The Cordelia Vien Theatre opened in 1910. A photo of the house appeared in the Evening Standard of February 18 that year with the caption “New Theatre Nearing Completion.” The house, also known simply as Vien’s Theatre, was designed by Worcester, MA architectural firm Fuller & Delano (James E. Fuller and Ward P. Delano.) The house was renamed the Strand by new owners in 1916, after which it operated primarily as a movie theater. It was bought by the E. M. Lowe chain in 1926. Last operated by independent owners as an adult house, the Center Theatre suffered interior damage in a fire in 1990, ending its run.
The theater was built with brick side and back walls, but the front was made of wood elaborately carved in the Italianate style. This was plastered over in one of the modern remodeling projects. Fuller & Delano’s original blueprints for the façade were discovered in the New Bedford City Hall, and Studio to Sustain, the architectural and design firm handling the renovations, is using them to help recreate the theater’s original look.
The Nickel Theater is mentioned in the October 10, 1908 issue of Moving Picture World. The management had just secured a lease on the World Theatre down the street, which had been closed for several months, and planned to reopen it with motion pictures that week.
Here is an item from the October 10, 1908 issue of Moving Picture World mentioning the World Theatre and the Nickel Theatre: “New Bedford, Mass.—The management of the Nickel Theater has secured a lease of the World Theater, situated on Purchase street, between Hillman and North streets, and the house will be opened for business with an up-to-date moving picture show this week. The World Theater has been closed for several months, following financial tangles in which the original lessees became involved.”
News reports dated June 25 this year indicate that the Capitol Theatre building will be renovated, but the project will apparently not include any dedicated entertainment venue. The building will house “…apartments, retail space, classrooms, business incubator space, a community kitchen, and office space for the Community Economic Development and Employability Corporation.” The project is already underway, so the building at least is safe, even though its historic theatrical use will be lost.
Also, if the theater building was replaced by a new medical facility recently, the only such building on that two-block stretch of Purchase street is at 874 Purchase, at the corner of Elm, so that must have been the theater’s address as well.
Hathaway’s Theatre was still listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but its principal business appears to have been live theatre. Lonergan Players' Magazine, a weekly program published by Hathaway’s Theatre, in its issue dated March 16, 1914, said that the company was presenting “The Blue Mouse” that week, and would present “As Ye Sow” the following week.
No, I haven’t found the Mars mentioned in any theater industry trade journals, and I don’t have access other than limited previews to any of the archives that have newspapers from Pendleton. I’ve only found it mentioned there once, in 1922.
Neither can I find an opening year for the Crescent, or whether it had any earlier names. It had to have opened after January, 1908 though, as there is a Sanborn map from that month and it shows a furniture store and funeral parlor in the theater’s location.
An item about new equipment recently installed in various houses around Indiana appeared in the May 23, 1951 issue of The Exhibitor, and included this: “…A. McCarty, Roxy, Pendleton, Ind., Peerless Magnarc lamps. National 404 rectifiers, Walker high intensity screen, Kollmorgan Snaplite lenses, and Altec Lansing ‘Voice of the Theatre’ speaker system.” This is the only mention of the Roxy I’ve been able to find in the trade journals. I haven’t found the Mars or the Pendleton at all.
But studying the vintage photo, I think we have the wrong address for the theater. The storefront at 106 has only an awning, while the canopy (presumably the one that fell in 1947) is above the entrance of the store next door, at 108. The vertical “Roxy” sign is also attached to that section of the three-bay IOOF building. This pushes the theater’s history back by almost a decade, as the 1914 Sanborn map of Pendleton shows “Motion Pictures” in that storefront, which was at that time numbered 12 W. State Street. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists a house called the Crescent Theatre at 12 W. State Street. Pendleton then also had a house called the Nickel Theatre, but no address was given for it, and it does not appear on the 1914 Sanborn. The Crescent could have opened before 1914, as the IOOF building was built in 1890.
The Auditorium was one of seven theaters listed at Vinita in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. No address was given for it. An earlier Grand theatre was also listed, at 104 Illinois Avenue. I think Vinita changed its numbering system at some point, as the Directory lists a Vaudette theatre at 22 Wilson Street, and there appear to be no two-digit addresses in the town today. The earlier Grand was thus probably at modern 204 Illinois, or thereabout.
The only theater listed at Stillwell in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was called the Motion, and no details were given for it. The Grand was the only house listed at Stillwell in the 1926 and 1929 FDY’s, but it was listed with only 175 seats. The last listing of the Grand in 1933 shows 250 seats, while the first listing of the Eagle in 1934 has only 230.
