Could this theater, casually mentioned in the July 3, 1961 issue of Boxoffice, have something to do with the Hardin building?: “Wilbur Young of the Hardin Theatre at Bedford, Iowa, is spending his spare afternoons fishing….” A September 24, 1955 Boxoffice item had said that Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Young, operators of the Rialto Theatre at Bedford for several years, had leased the new Hardin Theatre, under construction there, and hoped to have it open by mid-October. If the Hardin building was built in front of the Rialto’s burnt-out carcass then that carcass probably housed the new theater.
An announcement of the opening of the new Hardin finally appeared in Boxoffice of November 19, but the exact date of the event was not mentioned. The Hardin was apparently still in operation in 1977, when it was mentioned in the August 5 issue of the Bedford Times-Press.
The Clark Theatre was mentioned in Exhibitors Herald of October 2, 1920, and the earliest mention of the Rialto I’ve found is in Motion Picture News November 7, 1925.
The building that was remodeled to house the Meigs Theatre was the Pomeroy Presbyterian church. Multiple sources say the theater was on East Main Street, but none say exactly where. Old photos show the front of the building was approached by a rather impressive stairway, and so the front had to have been set back some distance from Main Street.
One thing I find quite bizarre is that the Film Daily Year Books don’t list the Meigs until 1946, and then they list it with only 250 seats. There was definitely something screwy going on with that.
The official web site link for this closed theater is of course dead and can be taken down. The Colusa Theatre in Williams mentioned in the previous comment by MichaelKilgore is a different house, and shared this theater’s name because both towns are in Colusa County. It is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures, though the drive-in there is.
It turns out that the Temple Theatre at Villisca is mentioned in the May, 1911 issue of Motography, being operated by a Dr. F. M. Childs. To my mind (such as it is) that increases the odds that the Temple was the house at 305 S. 4th. That by June, 1919, an F. M. Childs of the Cozy (sometimes Kozy) Theatre in Villisca was providing capsule movie reviews to Exhibitors Herald And Motography is equally tantalizing.
One fly in the ointment (or perhaps in the popcorn butter) is this item in the Iowa column of the November, 1911 issue of Motography: “A moving picture theater has been opened at Villisca under the management of J. M. Drury, formerly of Storm Lake.” We can’t ignore the possibility that Mr. Drury’s nameless house was the one that occupied the crude premises at 305. I’d like to think that the Temple inhabited quarters more appropriate to its name, such as a substantial Masonic or Pythian lodge building, but if none such were available we might be stuck with that used furniture emporium, as Dr. Childs might have been.
The town was mistakenly listed as Villisea in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, when the only house listed was called the Temple Theatre. This house doesn’t seem very temple-like, but theater owners have seldom been without a capacity for hyperbole. It might have survived until 1914, maybe even longer. The 1926 FDY lists a house called the Cozy theatre, though it’s seating capacity (200) is not given until the 1929 edition. 305 S. 4th would certainly have been cozy….
It occurs to me that movies shown in a used furniture store would likely have plenty of seats available, some probably quite comfy, and there might even be a piano available. It would be a good way to pick up some extra income with minimal additional investment. If the movie business prospered enough you could phase out the furniture sales, and if it didn’t you still had your income from selling furniture. It’s not as goofy a business plan as it might seem at first glance.
This house was triplexed by Video Independent Theatres in 1980, opening as the Video Three Theatre on November 20, according to documents in the Griffith Amusement Company Collection at the Oklahoma Historical Society.
At various times over its long history, the Vaska Theatre was operated by Video Independent Theatres, Martin Theatres, and Carmike cinemas. It is now independently operated.
Here is a notice from the September 15, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World: “Lawton, Okla.—The Temple, a new moving picture theater here, has been formally opened to the public.”
Wait, it looks like I made a mistake. The Historical Society’s museum is at 304 Antique City Drive, across the street from the other old theater building. A Zillow page for the property at 203 has photos of a vacant retail space on the ground floor and loft apartment(s) upstairs. It’s been thoroughly modernized, showing no trace of having housed either a theatre or a lodge hall.
