There was a notice of the closing of the Grand Theatre at Odin in the January 14, 1937 issue of Film Daily.
The only movie house listed at Odin in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was called the Prize Theatre, and it was located at the corner of Laurel [sic] and North Main Street. Laurel was apparently a typo for Laury Street, and North Main was the former name of Kirkwood Street. It seems possible that the Prize was an aka for the Grand.
A history of Odin’s Masonic Lodge has this to say:
“In 1962 the Lodge bought the Sugg Building that once housed Wooters Insurance Office, Odin Drug Store and Odin Kroger Store downstairs and the Grand Theatre and a bowling alley upstairs. It was rebuilt into what now is the Lodge upstairs, accessed by a chair lift, and downstairs a dining room and two rental spaces.”
This Flickr page has a photo of the Masonic Lodge. Neither Google nor Bing Maps offers a street view of the location, but judging from the satellite view and the shape of the buildings in the photo, the lodge is located at 202 E. Kirkwood Street, which is a very short distance east of Laury Street. As the Grand was an upstairs house in a very small town, it’s likely that its space was multi-purpose, and thus probably had a flat floor and movable seats, so it might have switched back and forth between being a movie house and a skating rink multiple times. It might have operated as a movie venue intermittently all the way until the Gem Theatre opened.
A capsule movie review by Ray Hollingshead of the Gem Theatre, Odin, Illinois, Appeared in the October 20, 1951 issue of Boxoffice. Mr. Hollingshead highly (no pun intended) recommended the exploitation film “Marijuana”, which he said brought in good business both nights that it ran.
Back in 1949, the Gem was offered for sale in the classified section of the January 15 issue of Boxoffice. The house was being sold due to the dissolution of a partnership. $8,000 was the required down payment for the 268-seat theater in the town of 1,850 population.
This item from the February 5, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World gives another aka for the Empress/Rialto. Unfortunately the aka is Temple, which was the name of yet another Ironwood theater of the period, so we might have some conflation going on somewhere. I’ve posted the item to our Temple Theatre page as well:
“W. T. Kelly, who has leased the Empress theater property at Ironwood, Mich., from O'Donnell & Nolan has made a number of changes. The building has been remodeled and hereafter will be known as the Temple theater. Triangle service will be used on Mondays and Thursdays, Paramount service on Wednesday and Saturday and other high class features the rest of the time. Admission will be ten and twenty cents. A twelve-piece orchestra will be used in connection with the Triangle films. Manager Kelly has renamed the former Temple theater of Ironwood the Strand and will operate a five and ten cent show there.”
Kelly’s management of the house lasted for only a little over a year. Here is an item from the April 6, 1917 issue of Variety confirming the end of Kelly’s operation of the house, though it doesn’t mention the brief name change to Grand Theatre: “The Temple, Ironwood, Mich., has changed hands, owner Kelly withdrawing from its management. Under the new regime the Temple returns to the W. V. M. A. fold and will have a five-act show booked in by Paul Goudron, starting Apr. 28. The house has been offering films of late.”
It appears that more than one house at Ironwood was called the Temple Theatre. I’ve also posted this item from the February 5, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World to our Rialto (aka Empress) Theatre page:
“W. T. Kelly, who has leased the Empress theater property at Ironwood, Mich., from O'Donnell & Nolan has made a number of changes. The building has been remodeled and hereafter will be known as the Temple theater. Triangle service will be used on Mondays and Thursdays, Paramount service on Wednesday and Saturday and other high class features the rest of the time. Admission will be ten and twenty cents. A twelve-piece orchestra will be used in connection with the Triangle films. Manager Kelly has renamed the former Temple theater of Ironwood the Strand and will operate a five and ten cent show there.”
The only theaters listed at Ironwood in a 1921 Michigan State directory were the Rex and the Rialto, so if this house last operated as the Strand it must have been closed by 1920
The bowling alley, part of which occupied the Columbia Theatre, has been closed for a number of years now, and the theater and two adjacent buildings it also occupied are slated for renovation and reuse for purposes not yet determined. An article in the March 29, 2019 issue of The Dalles Chronicle says that the building at 213 E. 2nd Street opened as a house called the Grand Theatre in 1911, and was later renamed the Empress Theatre. However, if this was true then by 1920 one of those names was apparently being used at another theater, as the July 10 issue of Moving Picture World mentioned “…A. Bettingen, Empress and Grand theaters, The Dalles.”