The 1926 FDY lists only a 350-seat house called the Crescent at Audubon. The earliest mention of the Crescent I’ve found is in the March 4, 1922 issue of Exhibitors Trade Review: “AUDUBON, IOWA.— Dan Nelson is now operating the Crsecent.”
Although the theater in Audubon is consistently listed by the FDY with 350 seats, the name Rose does not appear until the 1941 edition, so that renaming must have accompanied the rebuilding in 1940. But there were earlier renamings. In the 1932 edition it is listed as the Audubon Theatre, it went back to Crescent in 1933, and in 1934 through 1940 it was listed as the Broadway Theatre.
The only theater listed at Audubon in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was called the Gem. The Gem, run by a Paul Hoover, was also listed in Polk’s 1912-1913 Iowa Gazetteer. An item in the October 10, 1912 Audubon Republican made reference to “…the Hall west of the Gem Theatre….” I see a hall on the Sanborn map, but can’t tell what direction it is from the theater nearby. Not much to go on, though if this was the only theater shown on the map then odds are pretty good it was the Gem.
By 1922, a trade journal mentions a house called the Crescent Theatre in Audubon, and it is listed with 350 seats, so unless the building was considerably expanded it was probably not the same theater.
If it was still around in 1914, this house might have been the Rex, the only theater listed at Perry without an address in the AMPD. The other two theaters listed, the Lyric and the Majestic, both had 2nd Street addresses.
The February 8, 1908 issue of Moving Picture World has this item: “Perry, Iowa, Jan. 23. — The Orpheum Moving Picture Theater is the name of a new amusement house that has been opened up in Perry by Dallas Center men. Worth Jenkins and Web Cramer are the proprietors. It is located in the Wimmer Building, west of the library.” I found one reference to the Wimmer Building being on 2nd Street, but the MPW item says it was west of the library, which would have given it a Willis Avenue address. Of course Mr. Wimmer might have had his name on more than one building at various times.
The McLuen Opera House is one of two theaters that the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists at Guthrie Center. The other was called the Motz Opera House. The McLuen (without the appellation Opera House or Theatre) is mentioned in Moving Picture World issues for July 7, 1917 and August 24, 1918. The former mentions Powd McLuen as manager of the house. A June, 1914 newspaper item mentions the McLuen Theatre, though, so the Theatre and Opera House appellations were probably used interchangeably for this theater.
The June 7, 1919 issue of Moving Picture World had this brief item: “Powd McLuen, of Guthrie Center, was a recent Des Moines visitor. He reported business as excellent in his town.” That’s the last mention of the name McLuen in connection with Guthrie Center I’ve found in the trade journals.
By 1926, the FDY listed two 450-seat theaters at Guthrie Center, but they were called the Garden and the Empress. The Garden was still in operation in the early 1950s. If the Garden was one of Guthrie Center’s early theaters under a new name, it would certainly have been the McLuen rather than the Motz, as the latter was an upstairs house opened in 1882. Early photos of the Motz can be seen on this web page. The Motz building was still standing and recognizable as of 2018. I’ve been unable to find photos of the McLuen or Garden.
According to an ad for American Bodiform Seating in Boxoffice of May 7, 1939, the Meloy Brothers' Park Theatre in Indianapolis was designed by architect Maurice E. Thornton.
A history of Mishawaka'a Tivoli Theatre has the line “Sound equipment first came to Mishawaka at the newer but smaller Northside Theater….” As the Tivoli was opened in 1925 and wired for sound in 1929, the “newer” Northside had to have been opened between those years. It also appears that Mishawaka Theatre was its opening name, as that is how it makes its first appearance in the FDY, in the 1930 edition. It might have been mis-listed in the 1929 FDY as the River Park Theatre, the name of a house that was actually in neighboring South Bend. In any case, the Mishawaka probably opened in either 1928 or 1929.
Here is an item about the Temple Theatre from the August 30, 1919 issue of Moving Picture World:
“THE Temple Theatre Building, at the corner of Main street and Lincoln highway, Mishawaka, Ind., has been purchased from the Mishawaka Lodge of Masons by L. J. Lambiotte, proprietor of the theatre. The consideration involved in the transaction has not been made public.
“Mr. Lambiotte has announced that he will remodel the structure throughout and will equip it with all modern appliances. The seating capacity of the house will be doubled by utilizing the room now occupied by the Western Union Telegraph Company. The theatre will be operated strictly as a photoplay house.”
