This is part of an article in the Coshocton Tribune dated 5/14/59:
The final curtain goes down tonight on the historic, tradition-laden Sixth Street theater, for more than a half-century Coshocton’s chief center of entertainment, drama and movies. The building was recently sold to the Coshocton Tribune by Warner Bros. for $13,500. The Pastime theater on Main st. is to be reopened by Warner Bros, tomorrow night.
The Tribune has announced it has no immediate plans for the property, but that it could prove useful in any future expansion, since it is adjacent to the newspaper plant. Under terms of the sale, the building cannot be used as a movie theater. And so, James Salmans, local manager, has announced that tonight’s show will mark the end of the Sixth. Street as a theater.
The huge brick structure was erected in 1903 by a group of local promoters called the Coshocton Theater Co. Heading the company for many years was the late T. J. Hanley, whose flour mill at Second and Main streets was long a Coshocton landmark, until destroyed by fire. In later life, Mr. Hanley lived in Mansfield.
For the last 30 years, the Sixth Street has been devoted largely to movies. But before that, during the first 26 years of its existence, it was Coshocton’s home of the legitimate stage. And during that glamorous period some of the greatest actors and actresses in American stage history trod the boards of the old Sixth Street house.
Only five years after its birth, the Sixth Street was the scene of one of the most spectacular and shocking tragedies in Coshocton history. The victim was William “Fearnaught” Wilson, 30, also known as the “legless wonderâ€. A local youth,, Wilson went to Columbus when he was 20 to enlist for the Spanish-American war. Hopping a freight to return to Coshocton, he fell under the wheels and lost both legs.
He learned to ride a bicycle and created an act called, prophetically, “The Whirl of Deathâ€. Wilson scheduled his first two official performances for local viewers at the Sixth Street on August 3, 1908. On his first attempt, he performed the feat perfectly. On his second try, something went wrong and his bicycle came loose from its track at the top of a loop, leaving Wilson swinging in a pendulum, helplessly and head down, his skull crushing against a beam. In full view of a horrified audience, many of them children, he was killed instantly, his head crushed to a pulp.
But that was the only blot on the Sixth Street’s history. On thousands of nights it brought entertainment, drama and comedy to countless thousands of people. The late Jim Hagans, native of Roscoe, circus musician and showboat operator, returned to Coshocton in 1912 as manager of the Sixth Street, and remained in that capacity until 1926.
And thus, the last show at the Sixth Street tonight marks the end of an era in Coshoctonâ€"an era of glamour, glitter, grease paint, footlights and stage stars, most of whom live only in memory.
This is from the Mansfield News Journal, dated 5/23/58:
The Park Theater closed its doors to the public today for an indefinite period. Skirball Brothers, Inc., owners and operators of the Park Theater, announced: “Due to the fact that management cannot meet the demands of the moving picture machine operators' union, the theater will be closed until further notice.” It was explained that the “demands” centered around wages for the four-day work week which was started at the theater recently. A few weeks ago the Park management announced the theater would close Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of each week. Skirball spokesmen said no plans have been made for using the theater in the near future.
This is from the Lima News dated 5/29/55. There should be an aka of Orpheum Theater, also an address change to 118 W. Market.
The State Theater, 118 W. Market St., once the Orpheum Theater playing Gus Sun and Keith-Albee vaudeville acts, will close its doors “indefinitely” Thursday night. Stanley Warner Pictures Inc., New York, operator of the State, Sigma and Ohio theaters in Lima, has notified its Lima manager, W. J. (Doc) Elliott to close the State. The lease on the building expires Aug. 31.
Plans for the building, owned by Miss Jessie M. Boone, Lima; William K. Boone, who lives in Mexico, and Mrs. Frances B. Holland, Miami, Fla., are not known. Leases held by three other businesses having space in the building also expire Aug. 31. Mrs. Margaret McBarron, manager of the State, will return to the Ohio as assistant manager, a job she held prior to moving to the State in April 1953. The other Warner theaters in Lima will absorb as many of the other 16 State employes as possible, Elliott added.
Here is an April 3, 1946 item from the San Antonio Express:
The Alamo Drive-In Theater, built at a cost of $100,000 one mile north on Austin Hwy., will be formally opened Thursday at 7 p.m. Arthur Landsman, manager and co-owner, along with C.A. Richter and E.L. Pack, said the screen, employing a new plaster, provides more clearly defined pictures with realistic depth. Five hundred can be accommodated at the theater, he said.
This is from the Abilene Reporter-News on 3/15/52:
COLEMAN. March 14.-The new 400-speaker Cole-Anna Drive-In Theater, in south Coleman, had its formal opening Friday night. Its plant includes a screen 72 feet wide and 52 feet high, of brick construction, 400 in-car speakers and the latest in sound equipment.