The local historical society’s museum now occupies this building, with some of it viewable on this web site (the pages can be rather sluggish, so you’ll need patience while they load.) I couldn’t find any details about the building itself there, but it appears to have been owned by the IOOF for a long time, with the theater only leased by a series of operators, which may account for why the other theater prevailed over this one in the end.
A history of this house and the rival theater in the old Opera house building is told on this Rootsweb page, though I think it might have at least one inaccuracy (see my longer comment on the page for the other theater, which was longest known as the Lyric.) The house at 303 Central was opened in 1913 as the Happy Hour Theatre, and continued operating off and on under that name until 1929 or 1930. By 1932 it was known as the Walnut Theatre, then became the New Dreamland Theatre in 1935. In 1936 it became the Pep Theatre, and in 1937 The Strand Theatre. During this long period it was listed in the FDY with 300 seats.
The Strand suffered a major fire on July 22, 1940 and was rebuilt, but with only 250 seats, and reopened on January 10, 1941 as the Walnut Theatre, its final name. After struggling a bit in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it closed permanently on May 1, 1954. The building was soon purchased and remodeled by Amvets, who have occupied it since.
This Rootsweb page has a history of Walnut’s theaters, and says that the old Opera House had presented movies off and on as the Lyric Theatre from 1909 until 1930, at which time a new owner renamed the house the Ritz. The page says nothing more about the Ritz, but has a fairly detailed history of the rival house (at 303 Central/Antique City Drive) which also operated off and on under various names, from 1913 until closing as the Walnut Theatre on May 1, 1954.
However (I really hate these “howevers” that crop up too often) I’m not sure the history on the page is entirely accurate, as it contradicts certain information from the FDY. Most notably, the 1931 FDY lists both the Lyric and the Ritz, each with 300 seats, though the Lyric is listed as silent. Only the Ritz is listed in 1932, and in 1933 only the Walnut Theatre, which is what the history says the rival house (originally called the Happy Hour) was renamed in 1931, is listed.
This makes me wonder if it was the rival house that was renamed Ritz in 1930, and the Lyric simply closed as a silent house sometime in 1931. A pair of items from Film Daily itself don’t help to clear it up, but do suggest that the Lyric and Ritz were two different theaters. The June 14, 1930 issue said this: “Walnut, Iowa—The Lyric has been purchased by Mr. Max W. Shoemaker. O. C. Johnson was the former owner.” Then the June 19 issue had this item: “Walnut, Ia.—O. C. Johnson has sold the Ritz to Max W. Shoemaker of Sterling, Neb.” The history page doesn’t mention either O. C. Johnson or Max Shoemaker, but only says that “[t]he Lyric sold in February, 1930 to Royal Duke of Sioux City and the name changed to the Ritz Theatre.”
The FDY was not always reliable, but I’ve found local histories are often suspect as well, especially those written long after the events they record. In any case, if the Lyric did become the Ritz in 1930 it appears to have closed for good in 1931 anyway.
This web page has some historic photos of Avoca, though the slide show doesn’t work as advertised (you can’t pause it, at least not with my browser.) Below the slide show are thumbnails of the photos with captions, but only some of the thumbnails can be clicked and enlarged. The first photo is of the Harris Theatre, and the caption mentions a few names connected with the house.
This May, 2023 article from the web site of The Daily Nonpariel tells of the acquisition of the Legion Hall by the City of Avoca and plans for restoring and renovating the building as a community center under the auspices of the Avoca Main Street preservation group. The Legion will continue to oversee daily operations of the center. The page has a period photo of the theater promoting two 1942 releases on the marquee.
A history of Pottawattamie County published in 1977 says that the Majestic was on Main street, which is an aka for Elm Street, so there is a possibility that this was the Majestic, especially considering that it was still a movie house on the 1920 Sanborn. In 1977 the Majestic’s building was occupied by a True Value hardware store, but I’ve been unable to confirm that store’s location.
