as manager of the Isis lasted at least into 1929, when he was named in an item in the April 13 issue of Motion Picture News listing movie houses that had recently installed sound equipment. The installation at the Isis was a sound-on-disc system.
This web page has a history of the State Theatre. Construction began in late 1926 and was completed in 1927. The theater and the adjoining Abbott Building were designed by Edwyn Alfred Bowd and Orlie J. Munson of the Lansing architectural firm the Bowd-Munson Company. The Abbott Building survived the theater by more than three decades, finally being demolished in October, 2017, after having been vacant for about ten years.
The October 28, 1930, issue of The State Journal said that the Colonial Theatre had originally operated for several weeks under the name People’s Theatre. The promoters of the project, strapped for funds, had decamped shortly before the house was to open, and Charles Clark, the contractor who had built it for them, rather than let it sit idle, opened and operated it himself as the People’s Theatre while he sought a permanent operator. Two local men, Charles H. Davis and John M. Wilson, leased the house and renamed it the Colonial Theatre.
The same issue of the newspaper carries a courtesy ad from the local Bowd-Munson Company, architects with offices in the Wilson Building, so that must have been the firm that drew the plans for remodeling the Colonial into the Lansing Theatre. Edwyn Alfred Bowd and Orlie J. Munson also designed the State Theatre in East Lansing.
An enormous apartment complex has been built on the site of the Aquarius Theatres IV. For the time being Google’s satellite views still show the theater if you zoom in, but they probably won’t last long.
When the original Italian Baroque interior of the Strand was partly torn out and replaced by the more modern look of the Michigan Theatre in 1941, the architects who handled the job were… John and Drew Eberson. The ornate original facade was simplified at the same time.
The Bijou Theatre originally opened at a location on East Ottawa Street in 1905, but moved into its new quarters in the Oakland Building in 1907. The new house was set to open on Monday, April 8, according to an article in the April 6, 1907, issue of The State Republican (scan at Flickr.) The address of the Oakland Building was 125-129 West Michigan Avenue. If the theater entrance was in the center bay its address must have been 127 W. Michigan.
The location of the Bijou was the southeast corner of West Michigan Avenue and South Capitol Avenue. The 1907 newspaper article mentions some of the theater’s emergency exits debouching onto Capitol Avenue. This web page has a postcard showing the Bijou building, and is captioned “South side Michigan Ave., between Capitol and Washington Aves., Lansing, Mich.” The grassy areas in the foreground were on the grounds of the State Capitol Building.
The fire which gutted and partly collapsed the Oakland Building took place in the early morning hours of December 22, 1923. After the ruins were demolished the 300-room Hotel Olds was built on the site. The hotel building, still standing, has been converted to offices for the State of Michigan and is called the George W. Romney Building.
This weblog post from Preservation Austin credits architect Jack Corgan with the design of the Chief Drive-In. There’s a nice black and white photo of the screen tower, featuring a Texas longhorn painted by Dallas muralist H. R. McBride.
A telephone directory listing I found online doesn’t give the Rodeo’s exact address, but lists it on West Main Street. I’ve checked Google’s street views of downtown Hartselle, and though a few of the old buildings are the right size to have accommodated a theater, none have any distinguishing characteristics that could identify it as such.
The Rodeo was most likely somewhere in the three block stretch between Railroad Street and Corsbie Street, now a thriving district of restored buildings, many of them housing antiques dealers.
The October 18, 1952, issue of Motion Picture Herald had this news from Louisiana:
“Billy Fox Johnson’s Joy in Marksville burnt to the ground, October 9, the same night he and his family were at the opening of their new drive-in, the Fox, in Bunkie, La.”
The “Construction” column of the November 29, 1952, issue of Boxoffice reported that construction of the Kenmore Drive-In was scheduled to begin on February 1, 1953, with a target date for completion of April 1. There must have been delays, as Drive-Ins.com’s page for the Kenmore says it opened on May 20, 1953, with a double feature of Ma & Pa Kettle At The Fair and Destination Gobi. The theater was demolished in 1985.
