I haven’t checked every year, but the FDY lists only the Palace at Waverly in 1926, 1928, 1929, 1936, and 1937. The house at 107 E. Bremer might have been dark, or maybe not even a theater, for many years.
In 1938 the FDY lists the Palace and a 305-seat house called the Bremer Theatre, which could have been this one. The only mention of the Bremer I’ve found in the trades is in the November 11, 1950 Boxoffice which said the house had suffered a fire “last Sunday” (which would have been November 5) and had been closed for repairs most of the week.
Film Daily of April 5, 1940 said that a new, $50,000 building was being erected at Ebensburg to Replace the Allison Circuit’s Rivoli Theatre, which had been destroyed by a fire some time earlier. A February 17 Boxoffice item about the fire said that the burned theater had been built in 1915 by a Pittsburgh steel mogul named D. E. Park.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists two theaters at Patton, the Star and the Majestic. The earliest mention of the Grand I’ve found is on a list in the August 7, 1918 issue of Moving Picture World. The October 9, 1920 MPW noted that the Grand was being enlarged from 350 to 500 seats. It also says that W. A. Dinsmore was the owner of both the Grand and the Majestic.
After the Vernon Theatre was destroyed by a fire, its site became the location of a small public open space called Fridman Park. It is on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue about 100 feet east of Crawford. Google Maps says it is at 950 Philadelphia, but that’s way off. The businesses across the street are at 910 and 914, so the theater would probably have been in the range of 911-915.
The house seen on the 1923 and 1930 Sanborns at 1002 Philadelphia must have been the one listed in 1926 and 1929 FDYs as the Russell. It’s the only theater listed those years besides Smith’s (which we know was not on Philadelphia Avenue.) The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists two houses on Philadelphia Avenue in Barnesboro, the Pastime and the Rex. It also lists two without locations, the Gaiety and the Grand. We have the Grand listed under the town’s modern name of Northern Cambria. Gaiety is still a mystery. Perhaps a missing aka for Smith’s?
At some point, Water Street was renamed 4th Avenue– one of very many annoying street name changes in Austin. As the Paramount Theatre was built on the foundations of the Park Theatre, the address of the Park was probably the same, 125 4th Avenue NE.
This was an Ultra-Vision house, using a system developed by Wil-Kin Theater Services. In time, more than sixty Ultra-Vision theaters were opened, and as far as I know all of them were in the southeast. The system could be used with either 35 or 70mm projectors, but I think most of the houses used 35mm to keep overall costs down. Information about the system is sparse on the Internet, but as near as I can tell it uses dual projectors with their beams sent through an apparatus that blends the images seamlessly on a curved, lenticulated screen. The system was premiered at the Terrace Theater in Asheville, N.C., in 1968.
In what was likely a double listing caused by the name change, both the Cozy and the Unique are listed, on Main Street, in the 1914-1915 American Motion Puicture Directory.
I’m now doubting the accuracy of the 1966 Daily Herald article that said the Lyric Theatre had become the State Theatre. Both the Lyric and the State are listed in FDYs in 1926 and 1927, and I’ve found the State mentioned in Universal Weekly as far back as April 5, 1924. The Lyric goes back to at least as early as 1914, having been listed in the AMPD that year. In the FDYs, the Lyric and State have wildly different seating capacities (600 and 1,500 respectively, though I suspect the latter is a wild exaggeration.) The 600-seat Lyric is last listed in 1927, and in 1928 a 600-seat Eagle Theatre makes its first appearance. Eagle is thus a likely new name for the Lyric, but State is not.
An Eagle Theatre with 600 seats is listed in the 1928 FDY. This was its first appearance. A 600-seat Lyric Theatre listed in the 1927 FDY is no longer listed in 1928. According to a 1966 article in the Austin Daily Herald the Lyric became the State, but checking the FDYs from the period, I find both the Lyric and the State listed in both the 1926 and the 1927 editions. I’ve found the State mentioned in Universal Weekly as early as April 5, 1924, so the Lyric probably didn’t become the State. More likely it became the Eagle in 1927 or very early 1928. The Lyric was one of at least six movie houses operating in Austin in 1914.
The much lower seating capacity listed in FDY in 1940 (and 1938) could have been the result of the house closing a balcony, but given that the manager was claiming 500 seats in 1940, I’m inclined to attribute the lower number to FDY’s notorious inaccuracy when it comes to seating capacities.