The Empress is listed in the 1926-1930 FDYs with 500 seats, and the Columbia is listed in 1931 with 450. The only house listed at The Dalles in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory is the Casino, at 312 2nd Street, so the Grand/Empress might have still been operating as a vaudeville house then.
The March 4, 1922 issue of Moving Picture World said that the plans for the new theater to be erected at Lincoln, Illinois by Steve Bennis were being prepared by “…the Levine Company, 217 Chamber of Commerce Building, Chicago….” This must have been R. Levine & Co., the Chicago design-construction firm for whom Edward P. Rupert served as principal architect during this period. The Lincoln Grand bears a strong resemblance to the Washington Theatre at Quincy, Illinois, which was designed by Rupert.
The Olive Theatre first appears in the FDY’s 1931 edition, which means a likely 1930 opening. The house is mentioned in the September 14, 1935 issue of Universal Weekly with the name of the manager, Ed Lewis. The Olive had been receiving Universal’s film service for five years, also indicating a 1930 opening.
The Olive Theatre was at the north end of a short row of stores on the west side of the 100 block of Barnes Avenue (Highway 395.) The entire row has been demolished. The address of the theater would probably have been approximately 105 N. Barnes Avenue.
This 10-page pdf file has a photo of the store building, with the theater at far right, on its fourth page and a photo of the theater interior on the fifth page.
Here is an early notice about the Malco Theatre from the July 19, 1938 issue of Film Daily:
“Malco Plans New House
“Hot Springs, Ark.—It has been announced here that Malco Theaters, Inc., plan to construct a $100,000 film theater on the site of the old Princess Theater which was destroyed by fire in 1935. Malco now operates four theaters in this city. Work on the new building will probably start next April or May. The new house will seat between 1,200 and 1,500, according to the announcement.”
According to the June 21, 1952 issue of Boxoffice, a contract to demolish the Annex Theatre had just been let by the city. The house had been closed for about a year, and was to be replaced by a parking lot.
The January 24, 1929 issue of Film Daily reported that the Majestic Theatre in El Dorado was being remodeled. The item was actually about the old Rialto Theatre which was being demolished to make way for its replacement, and the item noted that the Rialto’s equipment was being moved to the Majestic. Both projects were being carried out for the Arkansas Amusement Company. Multiple theater chains had “Arkansas Amusement” in their names at that time. The one interested in El Dorado was owned in part by M. A. Lightman, and as of September 23, 1927 had had 25 houses operating in the state, according to that day’s issue of Film Daily.
It turns out there was indeed a fire at Hot Springs in 1913, and it wiped out much of Malvern Avenue. It looks like it took out a couple dozen square blocks of the town. The Pekin probably only lasted about a year. It would have been pretty easy to convert a small movie house into a funeral parlor.
The Princess is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, though no address is given so it might have been at a different location then.
This article prepared by Nancy Hendricks of the Garland County Historical Society says that the building now occupied by the Not Springs Central Theatre was built in the 1930s as a garage and was converted into a theater in 1937. Indeed, the 1933 newspaper ad uploaded to the pictures page by David Zornig includes and ad for the pre-conversion Central Garage, 1008-14 Central. The earlier Central Theatre that shared the same ad had to have been at another location.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists a house called the Lyric Theatre at 624 Central. It ought to have been right in this neighborhood, if the directory got the address right. I suppose it could have been gone by the time the 1915 Sanborn was made.
The Royal was remodeled and its seating capacity increased in 1916, according to an item in the November 4 issue of Moving Picture World. The Royal had ben listed at 720 Central Avenue in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
While a movie house called the Lyric Theatre was listed at Hot Springs in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, it was located at 624 Central Avenue. No theaters were listed at 406 Central, though several were listed without addresses. There were houses called the Central and the New Central, so this house might have been one or the other of those.
Dickson Morgan was not an architect, but a stage designer and technical director who oversaw the design of the original interior of the Vine Street Theatre auditorium. He later directed a few plays, and even has a page at the IBDb. Architects of record for The Vine Street Theatre were Hunt & Chambers.
The “New Theaters” column of the February 5, 1921 issue of The Billboard said that the Hauber Gem Theater in Camden, Arkansas was “practically completed.” The $25,000 house was owned by A. [sic] C. Hauber of Pine Bluff. Local sources usually give Mr. Hauber’s first initial as O. I’ve been unable to find any other mentions of the name Gem Theater in Camden.
The San Souci Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, and it was mentioned in the November 18, 1922 issue of Motion Picture News, but appears to have been closed by 1926, or at least is not listed in the FDY that year.
