The original Cataract Theatre opened as a 600-seat house called the Arcade Theatre on December 8, 1909, and was expanded to 1,600 seats in 1912. The March 21, 1921, issue of the Niagara Falls Gazette had a bit of the theater’s history:
“The Cataract Theatre was purchased by Mr. A. C. Hayman and Mr. Joseph A. Schuchert in 1910 from the Crick Realty Company, the Crick interest retaining part ownership until a later date, at which time they disposed of their holdings for many times more, than their original investment. At the time of purchase it was known as the Arcade Theatre having a seating capacity of 600.
“This theatre was remodeled in 1912 and the accomodation increased to 1,600 seats at an expense of $95,000. The Cataract Theatre is now catering to 20,000 theatregoers weekly, and during the summer of 1920 this theatre catered to capacity houses daily.”
The March 21, 1921, issue of the Niagara Falls Gazette had an article about the plans of the Cataract Theatre Company to build a large new house to be called the Strand adjacent to their Cataract Theatre. The new Strand would operate as a moving picture theater while the Cataract would become a vaudeville house. (The page with the story can be seen in this PDF file.)
The July 9, 1921, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the new house being built at Niagara Falls by the Cataract Amusement Company had been designed by Buffalo architect Henry L. Spann.
This house might have been rebuilt, or perhaps the business moved to this address from another location, in 1921. This item is from the July 9 issue of The Moving Picture World that year:
“NEW YORK.-William Harowitz has plans by Nathan Langer, 81 East 125th street, for two-story brick moving picture theatre, 43 by 100 feet, to be erected at 1703-5 Third avenue, to cost $30,000.”
A column headed “Incorporations” in the May 6, 1921, issue of Variety had this item:
“New Third Avenue Theatre Corp., Manhattan, $16,000; W. and F. Harwitz, T. Cumiskey; attorney, H. B. Davis, 522 Fifth avenue.”
The Manhattan New Building Database lists a permit issued for a theater at this address in 1921, and designed by Nathan Langer, but records it as a one-story building rather than two-story.
A house called the New Third Avenue Theatre was in operation in 1873, when it was advertised in the March 3 issue of The New York Clipper. No address was given, but it was probably not at this location.
This 2009 article about the centennial of Kerasotes Theatres indicates that Gus Kerasotes bought the Gaiety Theatre and renamed it the Senate in 1929. The Senate was the last theater operating in downtown Springfield when it closed in 1983.
The Town Theatre apparently reopened last night. I opened their Facebook page and the top entry, posted 21 hours ago, said “Don’t miss out on opening night.” They ran a double feature of American Graffiti and Dirty Dancing, so it probably isn’t going to be a first-run house. I don’t see any other movies scheduled, either, so they might be open only part time for now. Earlier posts include some photos of the theater being fixed up for the reopening.
The history of the Florine Theatre and other houses in Flora is recounted in a comment by Konrad Schiecke on this page (which also has a couple of photos) of the Cinematour Forum.
The Florine Theatre was on the site of the Opera House, opened in 1911. In 1921 the Opera House became the Orpheum, and the name was changed to Florine Theatre in 1935. The house burned in 1936 and was rebuilt on a larger scale. It was in operation until 1957, and in the late 1970s the building was destroyed by another fire. It had to have been on the vacant lot next door to Etchison’s Appliance shop, which is at 128 W. North Avenue.
The May 5, 1921, issue of The Flora Journal-Record had a front page story about the plans of the new owners of the Opera House which can be read here at the Illinois Digital Archives.
On August 18, the paper published this shorter article about the progress of the project:
“NEW ORPHEUM TO OPEN ABOUT SEPTEMBER FIRST
“Work on the new Orpheum Theatre is rapidly nearing completion and the management hopes to have the grand opening about September 1st. The building when completed will rank with any of the largest theatres in architecture features and will have everything that is needed to put it in Class A.