Majestic and Harris are the only theater names noted in the history, but it says there was another silent era movie house, located on Lyon Street east of Elm, next to what was by 1977 Rubecks store. That one could have been either the Bijou, the Novelty, or the Unique. Rubeck’s (a regional grocery chain) is gone, but the only modern building that looks suitable for it is the one that now houses a Napa Auto Parts, with a bowling alley in the basement at 221 W. Lyon. The theater was probably on what is now a parking lot.
I found this 1906 photo of the Opera House block. The caption mentions a number of businesses that occupied the building over the years, but unfortunately the movie theater is not among them.
Information from the Pipestone Star of May 11, 1937:
“The name of the Alo Theatre is soon to be changed to the State Theatre and manager L.V. Feldman announces that along with this a very important improvement is to be made in the front of the theatre.
“The old canopy will be rebuilt and will be decorated with neon and other lights giving a very brilliant appearance. It will make a vast change in the front of the theatre both by day and by night.
“The new canopy, which will be constructed by a Sioux Falls neon sign company, will probably be put into place some time within the next ten days.”
The August 14, 1934 Star reported that L.V. Feldman, owner of the Orpheum and Alo, had leased the theaters to the American Amusement Company, effective September 1. The Alo, which had been dark several months, was to be reopened in advance of the change of management.
The newspaper’s web site has two other items about the Alo that turn up in search results, including one that appears to be about the opening of the house, but clicking the links only fetches a 521 “Web server is down” error. I don’t know if this is temporary or an ongoing situation.
The October 20, 1941 issue of Film Daily had an item listing several pieces of major equipment, including a screen and projection equipment, which had lately been installed at H. Jochim’s Pix Theatre in Luverne, Minnesota by the American Theatre Supply Co. of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. These were likely upgrades or updates, as the Pix was first listed in the FDY in 1937, suggesting an opening sometime in 1936. Herman Jochims (the correct spelling) had opened the Palace Theatre, aka New Opera House, in 1915.
Here is information about the Times Theatre from a history timeline on the city’s web site: “Construction on the Savanna Times Theater was started in 1941 and has been a fixture at 222 Main Street since the showing of ‘The Wife Takes a Flyer’ on July 28, 1942.”
The Times was built by James and August Marchesi, who sold the house to Robert Shrake of Savanna and Raymond Hoy of Fulton in 1963. The new partners re-opened the house on Christmas Day with “The Thrill of It All”.
Film Daily of October 10, 1941 had news about the Orpheum: “The Van Nomikos circuit in co-operation with Miller and Swanson, joint operators of the Orpheum and Webb Theaters in Savanna, Ill., are spending $20,000 for improvements to the Orpheum, enlarging the house to 750 seats, using Kroehler Push-Back chairs for the job, new front, and modernizing the stand in all departments. E. W. Wagner is the job’s architect.”
Scroll abut halfway down this web page to the section headed “Sleepy Eye Brewing” for information about the Pix Theatre. The building now houses a craft brewing company, opened in 2019. The text reveals that the Princess/Pix had “…closed for good in the early 1990s after being in almost continuous operation since the 1920s.”
The building has been extensively altered inside, and the floor leveled, but a slide show photo of the beautifully restored front shows the Pix marquee still intact and advertising the brewery’s latest beer releases. There is also a vintage movie projector displayed on the mezzanine, but it is not pictured on the web page.
There is confirmation that the Grand became the Cort Theatre, sometime after Glen Duggan got control of the Grand, noted in the August, 1919 MPW item cited in my previous comment. The evidence is in the Google search results for a page in the Rock County Star Herald which I can’t date as it requires a subscription to access, but the Google results include this: “…Duggan, formerly manager of the Cort theatre….” The Cort was still listed in the 1929 FDY, but I haven’t checked later editions. If the Cort did not close with the onset of the depression, it would surely have closed by the time the Pix opened.