The Eagle is last listed in the 1942 FDY, with 250 seats. A 250-seat house called the Rex first appears in the 1943 edition, and I suspect a name change. But then the 233-seat Eagle reappears in the 1949 FDY and there is no Rex listed, so it looks like the name might have been changed back.
This house might have been called the Idle Hour Theatre. An interesting item appeared in the August 9, 1913 issue of Motography, which said that W. A. Matlack, operator of the Idle Hour Theatre at New Hampton, had leased the Opera House and would present a season of plays, while continuing to show movies at the Idle Hour.
The only theater listed at New Hampton in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was the Idle Hour, and it was listed as being on Main Street. The December 2, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World said that “[t]he Idle Hour theater has been remodeled and the interior redecorated.” The house was still in operation in 1918, when the May 4 MPW said it had been taken over by a new owner. That’s the latest mention of the Idle Hour I’ve been able to find. In 1917 the new Fireman’s Theatre opened and began showing movies in November, and it seems unlikely that any competitors would have lasted long.
As for the Opera House, it had 400 seats according to a 1908 Iowa business directory, which listed it as one of two theaters in New Hampton, the other being the 3,000-seat Fireman’s Auditorium. The Fireman’s Theatre opened in 1917 was the second big theater built by the New Hampton Fire Department. The first opened in 1898, as part of the department’s new headquarters. It doesn’t seem to have harmed business at the Opera House, though, as that venue continued to be mentioned in The Billboard and The New York Clipper into the 1910s. The Opera House must have had a flat floor , though, as the local high school’s basketball games were held there for many years.
This was the second large theater built by the New Hampton Fire Department. The first was a 3,000-seat auditorium on the upper floors of the department’s new headquarters, a huge, Romanesque Revival pile built in 1898. It was apparently never used as a movie theater, but this second hall, opened in 1917, was equipped as a movie theater from very early in its history.
A notice that the Fireman’s Hall had begun operating as a full time movie theater appeared in the November 3, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World. The hall had opened earlier that year with live performances.
The Firemen’s Theatre closed as a movie house in 1984, but reopened in 1987 as a live venue. It was destroyed by an arson fire not too long after.
The Barthel Opera House building was destroyed by a fire that started in the early morning hours of October 22, 2007. At the time of its destruction it was occupied by a restaurant called Wild Willy’s Pizza Saloon. It’s likely that the Barthell was equipped to show movies from the time of its construction, as a notice that the house was nearing completion appeared in the July 24, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World. Still, trade journal mentions of Waukon after that are invariably about the Cota (or Cote) Theatre, so the Barthell was probably never the town’s most important movie venue.
I don’t think we can trust the NRHP’s date of c 1900 for this building. The historic district’s nomination form has a number of questionable claims.
More significantly, several trade journals from 1921 note the construction of a new theater on Bridge Street in Shinnston for a Miss Lynne Monroe. The November 4th issue of Variety even gives the name Columbia Theatre, and says that ground had been broken for the 300-seat house, which was expected to be completed before the end of December. Several journals note that the 30x80 foot brick and tile building had been designed by Clarksburg architect J. E. (John Edward) Wood.
Nessa is correct that the photos here depict the Rice Theatre, which operated from 1948 to 1957. It was described in various trade journals as an upstairs theater with a large store on the ground floor.
So far I’ve been unable to find any historic references to a house called the Colonial Theatre at Shinnston. While searching I’ve found a couple of stray listings: A Lyric Theatre is listed in FDYs from 1927, ‘28 and '29, no seating capacity listed, and a 400-seat Paramount Theatre is listed in 1931 only. Neither of these names appear to be aka’s for other known houses, as the Columbia, Princess and Rex continue to be listed as well.
Multiple sources indicate that this house at 314 Pike Street was the second of its name in Shinnston. The earlier Princess, in operation by 1921, was across the street at 323 Pike. The new theater opened in 1940, the same year the town’s first Rex Theatre was burned out of the former Opera House on Walnut Street. The Princess and Rex had been under the same ownership, and for a while the old Princess went by the name Princess-Rex, though it later returned to being simply the Rex. CinemaTour says that the Princess operated at its new location from 1940 until 1961. A book called Around Shinnston says that a furniture store had moved into the Princess building by 1964, so 1961 is likely right as the closing date.
I came across this old Facebook post (with photo) that says the Rex was in the town’s old Shinnston (or Moore) Opera House on Walnut Street. Comments on the post say that the building was gutted by a fire in the 1940s and then rebuilt as a skating rink.
