As the house that opened as the Vernon theatre was reported to be under construction in the April 9, 1938 issue of Film Daily, the Lyric had to have been closed and demolished by early 1938 or maybe late 1937. The editors of Film Daily’s Year Books were not very good at keeping their lists up-to-date, though that might have been at least partly the fault of the theater owners, who certainly had the option of informing the publishers of any changes.
After General Cinema, this drive-in was operated by Cinemette, but for only two years. The August 9, 1976 issue of Boxoffice said that manager Gary E. Witt had taken over as an independent operator.
I wonder what delayed the opening of the Cinemette South? The November 19, 1973 issue of Boxoffice said that the Cinemette South was completed and equipped, and ready for opening. Yet the grand opening ad in the Post-Gazette did not appear until June 26, 1974, about seven months later.
I got turned around when checking the map for my earlier comment. The Lyric and Vernon were at the southwest corner of the square, of course, not the southeast, and the Grand was on the east side of the square at the corner of High Street, not Main.
Thanks to r1zr1z1 for confirming the complete demolition of the old Lyric. It deserves its own Cinema Treasures page.
In an odd coincidence, the address 232-234 S. Main Street is shown as being occupied by “Motion Pictures” on the 1913 Sanborn map of Mount Vernon. All the theaters listed at Mount Vernon in the 1914-1915 AMPD were at other addresses, so whatever house was at this location didn’t last long. I don’t know when the building that housed the nameless theater was demolished, but it might have been torn down for the Colonial Cinemas project.
The 1914-1915 AMPD lists five movie theaters at Mount Vernon, two of them on the public square, but with no numbers given. The 1913 Sanborn map of Mount Vernon shows two theaters on the square: the Grand, on the east side of the north corner of the square with Main Street, address 1 Public Square; and a house labeled “Motion Pictures” at 19 Public Square, which would be the southeast corner of the square. By process of elimination, this had to have been the house listed in the AMPD as the Lyric Theatre. The Lyric was still listed in the FDY in 1938, the year the Vernon was built at the same address. Like its replacement, the Lyric was part of the Schine circuit.
What I haven’t been able to discover is if the Vernon was entirely new construction, or if it incorporated part of the Lyric Theatre’s building. The entrance of the Vernon was exactly where the entrance of the Lyric would have been, and in the photos of the Vernon the entrance doesn’t look old at all, so it might be that the Lyric, which was last listed with only 229 seats, was entirely demolished (except perhaps for the common sidewall it probably shared with the neighboring building.)
News about the Vine Theatre appeared in Moving Picture World of May 14,1937: “Harry Smoots is now sole owner of the Vine Theatre, Mount Vernon, Ohio, having purchased the interests of F. J. Harris. The partnership of Harris and Smoots has existed for nine years with Harry Smoots active in the management of the theatre to which he has devoted all his time since March, 1926, when he sold other business interests to give his whole heart to the theatre activity. While there will be, Mr. Smoots announces, no change in the personnel of the theatre staff, there are to be a number of improvements.”
I’m pretty sure that the Biola Theatre was at 12553 G Street. this page from the real estate site Compass shows a rather theatrical façade on a building of 5985 square feet, built in 1948. The property is not on the market. Google street view shows one storefront occupied by an AA facility, but there’s no indication of what might be in the remainder of the building, which nevertheless appears to be in fairly good shape.
A tantalizing obsolete web page at an estate sale site lists items being sold at auction from “…an old movie theater crammed full of goodies, Antiques, Advertising, Classic autos, and more. Items stored away for decades.” The site was in Biola, California, so it had to be this theater. The theater must have served as storage for some dealer or collector who is no longer active. The auction page is undated, and no longer displays the theater’s address, but I’m pretty sure this is it.
One more bit I came across is that the Biola Theatre was designed by the Fresno consulting engineering firm of Johnson & Moore, who also designed the Azteca Theatre in Fresno. Designer J. C. Johnson was an English-born architect who did not have credentials to practice in the United States, and thus partnered with licensed engineer Moore.