An article in the Victoria Advocate gave the opening date as March 8, 1957. Owner was Ruben Frels and general manager was Doyle Oliver. Theater plans and construction took over two years.
This is from the San Antonio Express in April 1950:
San Antonio’s biggest drive-in theater, the new Rigsby, opens Saturday night. This is the fourth theater opened in San Antonio by the Landsman-Richter Enterprises, now incorporated into Statewide Drive-In Theaters.
The screen at the Rigsby towers eight stories high with a 200-ton steel and concrete foundation. Sound for the Rigsby will be furnished by the latest model electronic individual car speakers, fed by six miles of underground cable. Vivian Farold Munson, former R.C.A. sound engineer, supervises their operation.
The snack bar and restrooms are located in the center of the parking area, and have glazed tile walls throughout. Directly in front of the screen is a playground for children, fenced in for their safety. The Rigsby has benches provided in addition to the automobile parking space. This bench seating capacity is equal in size to that of an average neighborhood theater.
The date of the fire was 1/14/39, as reported in the San Antonio Express. Damage was estimated at $50,000. The story noted that the theater was four years old, which would have meant an opening in 1935.
The LA Times reported today that Martin Weil has passed away. He was a past president of the LA Conservancy and a renovation expert. He was involved in the renovation of the El Capitan in the 1990s.
It looks like the marquee message is “Welcome to Medina”, but there are some letters missing. It doesn’t look the building is occupied at the present time.
There was a June 4, 1943 article in the Lubbock Morning Avalanche about a fire that destroyed the Texas Theater in Grand Prairie. Since the post immediately above recalls the theater being open during the war, I think this was a separate theater and not a typo.
This is part of an article in the Coshocton Tribune dated 5/14/59:
The final curtain goes down tonight on the historic, tradition-laden Sixth Street theater, for more than a half-century Coshocton’s chief center of entertainment, drama and movies. The building was recently sold to the Coshocton Tribune by Warner Bros. for $13,500. The Pastime theater on Main st. is to be reopened by Warner Bros, tomorrow night.
The Tribune has announced it has no immediate plans for the property, but that it could prove useful in any future expansion, since it is adjacent to the newspaper plant. Under terms of the sale, the building cannot be used as a movie theater. And so, James Salmans, local manager, has announced that tonight’s show will mark the end of the Sixth. Street as a theater.
The huge brick structure was erected in 1903 by a group of local promoters called the Coshocton Theater Co. Heading the company for many years was the late T. J. Hanley, whose flour mill at Second and Main streets was long a Coshocton landmark, until destroyed by fire. In later life, Mr. Hanley lived in Mansfield.
For the last 30 years, the Sixth Street has been devoted largely to movies. But before that, during the first 26 years of its existence, it was Coshocton’s home of the legitimate stage. And during that glamorous period some of the greatest actors and actresses in American stage history trod the boards of the old Sixth Street house.
Only five years after its birth, the Sixth Street was the scene of one of the most spectacular and shocking tragedies in Coshocton history. The victim was William “Fearnaught” Wilson, 30, also known as the “legless wonderâ€. A local youth,, Wilson went to Columbus when he was 20 to enlist for the Spanish-American war. Hopping a freight to return to Coshocton, he fell under the wheels and lost both legs.
He learned to ride a bicycle and created an act called, prophetically, “The Whirl of Deathâ€. Wilson scheduled his first two official performances for local viewers at the Sixth Street on August 3, 1908. On his first attempt, he performed the feat perfectly. On his second try, something went wrong and his bicycle came loose from its track at the top of a loop, leaving Wilson swinging in a pendulum, helplessly and head down, his skull crushing against a beam. In full view of a horrified audience, many of them children, he was killed instantly, his head crushed to a pulp.
But that was the only blot on the Sixth Street’s history. On thousands of nights it brought entertainment, drama and comedy to countless thousands of people. The late Jim Hagans, native of Roscoe, circus musician and showboat operator, returned to Coshocton in 1912 as manager of the Sixth Street, and remained in that capacity until 1926.
And thus, the last show at the Sixth Street tonight marks the end of an era in Coshoctonâ€"an era of glamour, glitter, grease paint, footlights and stage stars, most of whom live only in memory.
Curtain!
This is from the Mansfield News Journal, dated 5/23/58:
The Park Theater closed its doors to the public today for an indefinite period. Skirball Brothers, Inc., owners and operators of the Park Theater, announced: “Due to the fact that management cannot meet the demands of the moving picture machine operators' union, the theater will be closed until further notice.” It was explained that the “demands” centered around wages for the four-day work week which was started at the theater recently. A few weeks ago the Park management announced the theater would close Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of each week. Skirball spokesmen said no plans have been made for using the theater in the near future.