Other sources indicate that the Opera House was built in 1889, but CinemaTour lists the Rex Theatre aka Opera House as having been in operation from 1910 to 1940. It’s possible that it began showing movies in 1910, though it wasn’t listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory (the book gives Shinnston a miss altogether.) The fire probably gutted the building in 1940. The rehabbed Rex building later served as a skating rink, then an exhibition hall, and was apparently last used as a garage for a Chevrolet dealer. It has since been demolished.
A comment on the Facebook post says that the owners of the Rex also had a house called the Princess-Rex, across Pike Street from the (second) Princess (which opened in 1940.) The Princess-Rex is one of the theaters listed at CinemaTour, with an address of 323 Pike. I have an idea about it that I’ll (eventually) also post on the Princess page. I suspect that the Rex, still listed in the FDY in 1947 even though burned out of the old Opera House in 1940, ended up in the former Princess building at 323 Pike when the Princess moved into its new location at 314 Pike. The original Princess dated back to at least as early as 1921. Princess-Rex probably served simply as a transitional name.
Judging from the old photo and the configuration of Shinnston’s streets, I’d say that the Opera House/first Rex Theatre was almost certainly at 72 or 74 Walnut Street. The 470 seat capacity we have listed is that of the second Rex/first Princess/Princess-Rex at 323 Pike Street. The first Rex might have been a bit bigger, but I haven’t been able to track down a capacity for it.
I believe the photos currently displayed on the Colonial Theatre’s photo page actually depict the Rice Theatre. An item in Boxoffice of September 4, 1948 is captioned “Shinnston, W. Va., Theatre Built by George Rice” describes a building that doesn’t match any other house in Shinnston. The auditorium was on the upper floor, and the ground floor, completed a year earlier, was occupied by a grocery store. The theater, delayed by shortages of manpower and materials, was to be completed soon.
Comments on a photo of the Rice on this Flickr page say that in the 1980s the lower floor was occupied by a Dollar General store, but nobody seemed to remember the theater. CinemaTour lists the years of operation as 1948-1957, which is probably right.
I’ve found the theater name styled as Coté in a modern source, but early trade journals, the AMPD and the FDY all give the name as Cota, with an “a”. The earliest instance of Cote (with an “e” and unaccented) I’ve seen is in the item from Boxoffice of September 4, 1948, cited earlier. It is always Cote in every Boxoffice mention I’ve seen. The first (and only) instance of Coté I’ve seen is in the article cited in my first comment on this house (click on Bruce Calvert’s name to see his copypasta. The Zwire page he got it from is gone.)
Coté (or perhaps Côte or Côté) is probably correct, but what we use should be based on how the theater’s advertisements styled it, if we can find an ad, or what the signage on the building said, if we can find a photo of it. And given that it was listed as Cota in so many early sources, that spelling should probably at least be listed as an aka.
The Opera House is now a Knights of Columbus lodge hall, and is listed on the NRHP. The nomination form has a brief history of the theater and doesn’t mention it ever having operated as a movie house.
Ossian isn’t listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, and doesn’t appear in the FDY until 1928, when a 190-seat house called the Picture Show appears. That’s quite a bit smaller than the Opera House. The Picture Show listing repeats in 1929, and then vanishes. I suspect that the first instance of the Majestic simply didn’t last long enough to be listed on the 1914 map. It might have operated in more than one storefront over the years, as many early theaters did.
The Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada says that the Odeon Hastings Theatre underwent modernization with major alterations in 1946. The plans for the project were by Vancouver architect H. H. Simmonds.
The July 23, 1949 issue of Boxoffice has two items about the Odeon Fraser Theatre, one of which describes it as a new house and the other of which refers to it as “…the renovated Odeon Fraser….” which was scheduled to open in August. As can be seen from photos of the house, it was drastically different after the 1949 project from what it had been earlier, so it might well have been a demolition and rebuilding. Either way, the design for the project was by Vancouver architect H. H. Simmonds.
An inventory of potentially significant historic buildings along 12th Street prepared for the City of New Westminster says that the Metro Theatre opened on March 23, 1938, and was designed by Vancouver architect H. H. Simmonds.
The Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada attributes the design of the Clova Theatre to Vancouver architect H. H. Simmonds. The Clova opened on May 26, 1947 with Humphry Bogart in “Dead Reckoning.”
I haven’t checked every year, but the FDY lists only the Palace at Waverly in 1926, 1928, 1929, 1936, and 1937. The house at 107 E. Bremer might have been dark, or maybe not even a theater, for many years.