The NRHP registration form for the Azteca Theatre (PDF here) says that the building was designed by the Fresno firm of Johnson & Moore, Consulting Engineers. The designer was J. C. Johnson, an English-born architect who was not credentialed in the United States, necessitating his partnership with licensed engineer Moore. The firm is also credited with designing the Biola Theatre in Biola, California, and with alterations to the Warnor’s Theatre in Fresno.
The October 17, 1953 issue of Motion Picture Herald had this item about the Marco Theatre: “Charles Reynolds, manager of the Marco
theatre, Waterford, Calif., and frequent contributor to ‘What the Picture Did For ME’ — running a magic show on stage as a special attraction.”
The September 24, 1955 issue of Boxoffice said that F. L. and Hazel Reese had recently bought the Marco Theatre from Charles Reynolds. Another item datelined Waterford in the same issue said that “[t]he Marco Theatre has been reopened here over Slaughter’s Market, with F. L. Rees and son managing the house. Admission prices have been reduced to 50 cents, 40 cents and 20 cents.”
The line “over Slaughter’s Market” was a bit puzzling, given that upstairs theaters had been largely phased out in California well before the 1950s. I was unable to find anything about Slaughter’s Market, but a local Facebook page has a post headed “you remember the theater above pizza plus…the old vally food center”…. One comment said “Marco Theater!” and the other said “Yes, I went there when I was a kid and got a bag of candy and an apple and orange from Santa!”
As strange as it seems, the Marco Theatre must have been upstairs in the building now housing the Pizza Plus at 12705 Bentley Street. Couchman Community Hall must have occupied the upper floor of the building, which the parapet says is called the Gordon Block. As seen in the current Google street view, the former theater space is occupied by the resource center of a charter school, with its entrance at the west end of the building on E Street, though search gives the address as that of the pizza parlor, 12705 Bentley. Google street view approximates the address as 301 N. E Street, but it might be easiest to simply list the theater at Bentley Street and E Street, if Apple Maps can handle it.
This Facebook page has a discussion about the Round Mountain Theatre among long-time Covelo residents. A number of the comments mention the Tuttles. It’s not easy to puzzle out details from all the (sometimes conflicting) memories, but what is clear is that the theater was in the 76300 block of Main Street. Either before or after the building was moved it was next door to what is now Eel River Charter School, which is at 76350 Main.
The theater, which had wooden seats, was a large redwood building which, after its theater days, may have been a church for a while, then the offices of a publishing company, and finally a building supply store. It eventually burned down. The Facebook post has a photo of the entrance area (there were wooden stairs up to a narrow porch), but you can’t tell much from it.
The 1914 Gus Hill directory lists the Grand Opera House at Anthony as playing only roadshows. By that year it was listing most small town theaters as showing both R (roadshows) and P (pictures.) It is also listed with only 650 seats. It might be that the gallery had been abandoned.
The 1929 FDY lists the Novelty and a house called the Palace at Anthony, each with 400 seats. I wonder if Palace could have been an aka for the old Opera House?
This item appeared in the January 10, 1947 issue of Film Daily: “Washburn, Ill.— A. Terria will open the Washburn Theater with National Theatre Supply equipment.” The 350-seat Washburn Theatre is the only house listed at Washburn, Illinois, in the 1950 FDY. The listing is the same in 1951 and 1952. I have no access to more recent editions. I suppose Bonny Theatre might have been a brief renaming, or maybe the FDY just missed the change.
Noting Brassman’s second comment earlier, about the Parke Beatty Theatre having moved into this building around 1921, I think the 650-seat Park Theatre listed in the 1929 and 1930 FDYs must be the same house. I’ve found the Park advertised in the local paper as early as August, 1922 and as late as May, 1930, and it’s listed in the 1926 FDY, but with only 300 seats.
Oddly, only a 650-seat Opera House is listed at Carrollton in the 1927 and 1928 FDYs. That was the name of an older theater on North (now Second) Street, which according to the 1914 Gus Hill directory had been showing movies at least that early, and was advertising in the local paper into the early 1920s. I don’t know if the Park was expanded and adopted the name Opera House in 1927, or if the old Opera House was reopened that year and the Park only expanded later, but one or the other must have happened. The 650-seat Park is last listed in 1930, and the 700-seat Virginia appears alone in 1931.