The only theatre listed at Shelbyville in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was the Crescent Opera House, which is likely another aka for this house.
This item from the December 6, 1913 issue of Improvement Bulletin seems a possible candidate to have been the house that later became the Ritz:
“Iowa, Oelwein—Plans have been prepared by J. T. Burkett, Waterloo, Iowa, for a moving picture theater for A. F. & F. C. Meves; 32x90, one story, frame, plastered; to be done by day work, overseen by the owners; steel sash, steam heat, piped for water, electric light, sheet metal cornice and ceiling, composition roof, common, patent and ornamental plaster, Beaver board, Lowe Bros. varnish, figured and art glass, leaded lights, birch finish, stucco exterior.”
I don’t know if addresses were shifted or the theater moved, but in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory the Photoplay theatre was listed at 280 Main Street. Two other houses were listed at Los Gatos: the Majestic Theatre, no location given, and the Thomas Theatre, on Main Street. No theaters were listed at Los Gatos in the 1926 or 1927 FDYs, but a house called the Strand appears in 1928, and in 1929 is listed with 400 seats.
A brief item from the Oelwein Daily Register of April 19, 2024 says that the Orpheum Theatre operated in Strawberry Point from 1896 to 1973. As the building at 114 Commercial Street was not a theater in 1902, the theater must have operated at a different location (unless the article was wrong about the opening year), and as the name Orpheum doesn’t appear in connection with Strawberry Point until 1932, it must have operated under different names as well. It must have been the Lyric, last listed in the FDY in 1931, and the only house listed at Strawberry Point in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The closing year of 1973 is certainly correct though, being well within living memory.
If the Opera House in the Odd Fellow’s building was the one listed in Polk’s Iowa Gazetteers for 1905-1906 and 1916-1917 as the Townsend Opera House then it was most likely not the Grand, which had a separate listing in the 1916-1917 edition. The Opera House was managed by E. W. Townsend, who was also president of the Citizen’s Bank, while the proprietor of the Grand was N. W. Sherman.
It’s (very slightly) possible that Sherman operated the Grand as a business in the Opera House under some sort of limited lease from Townsend, with the understanding that Townsend could boot Sherman’s movies out when the space was needed for some other event, but a photo of the Opera House interior can be seen on this Facebook page, and it not only had a flat floor, it also had columns in the center and would have made a wretched space for showing movies. I doubt it could have survived two years with any competition at all, and the Grand was listed in both 1914 and 1916.
It seems most likely that the Grand had its own place, probably a converted storefront like the theater at 119 S. Center Street, which could have been either the Grand or the Isis, with Gem or Lyric as a possible earlier aka if it was the Isis.
The Cordelia Vien Theatre opened in 1910. A photo of the house appeared in the Evening Standard of February 18 that year with the caption “New Theatre Nearing Completion.” The house, also known simply as Vien’s Theatre, was designed by Worcester, MA architectural firm Fuller & Delano (James E. Fuller and Ward P. Delano.) The house was renamed the Strand by new owners in 1916, after which it operated primarily as a movie theater. It was bought by the E. M. Lowe chain in 1926. Last operated by independent owners as an adult house, the Center Theatre suffered interior damage in a fire in 1990, ending its run.
The theater was built with brick side and back walls, but the front was made of wood elaborately carved in the Italianate style. This was plastered over in one of the modern remodeling projects. Fuller & Delano’s original blueprints for the façade were discovered in the New Bedford City Hall, and Studio to Sustain, the architectural and design firm handling the renovations, is using them to help recreate the theater’s original look.
The Nickel Theater is mentioned in the October 10, 1908 issue of Moving Picture World. The management had just secured a lease on the World Theatre down the street, which had been closed for several months, and planned to reopen it with motion pictures that week.
Here is an item from the October 10, 1908 issue of Moving Picture World mentioning the World Theatre and the Nickel Theatre: “New Bedford, Mass.—The management of the Nickel Theater has secured a lease of the World Theater, situated on Purchase street, between Hillman and North streets, and the house will be opened for business with an up-to-date moving picture show this week. The World Theater has been closed for several months, following financial tangles in which the original lessees became involved.”
News reports dated June 25 this year indicate that the Capitol Theatre building will be renovated, but the project will apparently not include any dedicated entertainment venue. The building will house “…apartments, retail space, classrooms, business incubator space, a community kitchen, and office space for the Community Economic Development and Employability Corporation.” The project is already underway, so the building at least is safe, even though its historic theatrical use will be lost.