In 1938 the FDY lists the Palace and a 305-seat house called the Bremer Theatre, which could have been this one. The only mention of the Bremer I’ve found in the trades is in the November 11, 1950 Boxoffice which said the house had suffered a fire “last Sunday” (which would have been November 5) and had been closed for repairs most of the week.
Film Daily of April 5, 1940 said that a new, $50,000 building was being erected at Ebensburg to Replace the Allison Circuit’s Rivoli Theatre, which had been destroyed by a fire some time earlier. A February 17 Boxoffice item about the fire said that the burned theater had been built in 1915 by a Pittsburgh steel mogul named D. E. Park.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists two theaters at Patton, the Star and the Majestic. The earliest mention of the Grand I’ve found is on a list in the August 7, 1918 issue of Moving Picture World. The October 9, 1920 MPW noted that the Grand was being enlarged from 350 to 500 seats. It also says that W. A. Dinsmore was the owner of both the Grand and the Majestic.
After the Vernon Theatre was destroyed by a fire, its site became the location of a small public open space called Fridman Park. It is on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue about 100 feet east of Crawford. Google Maps says it is at 950 Philadelphia, but that’s way off. The businesses across the street are at 910 and 914, so the theater would probably have been in the range of 911-915.
The house seen on the 1923 and 1930 Sanborns at 1002 Philadelphia must have been the one listed in 1926 and 1929 FDYs as the Russell. It’s the only theater listed those years besides Smith’s (which we know was not on Philadelphia Avenue.) The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists two houses on Philadelphia Avenue in Barnesboro, the Pastime and the Rex. It also lists two without locations, the Gaiety and the Grand. We have the Grand listed under the town’s modern name of Northern Cambria. Gaiety is still a mystery. Perhaps a missing aka for Smith’s?
The Park Theatre was listed in a 1920 Minnesota directory at 125 E. Water St. (125 4th Avenue NE.)
At some point, Water Street was renamed 4th Avenue– one of very many annoying street name changes in Austin. As the Paramount Theatre was built on the foundations of the Park Theatre, the address of the Park was probably the same, 125 4th Avenue NE.
This was an Ultra-Vision house, using a system developed by Wil-Kin Theater Services. In time, more than sixty Ultra-Vision theaters were opened, and as far as I know all of them were in the southeast. The system could be used with either 35 or 70mm projectors, but I think most of the houses used 35mm to keep overall costs down. Information about the system is sparse on the Internet, but as near as I can tell it uses dual projectors with their beams sent through an apparatus that blends the images seamlessly on a curved, lenticulated screen. The system was premiered at the Terrace Theater in Asheville, N.C., in 1968.
In what was likely a double listing caused by the name change, both the Cozy and the Unique are listed, on Main Street, in the 1914-1915 American Motion Puicture Directory.
I’m now doubting the accuracy of the 1966 Daily Herald article that said the Lyric Theatre had become the State Theatre. Both the Lyric and the State are listed in FDYs in 1926 and 1927, and I’ve found the State mentioned in Universal Weekly as far back as April 5, 1924. The Lyric goes back to at least as early as 1914, having been listed in the AMPD that year. In the FDYs, the Lyric and State have wildly different seating capacities (600 and 1,500 respectively, though I suspect the latter is a wild exaggeration.) The 600-seat Lyric is last listed in 1927, and in 1928 a 600-seat Eagle Theatre makes its first appearance. Eagle is thus a likely new name for the Lyric, but State is not.
An Eagle Theatre with 600 seats is listed in the 1928 FDY. This was its first appearance. A 600-seat Lyric Theatre listed in the 1927 FDY is no longer listed in 1928. According to a 1966 article in the Austin Daily Herald the Lyric became the State, but checking the FDYs from the period, I find both the Lyric and the State listed in both the 1926 and the 1927 editions. I’ve found the State mentioned in Universal Weekly as early as April 5, 1924, so the Lyric probably didn’t become the State. More likely it became the Eagle in 1927 or very early 1928. The Lyric was one of at least six movie houses operating in Austin in 1914.
The much lower seating capacity listed in FDY in 1940 (and 1938) could have been the result of the house closing a balcony, but given that the manager was claiming 500 seats in 1940, I’m inclined to attribute the lower number to FDY’s notorious inaccuracy when it comes to seating capacities.