The most recent Sanborn map of Carrollton available is from 1921, and the space at 81 W. Main Street is still a barber shop on the ground floor of the three-story Colonial Hotel. Behind the barber shop was a generous vacant area, which is where the theater’s auditorium building is in modern satellite views. It seems most likely that the Park, which probably opened in 1922 and was later expanded from 3oo to 650 seats, became the Virginia, and did so sometime before the end of 1931.
Joe Vogel
commented about
Workzon
Jun 9, 2026 at 9:34 pm
The September 4, 1924 issue of The Free Press-Standard of Carrollton, Ohio, ran an article about the opening of a new theater at Cuyahoga Falls the previous night. Though the name of the house was not mentioned, it was probably the Falls. Some Carrollton citizens who had been involved in the project had attended the opening of the $125,000 theater, which the developers had sold to M. B. Horwick of Cleveland, operator of a chain of eleven movie houses. The article mentioned a “mammoth pipe organ,” and said the stage of the new theatre was suitable for the presentation of plays. The Falls Theatre was listed in the 1926 FDY with 800 seats.
I’ve found no mentions of this theater in early trade journals, but yet another house turned up in the September 30, 1911 Motion Picture News, which said that “[t]he Airdome Theater was damaged by fire to the amount of $500.”
The Saturday, January 28, 1922 issue of Film Daily ran this item: “Harper Theater Called Gem
“(Special to THE FILM DAILY) Harper, Kans.—Hunsely and St [text missing] will open their theater in Febru; [text missing] It will be called the Gem”
The Gem was mentioned in a letter from the Wurlitzer company that was published in the February 25, 1922 Exhibitors Daily Review. The letter was addressing the issue of taxes on musical compositions published by the company. There is no indication of what sort of Wurlitzer instrument the Gem might have had.
The January 6, 1923 Moving Picture World also mentions the Gem: “Thurman & Son, of Anthony, Kans., have purchased the Gem Theatre at Harper, Kans., from Mrs. Robinson.”
The name of the theater is given as the New in the December 10, 1927 issue of The Billboard, which mentioned alterations and new equipment at a theater in Harper, Kansas.
The April 13, 1940 issue of Boxoffice said “C. A. Botkin has purchased a pair of new high intensity Simplex lamps and a Hertner generator from John Kelly of the National Theatre Supply for his Harper
at Harper, Kas.”
The July 12, 1947 Motion Picture Herald mentions Harper in an item headed “New Theatre Plans Approved by Government” which says “Carl Botkin, Harper, Kans., remodel theatre;”
The August 25, 1954 Boxoffice mentioned the Harper as one of several Kansas houses that had bought CinemaScope lenses and new screens from Missouri Theatre Supply.
Carl Botkin, owner of the house, is mentioned several times through the 1950s in Boxoffice, but these are all about routine events. The last mention of Botkin is in the September 16, 1963 issue, which says that he had sold the theater to projectionist Maurice J. Hooley, who was also assistant cashier of Harper’s First National Bank.
The last mention of the Harper I’ve found in Boxoffice is in the July 26, 1965 issue which says “Hubert Johnson will reopen the Harper Theatre, Harper, Kas., July 30 as a community enterprise.”
A web site called The Okie Legacy has this brief article from 2010, which says that the theater opened on March 1, 1922. Charles and Gene Botkin (Carl was Charles’s son) bought the house from the Thurmans in 1923. The major remodeling and expansion SethG surmises in his earlier comment took place in 1947, when the building was extended 42 feet back. Most surprising to me, the article says that the Harper limped along for many years, operating on weekends, and finally closing for the last time in 1983.
The Majestic and a 400-seathouse called the Garden Theatre were listed at Stuttgart in the 1928 FDY. Only the Garden had been listed in 1927, making that the year the Majestic was likely opened. I think it might have originally been planned to have a different name. This item appeared in the July 23, 1927 issue of Moving Picture World: “The Arkansas Amusement Company will open their new Riceland Theatre at Stuttgart, Arkansas, in the near future.”