Also, if the theater building was replaced by a new medical facility recently, the only such building on that two-block stretch of Purchase street is at 874 Purchase, at the corner of Elm, so that must have been the theater’s address as well.
Hathaway’s Theatre was still listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but its principal business appears to have been live theatre. Lonergan Players' Magazine, a weekly program published by Hathaway’s Theatre, in its issue dated March 16, 1914, said that the company was presenting “The Blue Mouse” that week, and would present “As Ye Sow” the following week.
No, I haven’t found the Mars mentioned in any theater industry trade journals, and I don’t have access other than limited previews to any of the archives that have newspapers from Pendleton. I’ve only found it mentioned there once, in 1922.
Neither can I find an opening year for the Crescent, or whether it had any earlier names. It had to have opened after January, 1908 though, as there is a Sanborn map from that month and it shows a furniture store and funeral parlor in the theater’s location.
An item about new equipment recently installed in various houses around Indiana appeared in the May 23, 1951 issue of The Exhibitor, and included this: “…A. McCarty, Roxy, Pendleton, Ind., Peerless Magnarc lamps. National 404 rectifiers, Walker high intensity screen, Kollmorgan Snaplite lenses, and Altec Lansing ‘Voice of the Theatre’ speaker system.” This is the only mention of the Roxy I’ve been able to find in the trade journals. I haven’t found the Mars or the Pendleton at all.
But studying the vintage photo, I think we have the wrong address for the theater. The storefront at 106 has only an awning, while the canopy (presumably the one that fell in 1947) is above the entrance of the store next door, at 108. The vertical “Roxy” sign is also attached to that section of the three-bay IOOF building. This pushes the theater’s history back by almost a decade, as the 1914 Sanborn map of Pendleton shows “Motion Pictures” in that storefront, which was at that time numbered 12 W. State Street. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists a house called the Crescent Theatre at 12 W. State Street. Pendleton then also had a house called the Nickel Theatre, but no address was given for it, and it does not appear on the 1914 Sanborn. The Crescent could have opened before 1914, as the IOOF building was built in 1890.
Ah, then it must have been double listed, under both names.
The Auditorium was one of seven theaters listed at Vinita in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. No address was given for it. An earlier Grand theatre was also listed, at 104 Illinois Avenue. I think Vinita changed its numbering system at some point, as the Directory lists a Vaudette theatre at 22 Wilson Street, and there appear to be no two-digit addresses in the town today. The earlier Grand was thus probably at modern 204 Illinois, or thereabout.
The only theater listed at Stillwell in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was called the Motion, and no details were given for it. The Grand was the only house listed at Stillwell in the 1926 and 1929 FDY’s, but it was listed with only 175 seats. The last listing of the Grand in 1933 shows 250 seats, while the first listing of the Eagle in 1934 has only 230.
The 1926 FDY lists only a 350-seat house called the Crescent at Audubon. The earliest mention of the Crescent I’ve found is in the March 4, 1922 issue of Exhibitors Trade Review: “AUDUBON, IOWA.— Dan Nelson is now operating the Crsecent.”
Although the theater in Audubon is consistently listed by the FDY with 350 seats, the name Rose does not appear until the 1941 edition, so that renaming must have accompanied the rebuilding in 1940. But there were earlier renamings. In the 1932 edition it is listed as the Audubon Theatre, it went back to Crescent in 1933, and in 1934 through 1940 it was listed as the Broadway Theatre.
The only theater listed at Audubon in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was called the Gem. The Gem, run by a Paul Hoover, was also listed in Polk’s 1912-1913 Iowa Gazetteer. An item in the October 10, 1912 Audubon Republican made reference to “…the Hall west of the Gem Theatre….” I see a hall on the Sanborn map, but can’t tell what direction it is from the theater nearby. Not much to go on, though if this was the only theater shown on the map then odds are pretty good it was the Gem.
By 1922, a trade journal mentions a house called the Crescent Theatre in Audubon, and it is listed with 350 seats, so unless the building was considerably expanded it was probably not the same theater.
Okay, this wasn’t the Rex. I just saw the entry for the Dallas Theatre, a later aka for the Rex. As Emily Litella used to say, never mind.
If it was still around in 1914, this house might have been the Rex, the only theater listed at Perry without an address in the AMPD. The other two theaters listed, the Lyric and the Majestic, both had 2nd Street addresses.