“Two features of the new theatre —the ladies' rest room and steam heat, will be appreciated. The stage will have new and beautiful scenery and also the latest lighting effects and stage equipment to accommodate any vaudeville or road show. The projection booth will have the latest and best equipment, with two new machines, which will show a complete picture without a stop. Watch the Journal-Record for the opening date.”
The New Theatre burned in 1941 and was rebuilt. This is the news from the October 10 issue of The Film Daily:
“England, Ark. — This community’s New Theater, recently destroyed by fire, will be rebuilt, according to an announcement by Terry Axley, owner. The building which housed the theater was owned by the G. W. Morris estate. Axley estimated that loss of building, theater equipment and impairment of business amounted to some $50,000. Approximately $2,500 had been spent on the theater recently.”
The October 10, 1941, issue of The Film Daily says that John and Drew Eberson designed the new theater being built at Salamanca for the Schine circuit:
“Schine Realty Corp. has awarded
contract for erection of new fireproof theater, seating 1,142 persons, in Salamanca, N. Y., to the Benz Engineering Corp. of that city. Work has already been started. John and Drew Eberson are the architects for the house.”
I still don’t know why this project is missing from the Wolfsonian’s Eberson Archive.
The NRHP registration form for the Blue Fox Theatre says that it was built on the lot west of the Lyric Theatre. With only 300 seats, the Lyric probably didn’t occupy the entire lot to the east of the Blue Fox, so it was probably the second door from the corner, which would make its address about 106 W. Main Street.
The November 15, 1947, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that the Gloria Theatre was being enlarged:
“The owners of the Gloria theatre at Myrtle Beach, S. C, have started work on alterations and improvement. A balcony will be added to increase the capacity to 800, and new sound and projection equipment will be installed.”
This web page has a photo of the Gloria Theatre, and also says that the house was listed in city directories as the Gloria Theatre from 1959 to 1972, but was listed as the Fox Theatre in 1974-1978.
This web page says that the Osoyoos Theatre in Oroville opened in 1936, and cites a contemporary source as saying that the house was “…said to be the largest and finest theatre building and best equipment between Wenatchee and Penticton, B.C.”
The Orada Theatre was in operation prior to 1947, in which year it suffered a fire. The July 16 issue of Motion Picture Daily said: “Seattle, July 15. — L. A. Gillespie of Okanogan, whose Orada Theatre in Oroville was destroyed by fire last week, said today that he will rebuild the theatre.”
The rebuilding took a long time, probably due to lingering shortages of materials and restrictions on construction in the postwar period. The November 15, 1948, issue of Motion Picture Herald had this item about the reopening: “The Orada theatre in Oroville, Wash., which was destroyed by fire several months ago, has reopened. The rebuilt house has 700 seats and a ‘cry-room.’”
The December 27, 2012, issue of the Okanogan Valley Gazette-Tribune said that the site of the Orada Theatre had become the parking lot of the 76 Quick Mart. The Quick Mart is at 1501 Main Street, and the address of the parking lot would be a bit higher, probably 1505 Main Street. The current building is certainly more than two years old so must be the same one mentioned in the newspaper in 2012.
This item about the Colony Theatre is from the November 15, 1947, issue of Motion Picture Herald:
“Construction work is nearing completion on the new Colony theatre in Easley, S. C, according to Harold Armistead, manager of the Lyric theatre who will also manage the new house. The Colony will have a capacity of 707 on two levels, and facilities will include a soda shop. Eventually a coffee shop will be added to the second floor. The Lyric and Colony are owned by Mrs. E. A. Armistead.”
The September 1, 1923, issue of Exhibitors Herald said “E. A. Armistead has purchased the Lyric theatre at Easley, S. C, which he has opened.” Mr. Armistead contributed a number of capsule movie reviews to the magazine that year and in 1924.
Additional information about the Armistead family’s involvement in the theater business in Easley can be found in this comment on the Colony Theatre page.
The Mason Opera House on Broadway had a separate entrance on Hill Street to a gallery seating people of color. I believe the Morosco (Globe) Theatre also had a segregated gallery with an entrance from the alley.
