Linkrot repair: The June 3, 1930, Motion Picture Times article about Mindlin’s Playhouse now starts on this page As the internal links on the web site of Boxoffice not longer work for all browsers, here is a direct link to the second page, which has most of the photos of the theater.
Thomas Tally began exhibiting movies in the curtained-off rear portion of his Phonograph and Vitascope Parlor at 311 S. Spring Street on July 25, 1896. In 1899 he moved his operation to 339 S. Spring Street, which was listed as Tally’s Phonograph & Projectoscope Parlor. As far as I’ve been able to determine, neither Spring Street location was ever operated under the name Tally’s Electric Theatre.
Tally’s Electric Theatre opened at 262 S. Main Street on April 2, 1902, and was the first location which Tally operated as only a theater, rather than as an adjuct to his phonograph parlor. It was later known as the Lyric Theatre and finally Glockner’s Automatic Theatre, the name under which it is listed at Cinema Treasures.
More details about Tally’s earliest forays into movie exhibition can be found on this page of Bill Counter’s web site Historic Los Angeles Theatres.
According to the article on this web page, the Town Theatre was built in 1938 by Dennis Cote, owner of the Cote Theatre. The Town was operated by th Cote family until 1986. In 1989, new owners altered the auditorium floor to accommodate table seating, and added food service. The house was renamed the Main Feature Theatre and Pizza Pub at that time.
The Wisconsin Historical Society provides this page about the Classic Theatre. It was built in 1919-1920, and was renamed the Classic Theatre when it began showing talking pictures in 1927. Although designed to accommodate moves, and was equipped with an organ, the house also had a stage for live theatrical performances. The building is a contributing structure to the Water Street Commercial Historic District, added tot he NRHP in 1992.
The only significant modification to the facade was a pair of stone veneer panels which have since been removed. The facade is a good example of the Prairie Style, an American (and to a lesser extent Canadian) manifestation of the late 19th-early 20th century international movement away from architectural historicism toward a more inventive, modern style, which has come to be known as Art Nouveau.
Otto Bell, the original owner of the house, was planning a theater in Sparta as early as 1916, as reported in the May 6 issue of The Moving Picture World. The architects for the project were Parkinson & Dockendorff, of La Crosse. Despite the three-year delay in construction, I think it likely that the firm’s plans were used for the Bell Theatre. Albert E. Parkinson and Bernard Dockindorff were exponents of the Prairie Style. They designed at least two other theaters, one at La Crosse and one at Waukon, Iowa.
The Cote Theatre was opened in 1913 by Dennis Cote, who had earlier operated a storefront theater,opened in 1910, on East Main Street. The Cote Theatre closed in 1958, according to the article on this web page, which covers the history of all three theaters in Waukon.
The papers of the La Crosse architectural firm Parkinson & Dockendorff include drawings of a theater at Waukon, which though undated are earlier than the drawings of the Bell Theatre in Sparta, Wisconsin, which was designed in 1916 and built in 1919. The client, however, was not named Cote but Bartell (possibly the landlord?) If the Cote Theatre was the project designed by that firm then it was probably a conversion of an existing building, the facade not being characteristic of the firm’s work and, indeed, displaying an architectural style characteristic of small commercial buildings built a decade or two earlier than 1913.
The Internet gives the address of houses called the Dauphin Theatre and Dauphin Cinema as well as the Parkland Cinema as 215 Main St. S., but Parkland appears to have been the last name it operated under.
A book called Dauphin Valley Spans the Years (very large PDF here), published in 1970, gives some of this theater’s history. It was long called the Gay Theatre, but was renovated and reopened as the New Dauphin Theatre in 1965. An earlier Dauphin Theatre opened on North Main Street in 1921, but was gutted by a fire on May 24, 1964, and subsequently demolished.
The Gay Theatre was quite old at the time it became the New Dauphin. This photo of Main Street with the Gay Theatre at left is dated 1910, though I don’t know if that is accurate. The Gay was certainly in operation by 1918, when historic documents indicate that it was showing the popular WWI propaganda film The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin.
The book notes that Dauphin had two other movie theaters operating in the 1910s: the Lyceum, on Main Street, and the Star, on Front Street.
Another theater building lost to neglect. Googling for news reports about the event (but finding none) I came across this page at a site called arch-ive.org (apparently not related to archive.org) which features three photos of the closed Showboat and a 1943 Sanborn map showing its site. Judging from the first photo, the birds of Freeport have lost a splendid communal perch.