The only theater listed at Luverne in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory is called the Opera House, which would seem a rather grandiose name for this modest storefront operation. When the Palace Theatre opened in 1915 it was called the New Opera House, implying that Luverne had an old Opera House, and I suppose it could have been this house, inappropos as it might seem, but over the longer term this house came to be known, still rather pretentiously, as the Grand Theatre. It is the only theater at Luverne other than the Palace to be mentioned in trade journals, and it was also named in this article from the March 1, 1918 issue of the Rock County Herald:
“GRAND THEATRE SOLD TO HERMAN JOCHIMS
“Owner of Palace Theatre Acquires Control of Grand and Will Operate Both Places.
“Through the provisions of a sale made Wednesday, Manager Herman Jochims, of the New Palace theatre, also becomes owner and manager of the Grand theatre, Luverne’s exclusive motion picture house. The transfer includes the good will, the equipment, and a two-years’ lease on the building occupied by the Grand, which is owned by C.M. LaDue. (This is the east half of the Arcade Building.)
“Possession will not be given by Manager Willert until next Monday morning, and during the three evenings remaining before he severs his connections with the theatre, he will endeavor to put on especially attractive programs as farewell offerings.
“For the present, at least, Mr. Jochims will continue to operate both amusement places, and will retain much the same bookings at the Grand as Mr. Willert presented. Monday evening’s offering will include a continuation of the serial that was started there a few weeks ago. But it is likely that the Grand will be closed during the middle of the week days, when attendance at theatres is naturally the smallest.
“The retiring manager-owner of the Grand has conducted this theatre for nearly four years, and has been accorded a liberal share of the public’s patronage. As yet he has made no definite arrangements for the future, but expects to engage in the motion picture theatre business elsewhere, and has several propositions under consideration.”
Photos of the building at this address captioned as the Arcade Building can be found on the Internet, so there’s no mistake. The 1926 FDY lists only two theaters at Luverne, and they are the Palace and a 250-seat house called the Cort Theatre. The latter seems most likely to have been a new name for the Grand. The last mention of the Grand I’ve found in trade journals is this item from Moving Picture World of August 2, 1919: “J. P. Coffey has leased the former Grand Theatre building at Luverne, Minnesota, to Glen Duggan, who will open it as a motion picture house in the near future.”
The Irem Temple Mosque was built by the Shriners in 1907-08, and until 1931 the main auditorium had flat floor. After it was reconfigured to a standard theatrical form it became Wilkes-Barre’s principal venue for touring live theater and concert events. Its Temple Theatre movie house period coincided with the WWII era boom in movie attendance, and after that period it returned to hosting live events until gradually being abandoned due to competition from more modern facilities. Current renovation plans include returning the main auditorium to its original flat-floored configuration.
The principal architect of the building was Francis Willard Puckey of the local firm of Olds & Puckey. When partner Frederick Lauren Olds, twenty years Puckey’s senior, died in 1912, Puckey moved to Chicago and formed the firm of Puckey & Jenkins.
There are photos on Facebook and it was pretty much nothing but rubble after the fire.
Could this theater, casually mentioned in the July 3, 1961 issue of Boxoffice, have something to do with the Hardin building?: “Wilbur Young of the Hardin Theatre at Bedford, Iowa, is spending his spare afternoons fishing….” A September 24, 1955 Boxoffice item had said that Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Young, operators of the Rialto Theatre at Bedford for several years, had leased the new Hardin Theatre, under construction there, and hoped to have it open by mid-October. If the Hardin building was built in front of the Rialto’s burnt-out carcass then that carcass probably housed the new theater.
An announcement of the opening of the new Hardin finally appeared in Boxoffice of November 19, but the exact date of the event was not mentioned. The Hardin was apparently still in operation in 1977, when it was mentioned in the August 5 issue of the Bedford Times-Press.
The Clark Theatre was mentioned in Exhibitors Herald of October 2, 1920, and the earliest mention of the Rialto I’ve found is in Motion Picture News November 7, 1925.
The building that was remodeled to house the Meigs Theatre was the Pomeroy Presbyterian church. Multiple sources say the theater was on East Main Street, but none say exactly where. Old photos show the front of the building was approached by a rather impressive stairway, and so the front had to have been set back some distance from Main Street.