Boxoffice of May 5, 1956, reported that a fire had damaged the long-closed Powhattan Theatre in Maplewood on Friday, April 27. This item, like several other sources, gives the address as 3111 Sutton. I suspect that there might have been more than one Powhatan Theatre on this block, the one at 3111 replacing the older one at 3107.
The Strand of 1944 must have been either a rebuild of or replacement for an earlier house of the same name which was in operation by 1932. The Strand’s manager, Adam P. Howell, was quoted in the January 14, 1933, issue of Universal Weekly saying that attendance for the studio’s movie “The Mummy” had broken his house record for 1932.
The Hartselle Enquirer has frequently published a column called “A look back” which often mentions the town’s theaters, but the earliest mentions of the Strand are from 1937, and there are no items about a rebuilding or a new theater in 1944.
In its later years the Strand became the Rodeo Theatre, as noted in this item:
“June 18, 1956 -The Strand (soon to be the Rodeo) Theatre is getting a $50,000 interior overhaul and redecoration. A new cry-room has its own speaker so that the baby tender can keep up with the picture if she can hear the sound above her babe.”
The May 5, 1956, issue of Boxoffice also noted the name change and remodel, saying that the owner, Hubert Mitchell, had adopted a western motif for the Rodeo, which he had also used at his Ranch Drive-In. I’ve found one more mention of the name Strand in the newspaper, incongruously from 1958, but by 1960 the house is called the Rodeo again. The theater was closed by 1967, when a June 28 item said that “[t]he vacant Rodeo Theatre building on Main Street is being offered for lease.”
Hubert R. Mitchell bought the Strand in 1955, but had lived in Hartselle for quite some time and was noted in the October 13, 1956, issue of Motion Picture Herald as “…the owner of Hubert Mitchell Industries, one of the largest manufacturers of stage fittings, decorations and props, as well as theatre auditorium drapes, seat cushions and accessories.” His company, which had two factories, also manufactured something called Bowline Screen Frames, which are mentioned now and then in theater industry trade journals of the period.
The newly-opened Ranch Drive-In at Hartselle was listed in the “Construction” column of the November 29, 1952, issue of Boxoffice, which noted that the drive-in’s kiddie playground had been completed, along with a four-room apartment at the base of the screen for the manager.
The November 29, 1952, issue of Boxoffice said that the College Drive-In was under construction at Fort Valley, Georgia, and was expected to open around December 25. The project would accommodate 300 cars, and would have 250 seats for walk-in customers. The owners were Lee Hancock and Greer Grace.
If the rebuilt Roxy expanded onto the site of the adjacent building then the original theater’s sidewall could not have been incorporated in the project, and that makes it unlikely that any of the original back wall was saved either.
This paragraph about the Manhattan Theatre’s owner, William Gane, is from Robert Grau’s book The Business Man in the Amusement World, published in 1910:
“As a manager Mr. Gane began his career at the Manhattan Theatre, since razed by the Pennsylvania Railroad, where he presented moving pictures. His success there was marked by crowded houses, and when he was forced to vacate he built the present Manhattan Theatre at Broadway and 31st Street.”
According to an index card in this PDF from the Theatre Historical Society, the Theatre Brighton opened in 1873 in a building converted from a saloon. It was later renamed the St. James Theatre. The house was rebuilt in 1883 to plans by John McElfatrick, and opened on December 5 as the Bijou Opera House.
Alterations were made by architect Thomas Lamb in 1908, and additional alterations designed by architect W. G. Masarene in 1910. The building was demolished in 1914, and the card doesn’t mention any alterations by Stuckert & Sloane, so perhaps their 1913 project was for the only other theater on Broadway near 31st Street, Gane’s Manhattan.