Yes, I now think Drive-Ins.com got the dates wrong. I’ve found reliable sources saying that the tornado which destroyed the Sedalia Drive-In happened in 1980, not 1976. My guess would be that the theater reopened as the Sedalia Drive-In in 1976, the year Drive-Ins.com mistakenly said it was destroyed by the tornado.
Web sites recording major weather events in the area don’t list any tornadoes at Sedalia in 1976, but they do list the one in 1980. The site of the Sedalia Drive-In was probably vacant from 1980 until the Galaxy 8 was built on it in 1998.
The official web site says “CLOSED as of 12/7/2015 UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE” As the web site is still up, they probably plan to reopen the theater at some point, but such plans don’t always work out. I can’t find anything on the Internet about why the house is closed.
At some point two more screens were added to this multiplex. It is now called the Galaxy 10. The Galaxy 8 was built in 1998 by the Wagenknecht family. Margie Wagenknecht donated the Uptown Theatre, which had been built in 1936 by her father, J. T. Ghosen, to Sedalia Downtown Development, Inc., in 2006. The Uptown is now undergoing restoration.
Tp is correct. The drive-in at 4104 W. Main Street closed as the Sedalia Drive-In. According to Drive-Ins.com, it opened in 1949 as the 50 Hi-Way Drive-In, became simply the 50 Drive-In in 1955, was closed following a destruction tornado in 1976, and was reopened in 1990 as the Sedalia Drive-In. It has since been demolished and its site is now the location of the indoor Galaxy 10 Cinema, which was built as an 8-screen house in 1998.
CinemaTour lists the Starzz Drive-In on Whitfield Road as the Diamond Drive-In, with Starzz as an aka. Adam Martin posted photos of it.
The September 17, 1938, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that C. B. King, who had recently opened the Lincoln Theatre in Mobile, was also the operator of the Pike Theatre in that city.
The September 17, 1938, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that Central States Theatres had opened their new Clarion Theatre at Clarion. The $50,000 project had been designed by Des Moines architects Wetherell & Harrison.
Some way down This web page is some information about this building, and several photos. The building was designed by architect Fred J. James, and was built for the Sicilian Club in 1928-29. The theater was first called the Sicilia, and then became the Cazin, but one vintage photo on the page shows the facade with a small vertical sign reading Cazin Theatre, but the name Cazin Sicilia on the front of the marquee, and the name New Sicilian in portable letters on the end attraction board. Several other photos also show the vertical and marquee front names.
The September 17, 1938, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that Albert Coppell was reopening the Sun Theatre in Denver under the name Mexico Theatre, with the intention of showing Spanish language movies.
The Criterion Theatre in St. Louis was being remodeled, with plans by architect O. W. Stiegemeyer, according to the September 17, 1938, issue of Motion Picture Herald.
The September 17, 1938, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that a new front on the Peoples Theatre (the name on the marquee had no apostrophe) had been designed by Robert Boller.
The September 17, 1938, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that David Supowitz had acted as consulting architect for the Warner Theatre, then under construction in Wilmington.
The Empire Theatre in Freeport was listed in the 1906-1907 Cahn guide as a vaudeville house. No details were given. It had not been listed in the 1899-1900 guide. Freeport’s main theater, listed in both editions, was the 862-seat Grand Opera House.
The April 3, 1920, issue of Motion Picture News said that the Rio Theatre on upper Broadway had opened “…a few days ago.” It was originally operated by David B. Picker, who I believe was the grandfather of the producer David V. Picker who has, in recent decades, been at various times the head of Paramount, United Artists, and Columbia Pictures.
I’ve found quite a few references to the Apex Theatre, dating as far back as its opening on December 27, 1912, but the sources all give the address as 302 Kansas Avenue. It must have had two different locations, but the second one, on Fourth Street, must have opened sometime between 1928 and 1933, when the photo currently displayed above was taken.
This entry from the 1928 Topeka Colored Directory tells of Mr B. F. Payne, operator of the Apex:
“Apex Theater, 302 Kansas Avenue, has now been in operation for 15 years, and was formerly owned by the late H. E. Sheppard. Mr. B. F. Payne, the present owner, bought over the theater November 1st, 1927. To this date this is the only theater owned and operated by a colored man in the state of Kansas. Mr. Payne has done considerable improving to the equipment, etc., and is hoping that in the near future should business justify, to remodel and expand. He books the very best pictures obtainable for his many customers without any advancement in the price of admission. The theater goers of Topeka should be proud of this enterprise as there is no other Topeka theater that colored people can go to without being segregated. The pictures shown by Mr. Payne are the same as shown by other high class theaters and some are first run, meaning the first picture to be shown in Topeka. Mr. Payne gives employment to 5 the year round and two temporarily and books a Topeka orchestra regularly. Mr. Payne is an accomplished business man, a Spanish-American veteran, a member of the Masonic and all the auxiliaries and is strictly a Topeka product, having been born here.”