One thing I find quite bizarre is that the Film Daily Year Books don’t list the Meigs until 1946, and then they list it with only 250 seats. There was definitely something screwy going on with that.
The official web site link for this closed theater is of course dead and can be taken down. The Colusa Theatre in Williams mentioned in the previous comment by MichaelKilgore is a different house, and shared this theater’s name because both towns are in Colusa County. It is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures, though the drive-in there is.
It turns out that the Temple Theatre at Villisca is mentioned in the May, 1911 issue of Motography, being operated by a Dr. F. M. Childs. To my mind (such as it is) that increases the odds that the Temple was the house at 305 S. 4th. That by June, 1919, an F. M. Childs of the Cozy (sometimes Kozy) Theatre in Villisca was providing capsule movie reviews to Exhibitors Herald And Motography is equally tantalizing.
One fly in the ointment (or perhaps in the popcorn butter) is this item in the Iowa column of the November, 1911 issue of Motography: “A moving picture theater has been opened at Villisca under the management of J. M. Drury, formerly of Storm Lake.” We can’t ignore the possibility that Mr. Drury’s nameless house was the one that occupied the crude premises at 305. I’d like to think that the Temple inhabited quarters more appropriate to its name, such as a substantial Masonic or Pythian lodge building, but if none such were available we might be stuck with that used furniture emporium, as Dr. Childs might have been.
The town was mistakenly listed as Villisea in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, when the only house listed was called the Temple Theatre. This house doesn’t seem very temple-like, but theater owners have seldom been without a capacity for hyperbole. It might have survived until 1914, maybe even longer. The 1926 FDY lists a house called the Cozy theatre, though it’s seating capacity (200) is not given until the 1929 edition. 305 S. 4th would certainly have been cozy….
It occurs to me that movies shown in a used furniture store would likely have plenty of seats available, some probably quite comfy, and there might even be a piano available. It would be a good way to pick up some extra income with minimal additional investment. If the movie business prospered enough you could phase out the furniture sales, and if it didn’t you still had your income from selling furniture. It’s not as goofy a business plan as it might seem at first glance.
This house was triplexed by Video Independent Theatres in 1980, opening as the Video Three Theatre on November 20, according to documents in the Griffith Amusement Company Collection at the Oklahoma Historical Society.
At various times over its long history, the Vaska Theatre was operated by Video Independent Theatres, Martin Theatres, and Carmike cinemas. It is now independently operated.
Here is the official web site. The “About” section has a few interior photos of the auditoriums.
By 1965, the Lawton Theatre was operated by the Video Independent chain. August 4, 1976 was the last show at the house.
By 1963 the Diana Theatre was part of the Griffith/Video Independent Theatres chain.
Here is a notice from the September 15, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World: “Lawton, Okla.—The Temple, a new moving picture theater here, has been formally opened to the public.”
Wait, it looks like I made a mistake. The Historical Society’s museum is at 304 Antique City Drive, across the street from the other old theater building. A Zillow page for the property at 203 has photos of a vacant retail space on the ground floor and loft apartment(s) upstairs. It’s been thoroughly modernized, showing no trace of having housed either a theatre or a lodge hall.
The local historical society’s museum now occupies this building, with some of it viewable on this web site (the pages can be rather sluggish, so you’ll need patience while they load.) I couldn’t find any details about the building itself there, but it appears to have been owned by the IOOF for a long time, with the theater only leased by a series of operators, which may account for why the other theater prevailed over this one in the end.
A history of this house and the rival theater in the old Opera house building is told on this Rootsweb page, though I think it might have at least one inaccuracy (see my longer comment on the page for the other theater, which was longest known as the Lyric.) The house at 303 Central was opened in 1913 as the Happy Hour Theatre, and continued operating off and on under that name until 1929 or 1930. By 1932 it was known as the Walnut Theatre, then became the New Dreamland Theatre in 1935. In 1936 it became the Pep Theatre, and in 1937 The Strand Theatre. During this long period it was listed in the FDY with 300 seats.