The February 8, 1908 issue of Moving Picture World has this item: “Perry, Iowa, Jan. 23. — The Orpheum Moving Picture Theater is the name of a new amusement house that has been opened up in Perry by Dallas Center men. Worth Jenkins and Web Cramer are the proprietors. It is located in the Wimmer Building, west of the library.” I found one reference to the Wimmer Building being on 2nd Street, but the MPW item says it was west of the library, which would have given it a Willis Avenue address. Of course Mr. Wimmer might have had his name on more than one building at various times.
1125 2nd Street is listed as the home of the Lyric Theatre in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. Certainly the same space.
The McLuen Opera House is one of two theaters that the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists at Guthrie Center. The other was called the Motz Opera House. The McLuen (without the appellation Opera House or Theatre) is mentioned in Moving Picture World issues for July 7, 1917 and August 24, 1918. The former mentions Powd McLuen as manager of the house. A June, 1914 newspaper item mentions the McLuen Theatre, though, so the Theatre and Opera House appellations were probably used interchangeably for this theater.
The June 7, 1919 issue of Moving Picture World had this brief item: “Powd McLuen, of Guthrie Center, was a recent Des Moines visitor. He reported business as excellent in his town.” That’s the last mention of the name McLuen in connection with Guthrie Center I’ve found in the trade journals.
By 1926, the FDY listed two 450-seat theaters at Guthrie Center, but they were called the Garden and the Empress. The Garden was still in operation in the early 1950s. If the Garden was one of Guthrie Center’s early theaters under a new name, it would certainly have been the McLuen rather than the Motz, as the latter was an upstairs house opened in 1882. Early photos of the Motz can be seen on this web page. The Motz building was still standing and recognizable as of 2018. I’ve been unable to find photos of the McLuen or Garden.
According to an ad for American Bodiform Seating in Boxoffice of May 7, 1939, the Meloy Brothers' Park Theatre in Indianapolis was designed by architect Maurice E. Thornton.
A history of Mishawaka'a Tivoli Theatre has the line “Sound equipment first came to Mishawaka at the newer but smaller Northside Theater….” As the Tivoli was opened in 1925 and wired for sound in 1929, the “newer” Northside had to have been opened between those years. It also appears that Mishawaka Theatre was its opening name, as that is how it makes its first appearance in the FDY, in the 1930 edition. It might have been mis-listed in the 1929 FDY as the River Park Theatre, the name of a house that was actually in neighboring South Bend. In any case, the Mishawaka probably opened in either 1928 or 1929.
Here is an item about the Temple Theatre from the August 30, 1919 issue of Moving Picture World:
The only theatre listed at Shelbyville in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was the Crescent Opera House, which is likely another aka for this house.
This item from the December 6, 1913 issue of Improvement Bulletin seems a possible candidate to have been the house that later became the Ritz:
I don’t know if addresses were shifted or the theater moved, but in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory the Photoplay theatre was listed at 280 Main Street. Two other houses were listed at Los Gatos: the Majestic Theatre, no location given, and the Thomas Theatre, on Main Street. No theaters were listed at Los Gatos in the 1926 or 1927 FDYs, but a house called the Strand appears in 1928, and in 1929 is listed with 400 seats.
A brief item from the Oelwein Daily Register of April 19, 2024 says that the Orpheum Theatre operated in Strawberry Point from 1896 to 1973. As the building at 114 Commercial Street was not a theater in 1902, the theater must have operated at a different location (unless the article was wrong about the opening year), and as the name Orpheum doesn’t appear in connection with Strawberry Point until 1932, it must have operated under different names as well. It must have been the Lyric, last listed in the FDY in 1931, and the only house listed at Strawberry Point in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The closing year of 1973 is certainly correct though, being well within living memory.
If the Opera House in the Odd Fellow’s building was the one listed in Polk’s Iowa Gazetteers for 1905-1906 and 1916-1917 as the Townsend Opera House then it was most likely not the Grand, which had a separate listing in the 1916-1917 edition. The Opera House was managed by E. W. Townsend, who was also president of the Citizen’s Bank, while the proprietor of the Grand was N. W. Sherman.
It’s (very slightly) possible that Sherman operated the Grand as a business in the Opera House under some sort of limited lease from Townsend, with the understanding that Townsend could boot Sherman’s movies out when the space was needed for some other event, but a photo of the Opera House interior can be seen on this Facebook page, and it not only had a flat floor, it also had columns in the center and would have made a wretched space for showing movies. I doubt it could have survived two years with any competition at all, and the Grand was listed in both 1914 and 1916.
It seems most likely that the Grand had its own place, probably a converted storefront like the theater at 119 S. Center Street, which could have been either the Grand or the Isis, with Gem or Lyric as a possible earlier aka if it was the Isis.