DocSouth’s Going to the Show lists the Star Theatre at 59 Broad Street from around 1913 to around 1920. This was the same address as the earlier Amuses or Amusea Theatre, 1907 to 1910, and the generically-named Moving Picture Show, 1912-1913.
The “Name Changes” April 20, 1948, issue of The Film Daily said that the Bern Theatre in New Bern had been renamed the Ritz. I’ve been unable to discover how long the Bern Theatre had been in operation at that time.
Here is an item from the November 3, 1917, issue of The Moving Picture World telling of the conversion of the Masonic Theatre into a moving picture house:
“NEW BERN, N. C. — For the first time in many years there is to be opposition in the motion picture field in New Bern, one of the best show towns in the state, but which has remained under control of Messrs. Lovick and Taylor for a long time. While the public has not been informed of the fact, plans have been drawn and the deal is closed by which F. W. Hahn, a picture man of experience, will, after alterations, open the Masonic theater, and will conduct it exclusively as a high class motion picture theater. It is expected that the new theater will open about November 1 or probably a week earlier if alterations can be completed in time.
“The Masonic theater, formerly playing road attractions exclusively, with its large seating capacity will furnish the people of New Bern one of the most comfortable theaters in the state. Modern equipment from booth to screen will be installed by Mr. Hahn, and every effort will be made to give the picture patrons of New Bern the best service possible. Henry Randall, of the Famous Players Exchange, Washington, closed the first contract for the new theater, putting in the entire output of the Paramount-Artcraft group to begin November 1.”
The houses operated by Lovick and Taylor mentioned in the article were the Athens and the Star.
Liebenberg & Kaplan were the architects for the 1936 remodeling of the Cecil Theatre that kencmcintyre referred to in his comment on March 11, 2009.
Another major remodeling took place in 1953, when the open windows between the foyer and the auditorium were closed in, and the lobby, foyer, stairs, lounges, rest rooms, and office were all given a modern makeover. According to articles in the Mason City Globe-Gazette, the auditorium had been restored and repainted, but that in style and configuration it was still substantially as it had been when the house opened in 1912. Even the boxes were still intact.
The 1953 renovations coincided with Mason City’s centennial, and with the fiftieth anniversary of manager Thomas Arthur’s arrival in town to take over management of the Cecil’s predecessor, the Wilson Theatre.
The Cecil Theatre is listed in the 1913-1914 Cahn guide with 595 seats on the main floor, 410 in the balcony, 360 in the gallery, and 36 in the boxes. It was slightly larger than the Wilson Theatre had been.
The Liberty might have closed for a while in 1929, but by 1932 it was open again and being run by Art and Leah Struck, who came to Mason City that year. In November, 1936 they opened the Arlee Theatre across the street, and on its opening the Liberty was closed for good.
Down Mason City’s Memory Lane, by Dale C. Fancher, has several lines about the Liberty, including a brief description saying “…there were three arches in the front with light bulbs to outline the top of the arches, with the ticket booth centered in the middle arch and the doors to the auditorium on either side of the booth.”
The Liberty was owned for a time by an A. W. Ackerman, Fancher says, and later by a John Bolinger. Mr. Ackerman had an earlier association with Mason City, according to this item in the December 13, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Ray Montgomery has purchased the lease on the Lyric Opera House at Mason City, which has been conducted by Mr. and Mrs. A. W. Ackerman for the last five years. Mr. Ackerman will continue to manage the Prospect Opera House at Greenview, where he has been giving picture shows, as well as at Middletown and San Jose.”
The Roxy Theatre is on this map of Norfolk’s business district from circa 1950.
The original Cataract Theatre opened as a 600-seat house called the Arcade Theatre on December 8, 1909, and was expanded to 1,600 seats in 1912. The March 21, 1921, issue of the Niagara Falls Gazette had a bit of the theater’s history:
The March 21, 1921, issue of the Niagara Falls Gazette had an article about the plans of the Cataract Theatre Company to build a large new house to be called the Strand adjacent to their Cataract Theatre. The new Strand would operate as a moving picture theater while the Cataract would become a vaudeville house. (The page with the story can be seen in this PDF file.)