According to an index card in this PDF from the Theatre Historical Society, the Imperial Music Hall opened in 1892 (on Monday, October 24, according to the October 26 issue of The New York Sun.) It became Weber & Field’s Music Hall in 1896, Weber & Ziegfeld’s Music Hall in 1905, and simply Weber’s Theatre in 1906. Alterations made in 1908 were by Thomas Lamb, and additional, though minor, alterations made in 1914 were designed by Emery Roth. The theater was demolished in 1917.
According to an index card in this PDF from the Theatre Historical Society (as well as in the AIA Guide to New York City), this long-time movie house (last operated as the Chuan Kung Theatre according to the AIA guide) began in the late 19th century as a three story store building designed by none other than McKim, Mead & White, one of New York’s most famous architectural firms.
The index card says that plans to alter the building to accommodate a movie theater were submitted in July, 1913, (Louis Sheinart, architect) and the Universal Photoplay was in operation by 1914.
The house was altered several times over the years, with its listed seating capacity increasing from 281 in 1925 to 450 in 1931 and 546 in the 1940’s, but the only alteration credited on the card is a marquee installed in 1941 by architect Sol Oberwager. The house was renamed the Music Palace in the early 1970s.
This article from the Baxter Bulletin of May 30, 2014, says that the Baxter Theatre opened on January 3, 1948, and closed on December 21, 1978.
This article from the Baxter Bulletin of May 30, 2014, says that the Evans Theatre opened in 1939, and was located where the Old Tyme Restaurant is today, which is 609 S. Baker Street.
The former theater is now one of two buildings on the block occupied by First Security Bank. I’m not sure what the bank uses this building for, as their retail operation for Mountain Home appears to be in the building across Baker Street, but it might contain offices as the south wall has been fenestrated. The distinctive masonry detailing on the facade is still there, though it is now painted gray.
In early 1909, E. H. Martin’s son bought the Unique Theatre. A few months later the July 3 issue of The Improvement Bulletin reported that E.H.Martin had begun construction on a new building for the Unique Theatre. As there is no evidence that the Unique ever moved from its original location, I suspect that this project became the first Orpheum instead.
The project was designed by J. R. White, Webster City’s best known architect of the period, who had designed the Martin Telephone Company building in 1904. As Martin had hired White to design at least two projects prior to building the second Orpheum, it seems likely that he would have hired White for that job as well, though I haven’t found documentation that he did. Although the second Orpheum is more ornate than the first, the two buildings have certain elements in common, most notably the oblong, horizontal clerestory windows near the top of each facade.
This article from the January 19, 2016, issue of Webster City’s paper, The Daily Freeman-Journal has a fairly detailed history of the Isis Theatre. A. C. Schuneman bought a half interest in the Isis in 1912, and eventually became sole owner. He sold the house to Finklestein Theatres in early 1931.
Although the theater was dismantled in 1954, the building is still standing, the front portion housing a hearing aid center and the rear occupied by seating for the restaurant next door, the Second Street Emporium. The 1990 restaurant expansion included a small banquet facility called The Isis Room, which displays photos of the theater.
The reopening of the rebuilt Isis following the January, 1927, fire was on June 11, 1927.
A new organ was installed in the Isis Theatre in 1917, as noted in this item from the March 3 issue of The Moving Picture World:
Schuneman was manager of the Isis at least as early as 1914, when he and the theater were mentioned in the February 10 issue of the Webster City Freeman:Schuneman’s career as manager of the Isis lasted at least into 1929, when he was named in an item in the April 13 issue of Motion Picture News listing movie houses that had recently installed sound equipment. The installation at the Isis was a sound-on-disc system.This web page has a history of the State Theatre. Construction began in late 1926 and was completed in 1927. The theater and the adjoining Abbott Building were designed by Edwyn Alfred Bowd and Orlie J. Munson of the Lansing architectural firm the Bowd-Munson Company. The Abbott Building survived the theater by more than three decades, finally being demolished in October, 2017, after having been vacant for about ten years.