The February 19, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World also mentioned the opening of the Strand, though Mr. Conrad is here named William rather than Ben, and the seating capacity of the house has inexplicably expanded by 175: “William Conrad, of Arkansas City, Kan., has just opened a new theater in that place, and is operating it under the name of the Strand. Six hundred is the claim made by the owners as to the number of people it will seat.”
I suspect that this item I more recently ran across, from the April 4, 1914 MPW, is also about the Rex/Howard Theatre, given the builder’s name: “EDITOR BUILDING THEATER.
“A $10,000 theater is being built in Arkansas City., Kan., by Richard C. Howard, the editor of the Arkansas City Daily Traveler, published in that city. When completed the house will be leased for five years by H. Hill, who will install moving pictures.”
It might be that Howard’s deal with Mr. Hill fell through, and the house didn’t open until Mr. Burford appeared, or perhaps the theater was completed and opened as early as mid-1914, but Mr. Hill departed after operating it only a short time, leaving Howard free to lease the house to Burford. So far I’ve found no clues in the trade journals.
A late 1915 or very early 1916 opening is likely for the Strand. This notice appeared in the January 22, 1916 issue of the trade journal Motogrpahy: “The Strand theater, which was erected by Ben Conrad in Arkansas City, is a very attractive picture house and seats 425. The interior is quite pretty and Mr. Conrad is showing the Paramount program.”
A 1915 opening is near certain for Roy Burford’s Rex. The house is mentioned in this item from the November 27, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World: “Roy Burford’s Arkansas City Theater. Roy Burford came ‘out of the west’ to the ‘east’ of Kansas a year ago, and is assisting in the reconstruction of the moving picture business in Arkansas City, Kan. Mr. Burford counts nine years in connection with the industry, and his present property, the Rex, is a fit monument to his accomplishments. This is a beautiful theater seating 650-and its seats are often fully occupied.”
The December 18, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World said that “[t]he Lotus theater building at Arkansas City, Kan., has been sold to the Home National Bank.
Given its opening year and its location on Broadway at High Avenue, this had to have been the $350,000 house noted in the “Theatres Proposed” column of Variety on June 1, 1927. The project, for owners S. Bratter and S. Pollock of Newark, was being designed by noted Newark architect William E. Lehman.
As the house that opened as the Vernon theatre was reported to be under construction in the April 9, 1938 issue of Film Daily, the Lyric had to have been closed and demolished by early 1938 or maybe late 1937. The editors of Film Daily’s Year Books were not very good at keeping their lists up-to-date, though that might have been at least partly the fault of the theater owners, who certainly had the option of informing the publishers of any changes.
After General Cinema, this drive-in was operated by Cinemette, but for only two years. The August 9, 1976 issue of Boxoffice said that manager Gary E. Witt had taken over as an independent operator.
I wonder what delayed the opening of the Cinemette South? The November 19, 1973 issue of Boxoffice said that the Cinemette South was completed and equipped, and ready for opening. Yet the grand opening ad in the Post-Gazette did not appear until June 26, 1974, about seven months later.
I got turned around when checking the map for my earlier comment. The Lyric and Vernon were at the southwest corner of the square, of course, not the southeast, and the Grand was on the east side of the square at the corner of High Street, not Main.
Thanks to r1zr1z1 for confirming the complete demolition of the old Lyric. It deserves its own Cinema Treasures page.
In an odd coincidence, the address 232-234 S. Main Street is shown as being occupied by “Motion Pictures” on the 1913 Sanborn map of Mount Vernon. All the theaters listed at Mount Vernon in the 1914-1915 AMPD were at other addresses, so whatever house was at this location didn’t last long. I don’t know when the building that housed the nameless theater was demolished, but it might have been torn down for the Colonial Cinemas project.
The 1914-1915 AMPD lists five movie theaters at Mount Vernon, two of them on the public square, but with no numbers given. The 1913 Sanborn map of Mount Vernon shows two theaters on the square: the Grand, on the east side of the north corner of the square with Main Street, address 1 Public Square; and a house labeled “Motion Pictures” at 19 Public Square, which would be the southeast corner of the square. By process of elimination, this had to have been the house listed in the AMPD as the Lyric Theatre. The Lyric was still listed in the FDY in 1938, the year the Vernon was built at the same address. Like its replacement, the Lyric was part of the Schine circuit.