The July 9, 1921, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the new house being built at Niagara Falls by the Cataract Amusement Company had been designed by Buffalo architect Henry L. Spann.
This house might have been rebuilt, or perhaps the business moved to this address from another location, in 1921. This item is from the July 9 issue of The Moving Picture World that year:
A column headed “Incorporations” in the May 6, 1921, issue of Variety had this item:The Manhattan New Building Database lists a permit issued for a theater at this address in 1921, and designed by Nathan Langer, but records it as a one-story building rather than two-story.A house called the New Third Avenue Theatre was in operation in 1873, when it was advertised in the March 3 issue of The New York Clipper. No address was given, but it was probably not at this location.
Two photos of the Senate Theatre from the Illinois Digital Archives:
Front view, January, 1949
Marquee and entrance by night, 1946
This 2009 article about the centennial of Kerasotes Theatres indicates that Gus Kerasotes bought the Gaiety Theatre and renamed it the Senate in 1929. The Senate was the last theater operating in downtown Springfield when it closed in 1983.
The Town Theatre apparently reopened last night. I opened their Facebook page and the top entry, posted 21 hours ago, said “Don’t miss out on opening night.” They ran a double feature of American Graffiti and Dirty Dancing, so it probably isn’t going to be a first-run house. I don’t see any other movies scheduled, either, so they might be open only part time for now. Earlier posts include some photos of the theater being fixed up for the reopening.
The history of the Florine Theatre and other houses in Flora is recounted in a comment by Konrad Schiecke on this page (which also has a couple of photos) of the Cinematour Forum.
The Florine Theatre was on the site of the Opera House, opened in 1911. In 1921 the Opera House became the Orpheum, and the name was changed to Florine Theatre in 1935. The house burned in 1936 and was rebuilt on a larger scale. It was in operation until 1957, and in the late 1970s the building was destroyed by another fire. It had to have been on the vacant lot next door to Etchison’s Appliance shop, which is at 128 W. North Avenue.
The May 5, 1921, issue of The Flora Journal-Record had a front page story about the plans of the new owners of the Opera House which can be read here at the Illinois Digital Archives.
On August 18, the paper published this shorter article about the progress of the project:
Here is a photo of the auditorium of the Orpheum Theatre.
This advertisement says that the Orpheum would open on Thursday, December 24, 1914.
The New Theatre burned in 1941 and was rebuilt. This is the news from the October 10 issue of The Film Daily:
The October 10, 1941, issue of The Film Daily says that John and Drew Eberson designed the new theater being built at Salamanca for the Schine circuit:
I still don’t know why this project is missing from the Wolfsonian’s Eberson Archive.The NRHP registration form for the Blue Fox Theatre says that it was built on the lot west of the Lyric Theatre. With only 300 seats, the Lyric probably didn’t occupy the entire lot to the east of the Blue Fox, so it was probably the second door from the corner, which would make its address about 106 W. Main Street.
A list of recently chartered companies that was published in the January 13, 1948, issue of The Film Daily included two theaters in Easley:
The Colony was nearing completion in November, 1947, so the charters were apparently issued around the time the theaters opened.The “Theater Changes” section of the January 30, 1933, issue of The Film Daily listed the Pastime Theatre in Easley, South Carolina, as a new theater.
The November 15, 1947, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that the Gloria Theatre was being enlarged:
This web page has a photo of the Gloria Theatre, and also says that the house was listed in city directories as the Gloria Theatre from 1959 to 1972, but was listed as the Fox Theatre in 1974-1978.This web page says that the Osoyoos Theatre in Oroville opened in 1936, and cites a contemporary source as saying that the house was “…said to be the largest and finest theatre building and best equipment between Wenatchee and Penticton, B.C.”