The original Apex was also mentioned in an article about Topeka in the June 27, 1914, issue of The African-American newspaper The Freeman, which said: “The Apex Theatre, on the main street, in the very heart of the business district, is a pretty and finely appointed Negro enterprise which Mrs. Wright manages.”
According to an article at a site called Comic Book Resources, “…4DX theaters… provide environmental effects synced with the movie, including ‘motion-activated seats, wind, fog, rain, lightning, vibration, snow, and scents.’” To me it sounds like it would be more annoying than engaging, but then not being a big fan of action movies maybe I’m just missing the subtle allure of such gimicks.
Regal opened the first 4DX auditorium in the U.S. (100 seats) at its L.A. Live multiplex in 2014, and another was opened in Chicago last year. The New York City venues will apparently be the third and fourth, so the system hasn’t exactly set the industry alight. At an extra eight bucks a pop (over 3D prices, not regular movie prices) I’m not surprised. I’d be unlikely to spend an extra eight dollars just to get my arse jiggled, my clothes dampened, and my nostrils assailed, and I suspect not many other people will go for it either. Though I do wonder how much Axe Body Spray they will release into the air every time Henry Cavill appears on screen.
The organ most likely went to this theater, the Palace/Wade/City. The wade family did have a connection to Morehead City theaters, as in 1936 Duffy and Francis Wade built a house called the Royal Theatre (The Beaufort News, January 26, 1936.) the Morehead Theatre, according to NightHawk1’s earlier comment, wasn’t built until 1954.
The February 27, 1941, issue of issue of The Beaufort News features and ad for both Wades Theatre and the Royal Theatre. Stewart-Everett bought both houses from the Royal Operating Company in 1946 (The Film Daily, July 12.) The Royal Theatre and City Theatre are mentioned in the paper in 1948, so they probably renamed the Wades Theatre not long after buying it.
joe1751: The bartender at the Smokehouse was mistaken. Look at Google’s satellite view of the block and you can see the roof of the auditorium extending toward Crescent Street, to the left of the theater entrance. The Smokehouse is in what appears to be former retail space. Its building’s roof is much lower than the theater’s roof was.
Linkrot repair: The June 3, 1930, Motion Picture Times article about Mindlin’s Playhouse now starts on this page As the internal links on the web site of Boxoffice not longer work for all browsers, here is a direct link to the second page, which has most of the photos of the theater.
Thomas Tally began exhibiting movies in the curtained-off rear portion of his Phonograph and Vitascope Parlor at 311 S. Spring Street on July 25, 1896. In 1899 he moved his operation to 339 S. Spring Street, which was listed as Tally’s Phonograph & Projectoscope Parlor. As far as I’ve been able to determine, neither Spring Street location was ever operated under the name Tally’s Electric Theatre.
Tally’s Electric Theatre opened at 262 S. Main Street on April 2, 1902, and was the first location which Tally operated as only a theater, rather than as an adjuct to his phonograph parlor. It was later known as the Lyric Theatre and finally Glockner’s Automatic Theatre, the name under which it is listed at Cinema Treasures.
More details about Tally’s earliest forays into movie exhibition can be found on this page of Bill Counter’s web site Historic Los Angeles Theatres.
According to the article on this web page, the Town Theatre was built in 1938 by Dennis Cote, owner of the Cote Theatre. The Town was operated by th Cote family until 1986. In 1989, new owners altered the auditorium floor to accommodate table seating, and added food service. The house was renamed the Main Feature Theatre and Pizza Pub at that time.
The Wisconsin Historical Society provides this page about the Classic Theatre. It was built in 1919-1920, and was renamed the Classic Theatre when it began showing talking pictures in 1927. Although designed to accommodate moves, and was equipped with an organ, the house also had a stage for live theatrical performances. The building is a contributing structure to the Water Street Commercial Historic District, added tot he NRHP in 1992.