The Broadway Theatre may have officially become a movie house in 1935, but an 850 seat house called the Italian Club, which must have been this place, was the largest of three indoor theaters listed at Ybor City in the 1926 Film Daily Year Book (the 800-seat Casino and 500-seat Rivoli were the other two. There was also a house called the Airdome, no capacity given.)
The fitness club has moved to another location and the former Isis Theatre building is now occupied by a gift shop called Olive + Jo, itself lately moved from another location on State Street.
The latest mention of the Isis I’ve found in Boxoffice is from the issue of June 18, 1956, which said that the house was being closed for the summer, and patrons would be directed to the Grand Theatre, which would remain open and was under the same management.
The Elite Electric Theatre was the only movie house listed at Crawford in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
There was a notice of the closing of the Grand Theatre at Odin in the January 14, 1937 issue of Film Daily.
The only movie house listed at Odin in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was called the Prize Theatre, and it was located at the corner of Laurel [sic] and North Main Street. Laurel was apparently a typo for Laury Street, and North Main was the former name of Kirkwood Street. It seems possible that the Prize was an aka for the Grand.
A history of Odin’s Masonic Lodge has this to say:
This Flickr page has a photo of the Masonic Lodge. Neither Google nor Bing Maps offers a street view of the location, but judging from the satellite view and the shape of the buildings in the photo, the lodge is located at 202 E. Kirkwood Street, which is a very short distance east of Laury Street. As the Grand was an upstairs house in a very small town, it’s likely that its space was multi-purpose, and thus probably had a flat floor and movable seats, so it might have switched back and forth between being a movie house and a skating rink multiple times. It might have operated as a movie venue intermittently all the way until the Gem Theatre opened.A capsule movie review by Ray Hollingshead of the Gem Theatre, Odin, Illinois, Appeared in the October 20, 1951 issue of Boxoffice. Mr. Hollingshead highly (no pun intended) recommended the exploitation film “Marijuana”, which he said brought in good business both nights that it ran.
Back in 1949, the Gem was offered for sale in the classified section of the January 15 issue of Boxoffice. The house was being sold due to the dissolution of a partnership. $8,000 was the required down payment for the 268-seat theater in the town of 1,850 population.
This item from the February 5, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World gives another aka for the Empress/Rialto. Unfortunately the aka is Temple, which was the name of yet another Ironwood theater of the period, so we might have some conflation going on somewhere. I’ve posted the item to our Temple Theatre page as well:
Kelly’s management of the house lasted for only a little over a year. Here is an item from the April 6, 1917 issue of Variety confirming the end of Kelly’s operation of the house, though it doesn’t mention the brief name change to Grand Theatre: “The Temple, Ironwood, Mich., has changed hands, owner Kelly withdrawing from its management. Under the new regime the Temple returns to the W. V. M. A. fold and will have a five-act show booked in by Paul Goudron, starting Apr. 28. The house has been offering films of late.”It appears that more than one house at Ironwood was called the Temple Theatre. I’ve also posted this item from the February 5, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World to our Rialto (aka Empress) Theatre page:
The only theaters listed at Ironwood in a 1921 Michigan State directory were the Rex and the Rialto, so if this house last operated as the Strand it must have been closed by 1920The bowling alley, part of which occupied the Columbia Theatre, has been closed for a number of years now, and the theater and two adjacent buildings it also occupied are slated for renovation and reuse for purposes not yet determined. An article in the March 29, 2019 issue of The Dalles Chronicle says that the building at 213 E. 2nd Street opened as a house called the Grand Theatre in 1911, and was later renamed the Empress Theatre. However, if this was true then by 1920 one of those names was apparently being used at another theater, as the July 10 issue of Moving Picture World mentioned “…A. Bettingen, Empress and Grand theaters, The Dalles.”
The Empress is listed in the 1926-1930 FDYs with 500 seats, and the Columbia is listed in 1931 with 450. The only house listed at The Dalles in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory is the Casino, at 312 2nd Street, so the Grand/Empress might have still been operating as a vaudeville house then.
The March 4, 1922 issue of Moving Picture World said that the plans for the new theater to be erected at Lincoln, Illinois by Steve Bennis were being prepared by “…the Levine Company, 217 Chamber of Commerce Building, Chicago….” This must have been R. Levine & Co., the Chicago design-construction firm for whom Edward P. Rupert served as principal architect during this period. The Lincoln Grand bears a strong resemblance to the Washington Theatre at Quincy, Illinois, which was designed by Rupert.