What I haven’t been able to discover is if the Vernon was entirely new construction, or if it incorporated part of the Lyric Theatre’s building. The entrance of the Vernon was exactly where the entrance of the Lyric would have been, and in the photos of the Vernon the entrance doesn’t look old at all, so it might be that the Lyric, which was last listed with only 229 seats, was entirely demolished (except perhaps for the common sidewall it probably shared with the neighboring building.)
News about the Vine Theatre appeared in Moving Picture World of May 14,1937: “Harry Smoots is now sole owner of the Vine Theatre, Mount Vernon, Ohio, having purchased the interests of F. J. Harris. The partnership of Harris and Smoots has existed for nine years with Harry Smoots active in the management of the theatre to which he has devoted all his time since March, 1926, when he sold other business interests to give his whole heart to the theatre activity. While there will be, Mr. Smoots announces, no change in the personnel of the theatre staff, there are to be a number of improvements.”
I’m pretty sure that the Biola Theatre was at 12553 G Street. this page from the real estate site Compass shows a rather theatrical façade on a building of 5985 square feet, built in 1948. The property is not on the market. Google street view shows one storefront occupied by an AA facility, but there’s no indication of what might be in the remainder of the building, which nevertheless appears to be in fairly good shape.
A tantalizing obsolete web page at an estate sale site lists items being sold at auction from “…an old movie theater crammed full of goodies, Antiques, Advertising, Classic autos, and more. Items stored away for decades.” The site was in Biola, California, so it had to be this theater. The theater must have served as storage for some dealer or collector who is no longer active. The auction page is undated, and no longer displays the theater’s address, but I’m pretty sure this is it.
One more bit I came across is that the Biola Theatre was designed by the Fresno consulting engineering firm of Johnson & Moore, who also designed the Azteca Theatre in Fresno. Designer J. C. Johnson was an English-born architect who did not have credentials to practice in the United States, and thus partnered with licensed engineer Moore.
The NRHP registration form for the Azteca Theatre (PDF here) says that the building was designed by the Fresno firm of Johnson & Moore, Consulting Engineers. The designer was J. C. Johnson, an English-born architect who was not credentialed in the United States, necessitating his partnership with licensed engineer Moore. The firm is also credited with designing the Biola Theatre in Biola, California, and with alterations to the Warnor’s Theatre in Fresno.
The October 17, 1953 issue of Motion Picture Herald had this item about the Marco Theatre: “Charles Reynolds, manager of the Marco theatre, Waterford, Calif., and frequent contributor to ‘What the Picture Did For ME’ — running a magic show on stage as a special attraction.”
The September 24, 1955 issue of Boxoffice said that F. L. and Hazel Reese had recently bought the Marco Theatre from Charles Reynolds. Another item datelined Waterford in the same issue said that “[t]he Marco Theatre has been reopened here over Slaughter’s Market, with F. L. Rees and son managing the house. Admission prices have been reduced to 50 cents, 40 cents and 20 cents.”
The line “over Slaughter’s Market” was a bit puzzling, given that upstairs theaters had been largely phased out in California well before the 1950s. I was unable to find anything about Slaughter’s Market, but a local Facebook page has a post headed “you remember the theater above pizza plus…the old vally food center”…. One comment said “Marco Theater!” and the other said “Yes, I went there when I was a kid and got a bag of candy and an apple and orange from Santa!”
As strange as it seems, the Marco Theatre must have been upstairs in the building now housing the Pizza Plus at 12705 Bentley Street. Couchman Community Hall must have occupied the upper floor of the building, which the parapet says is called the Gordon Block. As seen in the current Google street view, the former theater space is occupied by the resource center of a charter school, with its entrance at the west end of the building on E Street, though search gives the address as that of the pizza parlor, 12705 Bentley. Google street view approximates the address as 301 N. E Street, but it might be easiest to simply list the theater at Bentley Street and E Street, if Apple Maps can handle it.
This Facebook page has a discussion about the Round Mountain Theatre among long-time Covelo residents. A number of the comments mention the Tuttles. It’s not easy to puzzle out details from all the (sometimes conflicting) memories, but what is clear is that the theater was in the 76300 block of Main Street. Either before or after the building was moved it was next door to what is now Eel River Charter School, which is at 76350 Main.