The Orada Theatre was in operation prior to 1947, in which year it suffered a fire. The July 16 issue of Motion Picture Daily said: “Seattle, July 15. — L. A. Gillespie of Okanogan, whose Orada Theatre in Oroville was destroyed by fire last week, said today that he will rebuild the theatre.”
The rebuilding took a long time, probably due to lingering shortages of materials and restrictions on construction in the postwar period. The November 15, 1948, issue of Motion Picture Herald had this item about the reopening: “The Orada theatre in Oroville, Wash., which was destroyed by fire several months ago, has reopened. The rebuilt house has 700 seats and a ‘cry-room.’”
The December 27, 2012, issue of the Okanogan Valley Gazette-Tribune said that the site of the Orada Theatre had become the parking lot of the 76 Quick Mart. The Quick Mart is at 1501 Main Street, and the address of the parking lot would be a bit higher, probably 1505 Main Street. The current building is certainly more than two years old so must be the same one mentioned in the newspaper in 2012.
This item about the Colony Theatre is from the November 15, 1947, issue of Motion Picture Herald:
The September 1, 1923, issue of Exhibitors Herald said “E. A. Armistead has purchased the Lyric theatre at Easley, S. C, which he has opened.” Mr. Armistead contributed a number of capsule movie reviews to the magazine that year and in 1924.
Additional information about the Armistead family’s involvement in the theater business in Easley can be found in this comment on the Colony Theatre page.
The Mason Opera House on Broadway had a separate entrance on Hill Street to a gallery seating people of color. I believe the Morosco (Globe) Theatre also had a segregated gallery with an entrance from the alley.
DocSouth’s Going to the Show lists the Star Theatre at 59 Broad Street from around 1913 to around 1920. This was the same address as the earlier Amuses or Amusea Theatre, 1907 to 1910, and the generically-named Moving Picture Show, 1912-1913.
The “Name Changes” April 20, 1948, issue of The Film Daily said that the Bern Theatre in New Bern had been renamed the Ritz. I’ve been unable to discover how long the Bern Theatre had been in operation at that time.
Here is an item from the November 3, 1917, issue of The Moving Picture World telling of the conversion of the Masonic Theatre into a moving picture house:
The houses operated by Lovick and Taylor mentioned in the article were the Athens and the Star.Liebenberg & Kaplan were the architects for the 1936 remodeling of the Cecil Theatre that kencmcintyre referred to in his comment on March 11, 2009.
Another major remodeling took place in 1953, when the open windows between the foyer and the auditorium were closed in, and the lobby, foyer, stairs, lounges, rest rooms, and office were all given a modern makeover. According to articles in the Mason City Globe-Gazette, the auditorium had been restored and repainted, but that in style and configuration it was still substantially as it had been when the house opened in 1912. Even the boxes were still intact.
The 1953 renovations coincided with Mason City’s centennial, and with the fiftieth anniversary of manager Thomas Arthur’s arrival in town to take over management of the Cecil’s predecessor, the Wilson Theatre.
The Cecil Theatre is listed in the 1913-1914 Cahn guide with 595 seats on the main floor, 410 in the balcony, 360 in the gallery, and 36 in the boxes. It was slightly larger than the Wilson Theatre had been.
The Liberty might have closed for a while in 1929, but by 1932 it was open again and being run by Art and Leah Struck, who came to Mason City that year. In November, 1936 they opened the Arlee Theatre across the street, and on its opening the Liberty was closed for good.
Down Mason City’s Memory Lane, by Dale C. Fancher, has several lines about the Liberty, including a brief description saying “…there were three arches in the front with light bulbs to outline the top of the arches, with the ticket booth centered in the middle arch and the doors to the auditorium on either side of the booth.”
The Liberty was owned for a time by an A. W. Ackerman, Fancher says, and later by a John Bolinger. Mr. Ackerman had an earlier association with Mason City, according to this item in the December 13, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World:
The finding aid to the Liebenberg & Kaplan papers lists a State Theatre in Mason City as one of the firm’s projects from 1950.