The October 28, 1930, issue of The State Journal said that the Colonial Theatre had originally operated for several weeks under the name People’s Theatre. The promoters of the project, strapped for funds, had decamped shortly before the house was to open, and Charles Clark, the contractor who had built it for them, rather than let it sit idle, opened and operated it himself as the People’s Theatre while he sought a permanent operator. Two local men, Charles H. Davis and John M. Wilson, leased the house and renamed it the Colonial Theatre.
The same issue of the newspaper carries a courtesy ad from the local Bowd-Munson Company, architects with offices in the Wilson Building, so that must have been the firm that drew the plans for remodeling the Colonial into the Lansing Theatre. Edwyn Alfred Bowd and Orlie J. Munson also designed the State Theatre in East Lansing.
An enormous apartment complex has been built on the site of the Aquarius Theatres IV. For the time being Google’s satellite views still show the theater if you zoom in, but they probably won’t last long.
When the original Italian Baroque interior of the Strand was partly torn out and replaced by the more modern look of the Michigan Theatre in 1941, the architects who handled the job were… John and Drew Eberson. The ornate original facade was simplified at the same time.
The Bijou Theatre originally opened at a location on East Ottawa Street in 1905, but moved into its new quarters in the Oakland Building in 1907. The new house was set to open on Monday, April 8, according to an article in the April 6, 1907, issue of The State Republican (scan at Flickr.) The address of the Oakland Building was 125-129 West Michigan Avenue. If the theater entrance was in the center bay its address must have been 127 W. Michigan.
The location of the Bijou was the southeast corner of West Michigan Avenue and South Capitol Avenue. The 1907 newspaper article mentions some of the theater’s emergency exits debouching onto Capitol Avenue. This web page has a postcard showing the Bijou building, and is captioned “South side Michigan Ave., between Capitol and Washington Aves., Lansing, Mich.” The grassy areas in the foreground were on the grounds of the State Capitol Building.
The fire which gutted and partly collapsed the Oakland Building took place in the early morning hours of December 22, 1923. After the ruins were demolished the 300-room Hotel Olds was built on the site. The hotel building, still standing, has been converted to offices for the State of Michigan and is called the George W. Romney Building.
This weblog post from Preservation Austin credits architect Jack Corgan with the design of the Chief Drive-In. There’s a nice black and white photo of the screen tower, featuring a Texas longhorn painted by Dallas muralist H. R. McBride.
A telephone directory listing I found online doesn’t give the Rodeo’s exact address, but lists it on West Main Street. I’ve checked Google’s street views of downtown Hartselle, and though a few of the old buildings are the right size to have accommodated a theater, none have any distinguishing characteristics that could identify it as such.
The Rodeo was most likely somewhere in the three block stretch between Railroad Street and Corsbie Street, now a thriving district of restored buildings, many of them housing antiques dealers.
This notice in the “Openings” column of the November 29, 1952, issue of Boxoffice was mistakenly dateline Parkville, B. C.:
The October 18, 1952, issue of Motion Picture Herald had this news from Louisiana:
The “Construction” column of the November 29, 1952, issue of Boxoffice reported that construction of the Kenmore Drive-In was scheduled to begin on February 1, 1953, with a target date for completion of April 1. There must have been delays, as Drive-Ins.com’s page for the Kenmore says it opened on May 20, 1953, with a double feature of Ma & Pa Kettle At The Fair and Destination Gobi. The theater was demolished in 1985.
Boxoffice of May 5, 1956, reported that a fire had damaged the long-closed Powhattan Theatre in Maplewood on Friday, April 27. This item, like several other sources, gives the address as 3111 Sutton. I suspect that there might have been more than one Powhatan Theatre on this block, the one at 3111 replacing the older one at 3107.
The Strand of 1944 must have been either a rebuild of or replacement for an earlier house of the same name which was in operation by 1932. The Strand’s manager, Adam P. Howell, was quoted in the January 14, 1933, issue of Universal Weekly saying that attendance for the studio’s movie “The Mummy” had broken his house record for 1932.