The Eagle is last listed in the 1942 FDY, with 250 seats. A 250-seat house called the Rex first appears in the 1943 edition, and I suspect a name change. But then the 233-seat Eagle reappears in the 1949 FDY and there is no Rex listed, so it looks like the name might have been changed back.
This house might have been called the Idle Hour Theatre. An interesting item appeared in the August 9, 1913 issue of Motography, which said that W. A. Matlack, operator of the Idle Hour Theatre at New Hampton, had leased the Opera House and would present a season of plays, while continuing to show movies at the Idle Hour.
The only theater listed at New Hampton in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was the Idle Hour, and it was listed as being on Main Street. The December 2, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World said that “[t]he Idle Hour theater has been remodeled and the interior redecorated.” The house was still in operation in 1918, when the May 4 MPW said it had been taken over by a new owner. That’s the latest mention of the Idle Hour I’ve been able to find. In 1917 the new Fireman’s Theatre opened and began showing movies in November, and it seems unlikely that any competitors would have lasted long.
As for the Opera House, it had 400 seats according to a 1908 Iowa business directory, which listed it as one of two theaters in New Hampton, the other being the 3,000-seat Fireman’s Auditorium. The Fireman’s Theatre opened in 1917 was the second big theater built by the New Hampton Fire Department. The first opened in 1898, as part of the department’s new headquarters. It doesn’t seem to have harmed business at the Opera House, though, as that venue continued to be mentioned in The Billboard and The New York Clipper into the 1910s. The Opera House must have had a flat floor , though, as the local high school’s basketball games were held there for many years.
This was the second large theater built by the New Hampton Fire Department. The first was a 3,000-seat auditorium on the upper floors of the department’s new headquarters, a huge, Romanesque Revival pile built in 1898. It was apparently never used as a movie theater, but this second hall, opened in 1917, was equipped as a movie theater from very early in its history.
A notice that the Fireman’s Hall had begun operating as a full time movie theater appeared in the November 3, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World. The hall had opened earlier that year with live performances.
The Firemen’s Theatre closed as a movie house in 1984, but reopened in 1987 as a live venue. It was destroyed by an arson fire not too long after.
The Barthel Opera House building was destroyed by a fire that started in the early morning hours of October 22, 2007. At the time of its destruction it was occupied by a restaurant called Wild Willy’s Pizza Saloon. It’s likely that the Barthell was equipped to show movies from the time of its construction, as a notice that the house was nearing completion appeared in the July 24, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World. Still, trade journal mentions of Waukon after that are invariably about the Cota (or Cote) Theatre, so the Barthell was probably never the town’s most important movie venue.
I don’t think we can trust the NRHP’s date of c 1900 for this building. The historic district’s nomination form has a number of questionable claims.
More significantly, several trade journals from 1921 note the construction of a new theater on Bridge Street in Shinnston for a Miss Lynne Monroe. The November 4th issue of Variety even gives the name Columbia Theatre, and says that ground had been broken for the 300-seat house, which was expected to be completed before the end of December. Several journals note that the 30x80 foot brick and tile building had been designed by Clarksburg architect J. E. (John Edward) Wood.
Nessa is correct that the photos here depict the Rice Theatre, which operated from 1948 to 1957. It was described in various trade journals as an upstairs theater with a large store on the ground floor.
So far I’ve been unable to find any historic references to a house called the Colonial Theatre at Shinnston. While searching I’ve found a couple of stray listings: A Lyric Theatre is listed in FDYs from 1927, ‘28 and '29, no seating capacity listed, and a 400-seat Paramount Theatre is listed in 1931 only. Neither of these names appear to be aka’s for other known houses, as the Columbia, Princess and Rex continue to be listed as well.
Multiple sources indicate that this house at 314 Pike Street was the second of its name in Shinnston. The earlier Princess, in operation by 1921, was across the street at 323 Pike. The new theater opened in 1940, the same year the town’s first Rex Theatre was burned out of the former Opera House on Walnut Street. The Princess and Rex had been under the same ownership, and for a while the old Princess went by the name Princess-Rex, though it later returned to being simply the Rex. CinemaTour says that the Princess operated at its new location from 1940 until 1961. A book called Around Shinnston says that a furniture store had moved into the Princess building by 1964, so 1961 is likely right as the closing date.
I came across this old Facebook post (with photo) that says the Rex was in the town’s old Shinnston (or Moore) Opera House on Walnut Street. Comments on the post say that the building was gutted by a fire in the 1940s and then rebuilt as a skating rink.