The only significant modification to the facade was a pair of stone veneer panels which have since been removed. The facade is a good example of the Prairie Style, an American (and to a lesser extent Canadian) manifestation of the late 19th-early 20th century international movement away from architectural historicism toward a more inventive, modern style, which has come to be known as Art Nouveau.
Otto Bell, the original owner of the house, was planning a theater in Sparta as early as 1916, as reported in the May 6 issue of The Moving Picture World. The architects for the project were Parkinson & Dockendorff, of La Crosse. Despite the three-year delay in construction, I think it likely that the firm’s plans were used for the Bell Theatre. Albert E. Parkinson and Bernard Dockindorff were exponents of the Prairie Style. They designed at least two other theaters, one at La Crosse and one at Waukon, Iowa.
The Cote Theatre was opened in 1913 by Dennis Cote, who had earlier operated a storefront theater,opened in 1910, on East Main Street. The Cote Theatre closed in 1958, according to the article on this web page, which covers the history of all three theaters in Waukon.
The papers of the La Crosse architectural firm Parkinson & Dockendorff include drawings of a theater at Waukon, which though undated are earlier than the drawings of the Bell Theatre in Sparta, Wisconsin, which was designed in 1916 and built in 1919. The client, however, was not named Cote but Bartell (possibly the landlord?) If the Cote Theatre was the project designed by that firm then it was probably a conversion of an existing building, the facade not being characteristic of the firm’s work and, indeed, displaying an architectural style characteristic of small commercial buildings built a decade or two earlier than 1913.
The Internet gives the address of houses called the Dauphin Theatre and Dauphin Cinema as well as the Parkland Cinema as 215 Main St. S., but Parkland appears to have been the last name it operated under.
A book called Dauphin Valley Spans the Years (very large PDF here), published in 1970, gives some of this theater’s history. It was long called the Gay Theatre, but was renovated and reopened as the New Dauphin Theatre in 1965. An earlier Dauphin Theatre opened on North Main Street in 1921, but was gutted by a fire on May 24, 1964, and subsequently demolished.
The Gay Theatre was quite old at the time it became the New Dauphin. This photo of Main Street with the Gay Theatre at left is dated 1910, though I don’t know if that is accurate. The Gay was certainly in operation by 1918, when historic documents indicate that it was showing the popular WWI propaganda film The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin.
The book notes that Dauphin had two other movie theaters operating in the 1910s: the Lyceum, on Main Street, and the Star, on Front Street.
Another theater building lost to neglect. Googling for news reports about the event (but finding none) I came across this page at a site called arch-ive.org (apparently not related to archive.org) which features three photos of the closed Showboat and a 1943 Sanborn map showing its site. Judging from the first photo, the birds of Freeport have lost a splendid communal perch.
Yes, I now think Drive-Ins.com got the dates wrong. I’ve found reliable sources saying that the tornado which destroyed the Sedalia Drive-In happened in 1980, not 1976. My guess would be that the theater reopened as the Sedalia Drive-In in 1976, the year Drive-Ins.com mistakenly said it was destroyed by the tornado.
Web sites recording major weather events in the area don’t list any tornadoes at Sedalia in 1976, but they do list the one in 1980. The site of the Sedalia Drive-In was probably vacant from 1980 until the Galaxy 8 was built on it in 1998.
The official web site says “CLOSED as of 12/7/2015 UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE” As the web site is still up, they probably plan to reopen the theater at some point, but such plans don’t always work out. I can’t find anything on the Internet about why the house is closed.
At some point two more screens were added to this multiplex. It is now called the Galaxy 10. The Galaxy 8 was built in 1998 by the Wagenknecht family. Margie Wagenknecht donated the Uptown Theatre, which had been built in 1936 by her father, J. T. Ghosen, to Sedalia Downtown Development, Inc., in 2006. The Uptown is now undergoing restoration.
Tp is correct. The drive-in at 4104 W. Main Street closed as the Sedalia Drive-In. According to Drive-Ins.com, it opened in 1949 as the 50 Hi-Way Drive-In, became simply the 50 Drive-In in 1955, was closed following a destruction tornado in 1976, and was reopened in 1990 as the Sedalia Drive-In. It has since been demolished and its site is now the location of the indoor Galaxy 10 Cinema, which was built as an 8-screen house in 1998.
CinemaTour lists the Starzz Drive-In on Whitfield Road as the Diamond Drive-In, with Starzz as an aka. Adam Martin posted photos of it.
The September 17, 1938, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that C. B. King, who had recently opened the Lincoln Theatre in Mobile, was also the operator of the Pike Theatre in that city.