The theater, which had wooden seats, was a large redwood building which, after its theater days, may have been a church for a while, then the offices of a publishing company, and finally a building supply store. It eventually burned down. The Facebook post has a photo of the entrance area (there were wooden stairs up to a narrow porch), but you can’t tell much from it.
The 1914 Gus Hill directory lists the Grand Opera House at Anthony as playing only roadshows. By that year it was listing most small town theaters as showing both R (roadshows) and P (pictures.) It is also listed with only 650 seats. It might be that the gallery had been abandoned.
The 1929 FDY lists the Novelty and a house called the Palace at Anthony, each with 400 seats. I wonder if Palace could have been an aka for the old Opera House?
This item appeared in the January 10, 1947 issue of Film Daily: “Washburn, Ill.— A. Terria will open the Washburn Theater with National Theatre Supply equipment.” The 350-seat Washburn Theatre is the only house listed at Washburn, Illinois, in the 1950 FDY. The listing is the same in 1951 and 1952. I have no access to more recent editions. I suppose Bonny Theatre might have been a brief renaming, or maybe the FDY just missed the change.
Noting Brassman’s second comment earlier, about the Parke Beatty Theatre having moved into this building around 1921, I think the 650-seat Park Theatre listed in the 1929 and 1930 FDYs must be the same house. I’ve found the Park advertised in the local paper as early as August, 1922 and as late as May, 1930, and it’s listed in the 1926 FDY, but with only 300 seats.
Oddly, only a 650-seat Opera House is listed at Carrollton in the 1927 and 1928 FDYs. That was the name of an older theater on North (now Second) Street, which according to the 1914 Gus Hill directory had been showing movies at least that early, and was advertising in the local paper into the early 1920s. I don’t know if the Park was expanded and adopted the name Opera House in 1927, or if the old Opera House was reopened that year and the Park only expanded later, but one or the other must have happened. The 650-seat Park is last listed in 1930, and the 700-seat Virginia appears alone in 1931.
The most recent Sanborn map of Carrollton available is from 1921, and the space at 81 W. Main Street is still a barber shop on the ground floor of the three-story Colonial Hotel. Behind the barber shop was a generous vacant area, which is where the theater’s auditorium building is in modern satellite views. It seems most likely that the Park, which probably opened in 1922 and was later expanded from 3oo to 650 seats, became the Virginia, and did so sometime before the end of 1931.
The September 4, 1924 issue of The Free Press-Standard of Carrollton, Ohio, ran an article about the opening of a new theater at Cuyahoga Falls the previous night. Though the name of the house was not mentioned, it was probably the Falls. Some Carrollton citizens who had been involved in the project had attended the opening of the $125,000 theater, which the developers had sold to M. B. Horwick of Cleveland, operator of a chain of eleven movie houses. The article mentioned a “mammoth pipe organ,” and said the stage of the new theatre was suitable for the presentation of plays. The Falls Theatre was listed in the 1926 FDY with 800 seats.
I’ve found no mentions of this theater in early trade journals, but yet another house turned up in the September 30, 1911 Motion Picture News, which said that “[t]he Airdome Theater was damaged by fire to the amount of $500.”
The Saturday, January 28, 1922 issue of Film Daily ran this item: “Harper Theater Called Gem
“(Special to THE FILM DAILY) Harper, Kans.—Hunsely and St [text missing] will open their theater in Febru; [text missing] It will be called the Gem”
The Gem was mentioned in a letter from the Wurlitzer company that was published in the February 25, 1922 Exhibitors Daily Review. The letter was addressing the issue of taxes on musical compositions published by the company. There is no indication of what sort of Wurlitzer instrument the Gem might have had.
The January 6, 1923 Moving Picture World also mentions the Gem: “Thurman & Son, of Anthony, Kans., have purchased the Gem Theatre at Harper, Kans., from Mrs. Robinson.”
The name of the theater is given as the New in the December 10, 1927 issue of The Billboard, which mentioned alterations and new equipment at a theater in Harper, Kansas.