This is from the Lima News dated 5/29/55. There should be an aka of Orpheum Theater, also an address change to 118 W. Market.
The State Theater, 118 W. Market St., once the Orpheum Theater playing Gus Sun and Keith-Albee vaudeville acts, will close its doors “indefinitely” Thursday night. Stanley Warner Pictures Inc., New York, operator of the State, Sigma and Ohio theaters in Lima, has notified its Lima manager, W. J. (Doc) Elliott to close the State. The lease on the building expires Aug. 31.
Plans for the building, owned by Miss Jessie M. Boone, Lima; William K. Boone, who lives in Mexico, and Mrs. Frances B. Holland, Miami, Fla., are not known. Leases held by three other businesses having space in the building also expire Aug. 31. Mrs. Margaret McBarron, manager of the State, will return to the Ohio as assistant manager, a job she held prior to moving to the State in April 1953. The other Warner theaters in Lima will absorb as many of the other 16 State employes as possible, Elliott added.
Here is an April 3, 1946 item from the San Antonio Express:
The Alamo Drive-In Theater, built at a cost of $100,000 one mile north on Austin Hwy., will be formally opened Thursday at 7 p.m. Arthur Landsman, manager and co-owner, along with C.A. Richter and E.L. Pack, said the screen, employing a new plaster, provides more clearly defined pictures with realistic depth. Five hundred can be accommodated at the theater, he said.
This is from the Abilene Reporter-News on 3/15/52:
COLEMAN. March 14.-The new 400-speaker Cole-Anna Drive-In Theater, in south Coleman, had its formal opening Friday night. Its plant includes a screen 72 feet wide and 52 feet high, of brick construction, 400 in-car speakers and the latest in sound equipment.
Architect and contractor was Harvey Jordan, according to the same article.
An article in the Victoria Advocate gave the opening date as March 8, 1957. Owner was Ruben Frels and general manager was Doyle Oliver. Theater plans and construction took over two years.
This is from the San Antonio Express in April 1950:
San Antonio’s biggest drive-in theater, the new Rigsby, opens Saturday night. This is the fourth theater opened in San Antonio by the Landsman-Richter Enterprises, now incorporated into Statewide Drive-In Theaters.
The screen at the Rigsby towers eight stories high with a 200-ton steel and concrete foundation. Sound for the Rigsby will be furnished by the latest model electronic individual car speakers, fed by six miles of underground cable. Vivian Farold Munson, former R.C.A. sound engineer, supervises their operation.
The snack bar and restrooms are located in the center of the parking area, and have glazed tile walls throughout. Directly in front of the screen is a playground for children, fenced in for their safety. The Rigsby has benches provided in addition to the automobile parking space. This bench seating capacity is equal in size to that of an average neighborhood theater.
The date of the fire was 1/14/39, as reported in the San Antonio Express. Damage was estimated at $50,000. The story noted that the theater was four years old, which would have meant an opening in 1935.
Photo here:
http://tinyurl.com/cpwrtv
The LA Times reported today that Martin Weil has passed away. He was a past president of the LA Conservancy and a renovation expert. He was involved in the renovation of the El Capitan in the 1990s.
Right. I didn’t ask for it to be changed. I pointed out that the theater building was originally a church and was converted to a theater.
Current function is unknown.
It’s not a church now. It was converted to a theater from a church building in 1909.
According to this site, the Tourney Theater was already open as of July 4, 1917:
http://tinyurl.com/ce6ov5
This item states that the Colonial was converted from a church in 1909:
http://tinyurl.com/djfypj
It looks like the marquee message is “Welcome to Medina”, but there are some letters missing. It doesn’t look the building is occupied at the present time.
This is from today’s Ventura County Star:
http://tinyurl.com/bxbk6c
Here is some information about the theater:
http://www.njskylands.com/cltheattristate.htm
This January 2009 blog discusses the Forum’s current status:
http://tinyurl.com/cbcusv
Here is a 2008 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/dkdsku
Here is a February 17 article from the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin:
http://tinyurl.com/ahfrcb
Great news. Hopefully I can get out there to see what they’ve done.
There was a June 4, 1943 article in the Lubbock Morning Avalanche about a fire that destroyed the Texas Theater in Grand Prairie. Since the post immediately above recalls the theater being open during the war, I think this was a separate theater and not a typo.
On the website they are still soliciting donations, but I didn’t find any news about what they are actually doing to renovate the theater.