The Olive Theatre first appears in the FDY’s 1931 edition, which means a likely 1930 opening. The house is mentioned in the September 14, 1935 issue of Universal Weekly with the name of the manager, Ed Lewis. The Olive had been receiving Universal’s film service for five years, also indicating a 1930 opening.
The Olive Theatre was at the north end of a short row of stores on the west side of the 100 block of Barnes Avenue (Highway 395.) The entire row has been demolished. The address of the theater would probably have been approximately 105 N. Barnes Avenue.
This 10-page pdf file has a photo of the store building, with the theater at far right, on its fourth page and a photo of the theater interior on the fifth page.
Here is an early notice about the Malco Theatre from the July 19, 1938 issue of Film Daily:
According to the June 21, 1952 issue of Boxoffice, a contract to demolish the Annex Theatre had just been let by the city. The house had been closed for about a year, and was to be replaced by a parking lot.
The January 24, 1929 issue of Film Daily reported that the Majestic Theatre in El Dorado was being remodeled. The item was actually about the old Rialto Theatre which was being demolished to make way for its replacement, and the item noted that the Rialto’s equipment was being moved to the Majestic. Both projects were being carried out for the Arkansas Amusement Company. Multiple theater chains had “Arkansas Amusement” in their names at that time. The one interested in El Dorado was owned in part by M. A. Lightman, and as of September 23, 1927 had had 25 houses operating in the state, according to that day’s issue of Film Daily.
It turns out there was indeed a fire at Hot Springs in 1913, and it wiped out much of Malvern Avenue. It looks like it took out a couple dozen square blocks of the town. The Pekin probably only lasted about a year. It would have been pretty easy to convert a small movie house into a funeral parlor.
The Princess is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, though no address is given so it might have been at a different location then.
This article prepared by Nancy Hendricks of the Garland County Historical Society says that the building now occupied by the Not Springs Central Theatre was built in the 1930s as a garage and was converted into a theater in 1937. Indeed, the 1933 newspaper ad uploaded to the pictures page by David Zornig includes and ad for the pre-conversion Central Garage, 1008-14 Central. The earlier Central Theatre that shared the same ad had to have been at another location.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists a house in the 400 block of Malvern Avenue, but it was at 420. It was called the Pekin Theatre.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists a house called the Lyric Theatre at 624 Central. It ought to have been right in this neighborhood, if the directory got the address right. I suppose it could have been gone by the time the 1915 Sanborn was made.
The Auditorium was operating as a movie house by 1914, as it is listed in the American Motion Picture Directorythat year.
It’s not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, so probably closed by 1914.
The Royal was remodeled and its seating capacity increased in 1916, according to an item in the November 4 issue of Moving Picture World. The Royal had ben listed at 720 Central Avenue in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
While a movie house called the Lyric Theatre was listed at Hot Springs in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, it was located at 624 Central Avenue. No theaters were listed at 406 Central, though several were listed without addresses. There were houses called the Central and the New Central, so this house might have been one or the other of those.
Dickson Morgan was not an architect, but a stage designer and technical director who oversaw the design of the original interior of the Vine Street Theatre auditorium. He later directed a few plays, and even has a page at the IBDb. Architects of record for The Vine Street Theatre were Hunt & Chambers.
The “New Theaters” column of the February 5, 1921 issue of The Billboard said that the Hauber Gem Theater in Camden, Arkansas was “practically completed.” The $25,000 house was owned by A. [sic] C. Hauber of Pine Bluff. Local sources usually give Mr. Hauber’s first initial as O. I’ve been unable to find any other mentions of the name Gem Theater in Camden.
The San Souci Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, and it was mentioned in the November 18, 1922 issue of Motion Picture News, but appears to have been closed by 1926, or at least is not listed in the FDY that year.
The Broadway Theatre may have officially become a movie house in 1935, but an 850 seat house called the Italian Club, which must have been this place, was the largest of three indoor theaters listed at Ybor City in the 1926 Film Daily Year Book (the 800-seat Casino and 500-seat Rivoli were the other two. There was also a house called the Airdome, no capacity given.)
The fitness club has moved to another location and the former Isis Theatre building is now occupied by a gift shop called Olive + Jo, itself lately moved from another location on State Street.
The latest mention of the Isis I’ve found in Boxoffice is from the issue of June 18, 1956, which said that the house was being closed for the summer, and patrons would be directed to the Grand Theatre, which would remain open and was under the same management.