The Strand suffered a major fire on July 22, 1940 and was rebuilt, but with only 250 seats, and reopened on January 10, 1941 as the Walnut Theatre, its final name. After struggling a bit in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it closed permanently on May 1, 1954. The building was soon purchased and remodeled by Amvets, who have occupied it since.
This Rootsweb page has a history of Walnut’s theaters, and says that the old Opera House had presented movies off and on as the Lyric Theatre from 1909 until 1930, at which time a new owner renamed the house the Ritz. The page says nothing more about the Ritz, but has a fairly detailed history of the rival house (at 303 Central/Antique City Drive) which also operated off and on under various names, from 1913 until closing as the Walnut Theatre on May 1, 1954.
However (I really hate these “howevers” that crop up too often) I’m not sure the history on the page is entirely accurate, as it contradicts certain information from the FDY. Most notably, the 1931 FDY lists both the Lyric and the Ritz, each with 300 seats, though the Lyric is listed as silent. Only the Ritz is listed in 1932, and in 1933 only the Walnut Theatre, which is what the history says the rival house (originally called the Happy Hour) was renamed in 1931, is listed.
This makes me wonder if it was the rival house that was renamed Ritz in 1930, and the Lyric simply closed as a silent house sometime in 1931. A pair of items from Film Daily itself don’t help to clear it up, but do suggest that the Lyric and Ritz were two different theaters. The June 14, 1930 issue said this: “Walnut, Iowa—The Lyric has been purchased by Mr. Max W. Shoemaker. O. C. Johnson was the former owner.” Then the June 19 issue had this item: “Walnut, Ia.—O. C. Johnson has sold the Ritz to Max W. Shoemaker of Sterling, Neb.” The history page doesn’t mention either O. C. Johnson or Max Shoemaker, but only says that “[t]he Lyric sold in February, 1930 to Royal Duke of Sioux City and the name changed to the Ritz Theatre.”
The FDY was not always reliable, but I’ve found local histories are often suspect as well, especially those written long after the events they record. In any case, if the Lyric did become the Ritz in 1930 it appears to have closed for good in 1931 anyway.
This web page has some historic photos of Avoca, though the slide show doesn’t work as advertised (you can’t pause it, at least not with my browser.) Below the slide show are thumbnails of the photos with captions, but only some of the thumbnails can be clicked and enlarged. The first photo is of the Harris Theatre, and the caption mentions a few names connected with the house.
This May, 2023 article from the web site of The Daily Nonpariel tells of the acquisition of the Legion Hall by the City of Avoca and plans for restoring and renovating the building as a community center under the auspices of the Avoca Main Street preservation group. The Legion will continue to oversee daily operations of the center. The page has a period photo of the theater promoting two 1942 releases on the marquee.
A history of Pottawattamie County published in 1977 says that the Majestic was on Main street, which is an aka for Elm Street, so there is a possibility that this was the Majestic, especially considering that it was still a movie house on the 1920 Sanborn. In 1977 the Majestic’s building was occupied by a True Value hardware store, but I’ve been unable to confirm that store’s location.
Majestic and Harris are the only theater names noted in the history, but it says there was another silent era movie house, located on Lyon Street east of Elm, next to what was by 1977 Rubecks store. That one could have been either the Bijou, the Novelty, or the Unique. Rubeck’s (a regional grocery chain) is gone, but the only modern building that looks suitable for it is the one that now houses a Napa Auto Parts, with a bowling alley in the basement at 221 W. Lyon. The theater was probably on what is now a parking lot.
I found this 1906 photo of the Opera House block. The caption mentions a number of businesses that occupied the building over the years, but unfortunately the movie theater is not among them.
Information from the Pipestone Star of May 11, 1937:
The August 14, 1934 Star reported that L.V. Feldman, owner of the Orpheum and Alo, had leased the theaters to the American Amusement Company, effective September 1. The Alo, which had been dark several months, was to be reopened in advance of the change of management.The newspaper’s web site has two other items about the Alo that turn up in search results, including one that appears to be about the opening of the house, but clicking the links only fetches a 521 “Web server is down” error. I don’t know if this is temporary or an ongoing situation.