The April 13, 1940 issue of Boxoffice said “C. A. Botkin has purchased a pair of new high intensity Simplex lamps and a Hertner generator from John Kelly of the National Theatre Supply for his Harper at Harper, Kas.”
The July 12, 1947 Motion Picture Herald mentions Harper in an item headed “New Theatre Plans Approved by Government” which says “Carl Botkin, Harper, Kans., remodel theatre;”
The August 25, 1954 Boxoffice mentioned the Harper as one of several Kansas houses that had bought CinemaScope lenses and new screens from Missouri Theatre Supply.
Carl Botkin, owner of the house, is mentioned several times through the 1950s in Boxoffice, but these are all about routine events. The last mention of Botkin is in the September 16, 1963 issue, which says that he had sold the theater to projectionist Maurice J. Hooley, who was also assistant cashier of Harper’s First National Bank.
The last mention of the Harper I’ve found in Boxoffice is in the July 26, 1965 issue which says “Hubert Johnson will reopen the Harper Theatre, Harper, Kas., July 30 as a community enterprise.”
A web site called The Okie Legacy has this brief article from 2010, which says that the theater opened on March 1, 1922. Charles and Gene Botkin (Carl was Charles’s son) bought the house from the Thurmans in 1923. The major remodeling and expansion SethG surmises in his earlier comment took place in 1947, when the building was extended 42 feet back. Most surprising to me, the article says that the Harper limped along for many years, operating on weekends, and finally closing for the last time in 1983.
The Majestic and a 400-seathouse called the Garden Theatre were listed at Stuttgart in the 1928 FDY. Only the Garden had been listed in 1927, making that the year the Majestic was likely opened. I think it might have originally been planned to have a different name. This item appeared in the July 23, 1927 issue of Moving Picture World: “The Arkansas Amusement Company will open their new Riceland Theatre at Stuttgart, Arkansas, in the near future.”
The February 19, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World also mentioned the opening of the Strand, though Mr. Conrad is here named William rather than Ben, and the seating capacity of the house has inexplicably expanded by 175: “William Conrad, of Arkansas City, Kan., has just opened a new theater in that place, and is operating it under the name of the Strand. Six hundred is the claim made by the owners as to the number of people it will seat.”
I suspect that this item I more recently ran across, from the April 4, 1914 MPW, is also about the Rex/Howard Theatre, given the builder’s name: “EDITOR BUILDING THEATER.
“A $10,000 theater is being built in Arkansas City., Kan., by Richard C. Howard, the editor of the Arkansas City Daily Traveler, published in that city. When completed the house will be leased for five years by H. Hill, who will install moving pictures.”
It might be that Howard’s deal with Mr. Hill fell through, and the house didn’t open until Mr. Burford appeared, or perhaps the theater was completed and opened as early as mid-1914, but Mr. Hill departed after operating it only a short time, leaving Howard free to lease the house to Burford. So far I’ve found no clues in the trade journals.
Listed as the Fifth Avenue Theater in Polk’s 1904 Kansas state directory.
A late 1915 or very early 1916 opening is likely for the Strand. This notice appeared in the January 22, 1916 issue of the trade journal Motogrpahy: “The Strand theater, which was erected by Ben Conrad in Arkansas City, is a very attractive picture house and seats 425. The interior is quite pretty and Mr. Conrad is showing the Paramount program.”
A 1915 opening is near certain for Roy Burford’s Rex. The house is mentioned in this item from the November 27, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World: “Roy Burford’s Arkansas City Theater. Roy Burford came ‘out of the west’ to the ‘east’ of Kansas a year ago, and is assisting in the reconstruction of the moving picture business in Arkansas City, Kan. Mr. Burford counts nine years in connection with the industry, and his present property, the Rex, is a fit monument to his accomplishments. This is a beautiful theater seating 650-and its seats are often fully occupied.”
The December 18, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World said that “[t]he Lotus theater building at Arkansas City, Kan., has been sold to the Home National Bank.
Given its opening year and its location on Broadway at High Avenue, this had to have been the $350,000 house noted in the “Theatres Proposed” column of Variety on June 1, 1927. The project, for owners S. Bratter and S. Pollock of Newark, was being designed by noted Newark architect William E. Lehman.