The September 17, 1938, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that Central States Theatres had opened their new Clarion Theatre at Clarion. The $50,000 project had been designed by Des Moines architects Wetherell & Harrison.
Some way down This web page is some information about this building, and several photos. The building was designed by architect Fred J. James, and was built for the Sicilian Club in 1928-29. The theater was first called the Sicilia, and then became the Cazin, but one vintage photo on the page shows the facade with a small vertical sign reading Cazin Theatre, but the name Cazin Sicilia on the front of the marquee, and the name New Sicilian in portable letters on the end attraction board. Several other photos also show the vertical and marquee front names.
The recent opening of the Howard Theatre in West Tampa by operator Butler Gore was noted in the September 17, 1938, issue of Motion Picture Herald.
The September 17, 1938, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that Albert Coppell was reopening the Sun Theatre in Denver under the name Mexico Theatre, with the intention of showing Spanish language movies.
The Criterion Theatre in St. Louis was being remodeled, with plans by architect O. W. Stiegemeyer, according to the September 17, 1938, issue of Motion Picture Herald.
The September 17, 1938, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that a new front on the Peoples Theatre (the name on the marquee had no apostrophe) had been designed by Robert Boller.
The September 17, 1938, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that David Supowitz had acted as consulting architect for the Warner Theatre, then under construction in Wilmington.
The Empire Theatre in Freeport was listed in the 1906-1907 Cahn guide as a vaudeville house. No details were given. It had not been listed in the 1899-1900 guide. Freeport’s main theater, listed in both editions, was the 862-seat Grand Opera House.
The April 3, 1920, issue of Motion Picture News said that the Rio Theatre on upper Broadway had opened “…a few days ago.” It was originally operated by David B. Picker, who I believe was the grandfather of the producer David V. Picker who has, in recent decades, been at various times the head of Paramount, United Artists, and Columbia Pictures.
I’ve found quite a few references to the Apex Theatre, dating as far back as its opening on December 27, 1912, but the sources all give the address as 302 Kansas Avenue. It must have had two different locations, but the second one, on Fourth Street, must have opened sometime between 1928 and 1933, when the photo currently displayed above was taken.
This entry from the 1928 Topeka Colored Directory tells of Mr B. F. Payne, operator of the Apex:
The original Apex was also mentioned in an article about Topeka in the June 27, 1914, issue of The African-American newspaper The Freeman, which said: “The Apex Theatre, on the main street, in the very heart of the business district, is a pretty and finely appointed Negro enterprise which Mrs. Wright manages.”According to an article at a site called Comic Book Resources, “…4DX theaters… provide environmental effects synced with the movie, including ‘motion-activated seats, wind, fog, rain, lightning, vibration, snow, and scents.’” To me it sounds like it would be more annoying than engaging, but then not being a big fan of action movies maybe I’m just missing the subtle allure of such gimicks.
Regal opened the first 4DX auditorium in the U.S. (100 seats) at its L.A. Live multiplex in 2014, and another was opened in Chicago last year. The New York City venues will apparently be the third and fourth, so the system hasn’t exactly set the industry alight. At an extra eight bucks a pop (over 3D prices, not regular movie prices) I’m not surprised. I’d be unlikely to spend an extra eight dollars just to get my arse jiggled, my clothes dampened, and my nostrils assailed, and I suspect not many other people will go for it either. Though I do wonder how much Axe Body Spray they will release into the air every time Henry Cavill appears on screen.
The organ most likely went to this theater, the Palace/Wade/City. The wade family did have a connection to Morehead City theaters, as in 1936 Duffy and Francis Wade built a house called the Royal Theatre (The Beaufort News, January 26, 1936.) the Morehead Theatre, according to NightHawk1’s earlier comment, wasn’t built until 1954.
The February 27, 1941, issue of issue of The Beaufort News features and ad for both Wades Theatre and the Royal Theatre. Stewart-Everett bought both houses from the Royal Operating Company in 1946 (The Film Daily, July 12.) The Royal Theatre and City Theatre are mentioned in the paper in 1948, so they probably renamed the Wades Theatre not long after buying it.
joe1751: The bartender at the Smokehouse was mistaken. Look at Google’s satellite view of the block and you can see the roof of the auditorium extending toward Crescent Street, to the left of the theater entrance. The Smokehouse is in what appears to be former retail space. Its building’s roof is much lower than the theater’s roof was.