The October 20, 1941 issue of Film Daily had an item listing several pieces of major equipment, including a screen and projection equipment, which had lately been installed at H. Jochim’s Pix Theatre in Luverne, Minnesota by the American Theatre Supply Co. of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. These were likely upgrades or updates, as the Pix was first listed in the FDY in 1937, suggesting an opening sometime in 1936. Herman Jochims (the correct spelling) had opened the Palace Theatre, aka New Opera House, in 1915.
Here is information about the Times Theatre from a history timeline on the city’s web site: “Construction on the Savanna Times Theater was started in 1941 and has been a fixture at 222 Main Street since the showing of ‘The Wife Takes a Flyer’ on July 28, 1942.”
The Times was built by James and August Marchesi, who sold the house to Robert Shrake of Savanna and Raymond Hoy of Fulton in 1963. The new partners re-opened the house on Christmas Day with “The Thrill of It All”.
Film Daily of October 10, 1941 had news about the Orpheum: “The Van Nomikos circuit in co-operation with Miller and Swanson, joint operators of the Orpheum and Webb Theaters in Savanna, Ill., are spending $20,000 for improvements to the Orpheum, enlarging the house to 750 seats, using Kroehler Push-Back chairs for the job, new front, and modernizing the stand in all departments. E. W. Wagner is the job’s architect.”
Scroll abut halfway down this web page to the section headed “Sleepy Eye Brewing” for information about the Pix Theatre. The building now houses a craft brewing company, opened in 2019. The text reveals that the Princess/Pix had “…closed for good in the early 1990s after being in almost continuous operation since the 1920s.”
The building has been extensively altered inside, and the floor leveled, but a slide show photo of the beautifully restored front shows the Pix marquee still intact and advertising the brewery’s latest beer releases. There is also a vintage movie projector displayed on the mezzanine, but it is not pictured on the web page.
There is confirmation that the Grand became the Cort Theatre, sometime after Glen Duggan got control of the Grand, noted in the August, 1919 MPW item cited in my previous comment. The evidence is in the Google search results for a page in the Rock County Star Herald which I can’t date as it requires a subscription to access, but the Google results include this: “…Duggan, formerly manager of the Cort theatre….” The Cort was still listed in the 1929 FDY, but I haven’t checked later editions. If the Cort did not close with the onset of the depression, it would surely have closed by the time the Pix opened.
The only theater listed at Luverne in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory is called the Opera House, which would seem a rather grandiose name for this modest storefront operation. When the Palace Theatre opened in 1915 it was called the New Opera House, implying that Luverne had an old Opera House, and I suppose it could have been this house, inappropos as it might seem, but over the longer term this house came to be known, still rather pretentiously, as the Grand Theatre. It is the only theater at Luverne other than the Palace to be mentioned in trade journals, and it was also named in this article from the March 1, 1918 issue of the Rock County Herald:
Photos of the building at this address captioned as the Arcade Building can be found on the Internet, so there’s no mistake. The 1926 FDY lists only two theaters at Luverne, and they are the Palace and a 250-seat house called the Cort Theatre. The latter seems most likely to have been a new name for the Grand. The last mention of the Grand I’ve found in trade journals is this item from Moving Picture World of August 2, 1919: “J. P. Coffey has leased the former Grand Theatre building at Luverne, Minnesota, to Glen Duggan, who will open it as a motion picture house in the near future.”The Irem Temple Mosque was built by the Shriners in 1907-08, and until 1931 the main auditorium had flat floor. After it was reconfigured to a standard theatrical form it became Wilkes-Barre’s principal venue for touring live theater and concert events. Its Temple Theatre movie house period coincided with the WWII era boom in movie attendance, and after that period it returned to hosting live events until gradually being abandoned due to competition from more modern facilities. Current renovation plans include returning the main auditorium to its original flat-floored configuration.
The principal architect of the building was Francis Willard Puckey of the local firm of Olds & Puckey. When partner Frederick Lauren Olds, twenty years Puckey’s senior, died in 1912, Puckey moved to Chicago and formed the firm of Puckey & Jenkins.