The Hartselle Enquirer has frequently published a column called “A look back” which often mentions the town’s theaters, but the earliest mentions of the Strand are from 1937, and there are no items about a rebuilding or a new theater in 1944.
In its later years the Strand became the Rodeo Theatre, as noted in this item:
The May 5, 1956, issue of Boxoffice also noted the name change and remodel, saying that the owner, Hubert Mitchell, had adopted a western motif for the Rodeo, which he had also used at his Ranch Drive-In. I’ve found one more mention of the name Strand in the newspaper, incongruously from 1958, but by 1960 the house is called the Rodeo again. The theater was closed by 1967, when a June 28 item said that “[t]he vacant Rodeo Theatre building on Main Street is being offered for lease.”Hubert R. Mitchell bought the Strand in 1955, but had lived in Hartselle for quite some time and was noted in the October 13, 1956, issue of Motion Picture Herald as “…the owner of Hubert Mitchell Industries, one of the largest manufacturers of stage fittings, decorations and props, as well as theatre auditorium drapes, seat cushions and accessories.” His company, which had two factories, also manufactured something called Bowline Screen Frames, which are mentioned now and then in theater industry trade journals of the period.
The newly-opened Ranch Drive-In at Hartselle was listed in the “Construction” column of the November 29, 1952, issue of Boxoffice, which noted that the drive-in’s kiddie playground had been completed, along with a four-room apartment at the base of the screen for the manager.
The November 29, 1952, issue of Boxoffice said that the College Drive-In was under construction at Fort Valley, Georgia, and was expected to open around December 25. The project would accommodate 300 cars, and would have 250 seats for walk-in customers. The owners were Lee Hancock and Greer Grace.
If the rebuilt Roxy expanded onto the site of the adjacent building then the original theater’s sidewall could not have been incorporated in the project, and that makes it unlikely that any of the original back wall was saved either.
This paragraph about the Manhattan Theatre’s owner, William Gane, is from Robert Grau’s book The Business Man in the Amusement World, published in 1910:
According to an index card in this PDF from the Theatre Historical Society, the Theatre Brighton opened in 1873 in a building converted from a saloon. It was later renamed the St. James Theatre. The house was rebuilt in 1883 to plans by John McElfatrick, and opened on December 5 as the Bijou Opera House.
Alterations were made by architect Thomas Lamb in 1908, and additional alterations designed by architect W. G. Masarene in 1910. The building was demolished in 1914, and the card doesn’t mention any alterations by Stuckert & Sloane, so perhaps their 1913 project was for the only other theater on Broadway near 31st Street, Gane’s Manhattan.
According to an index card in this PDF from the Theatre Historical Society, the Imperial Music Hall opened in 1892 (on Monday, October 24, according to the October 26 issue of The New York Sun.) It became Weber & Field’s Music Hall in 1896, Weber & Ziegfeld’s Music Hall in 1905, and simply Weber’s Theatre in 1906. Alterations made in 1908 were by Thomas Lamb, and additional, though minor, alterations made in 1914 were designed by Emery Roth. The theater was demolished in 1917.
According to an index card in this PDF from the Theatre Historical Society (as well as in the AIA Guide to New York City), this long-time movie house (last operated as the Chuan Kung Theatre according to the AIA guide) began in the late 19th century as a three story store building designed by none other than McKim, Mead & White, one of New York’s most famous architectural firms.
The index card says that plans to alter the building to accommodate a movie theater were submitted in July, 1913, (Louis Sheinart, architect) and the Universal Photoplay was in operation by 1914.
The house was altered several times over the years, with its listed seating capacity increasing from 281 in 1925 to 450 in 1931 and 546 in the 1940’s, but the only alteration credited on the card is a marquee installed in 1941 by architect Sol Oberwager. The house was renamed the Music Palace in the early 1970s.