Other sources indicate that the Opera House was built in 1889, but CinemaTour lists the Rex Theatre aka Opera House as having been in operation from 1910 to 1940. It’s possible that it began showing movies in 1910, though it wasn’t listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory (the book gives Shinnston a miss altogether.) The fire probably gutted the building in 1940. The rehabbed Rex building later served as a skating rink, then an exhibition hall, and was apparently last used as a garage for a Chevrolet dealer. It has since been demolished.
A comment on the Facebook post says that the owners of the Rex also had a house called the Princess-Rex, across Pike Street from the (second) Princess (which opened in 1940.) The Princess-Rex is one of the theaters listed at CinemaTour, with an address of 323 Pike. I have an idea about it that I’ll (eventually) also post on the Princess page. I suspect that the Rex, still listed in the FDY in 1947 even though burned out of the old Opera House in 1940, ended up in the former Princess building at 323 Pike when the Princess moved into its new location at 314 Pike. The original Princess dated back to at least as early as 1921. Princess-Rex probably served simply as a transitional name.
Judging from the old photo and the configuration of Shinnston’s streets, I’d say that the Opera House/first Rex Theatre was almost certainly at 72 or 74 Walnut Street. The 470 seat capacity we have listed is that of the second Rex/first Princess/Princess-Rex at 323 Pike Street. The first Rex might have been a bit bigger, but I haven’t been able to track down a capacity for it.
I believe the photos currently displayed on the Colonial Theatre’s photo page actually depict the Rice Theatre. An item in Boxoffice of September 4, 1948 is captioned “Shinnston, W. Va., Theatre Built by George Rice” describes a building that doesn’t match any other house in Shinnston. The auditorium was on the upper floor, and the ground floor, completed a year earlier, was occupied by a grocery store. The theater, delayed by shortages of manpower and materials, was to be completed soon.
Comments on a photo of the Rice on this Flickr page say that in the 1980s the lower floor was occupied by a Dollar General store, but nobody seemed to remember the theater. CinemaTour lists the years of operation as 1948-1957, which is probably right.
I’ve found the theater name styled as Coté in a modern source, but early trade journals, the AMPD and the FDY all give the name as Cota, with an “a”. The earliest instance of Cote (with an “e” and unaccented) I’ve seen is in the item from Boxoffice of September 4, 1948, cited earlier. It is always Cote in every Boxoffice mention I’ve seen. The first (and only) instance of Coté I’ve seen is in the article cited in my first comment on this house (click on Bruce Calvert’s name to see his copypasta. The Zwire page he got it from is gone.)
Coté (or perhaps Côte or Côté) is probably correct, but what we use should be based on how the theater’s advertisements styled it, if we can find an ad, or what the signage on the building said, if we can find a photo of it. And given that it was listed as Cota in so many early sources, that spelling should probably at least be listed as an aka.
The Opera House is now a Knights of Columbus lodge hall, and is listed on the NRHP. The nomination form has a brief history of the theater and doesn’t mention it ever having operated as a movie house.
Ossian isn’t listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, and doesn’t appear in the FDY until 1928, when a 190-seat house called the Picture Show appears. That’s quite a bit smaller than the Opera House. The Picture Show listing repeats in 1929, and then vanishes. I suspect that the first instance of the Majestic simply didn’t last long enough to be listed on the 1914 map. It might have operated in more than one storefront over the years, as many early theaters did.
The Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada says that the Odeon Hastings Theatre underwent modernization with major alterations in 1946. The plans for the project were by Vancouver architect H. H. Simmonds.
The July 23, 1949 issue of Boxoffice has two items about the Odeon Fraser Theatre, one of which describes it as a new house and the other of which refers to it as “…the renovated Odeon Fraser….” which was scheduled to open in August. As can be seen from photos of the house, it was drastically different after the 1949 project from what it had been earlier, so it might well have been a demolition and rebuilding. Either way, the design for the project was by Vancouver architect H. H. Simmonds.
The Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada attributes the design of the Cambie Theatre to Vancouver architect H. H. Simmonds.
An inventory of potentially significant historic buildings along 12th Street prepared for the City of New Westminster says that the Metro Theatre opened on March 23, 1938, and was designed by Vancouver architect H. H. Simmonds.
The Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada attributes the design of the Clova Theatre to Vancouver architect H. H. Simmonds. The Clova opened on May 26, 1947 with Humphry Bogart in “Dead Reckoning.”