Correct spelling of the name is indeed Donges. There was an Opera House to the south, on the same side of the square. It is still on the 1919 map, shown as closed, and must have been replaced shortly thereafter by the liquor store now on that corner. Clay Donges seems to have operated a meat market on Center St in later years.
Correct address was 209, and this building is long gone. It was constructed sometime between 1892 and 1897. The 1904 map shows a drugstore in this portion. I’ve uploaded a picture from the 1910 map. By 1919, only the photgrapher in the second story remained. This section of the block was replaced by a large G.C. Murphy store which looks like it might be from about 1930.
If it was under Donge’s, it must have been destroyed in the 1915 fire. The 1910 map does not show a theater under Donge’s. There are two vacant spaces and a bowling alley. Address should have been on Market Sq, but Center St does run roughly N-S through the square.
The 1919 Sanborn shows this building as the Keystone Garage, which could hold 50 cars. It originally had a one story rear section shaped like an ‘L’. The lot is vacant in 1910. Now that streetview coverage is better, bricked up windows along the side wall are clearly visible, as is the line above which the brick changes color. Not sure when it was remodeled into a theater.
This is a really old theater, and the facade is very crudely formed concrete with quite evident marks where the boards were used to form it. It first appears on the 1910 map as a skating rink and ‘electric theatre’ (in 1904 the lot was mostly empty, although partially occupied by a wooden ‘hall’). The 1919 map calls it the Auditorium Skating Rink & Moving Pictures. That’s the last available online, but it’s very evident from the fading of the marquee that it spent some time as the Strand before becoming the State. The marquee mostly obscures the original entry, which was a tall arch with light bulbs set in it.
This building is now abandoned. One of the front apartment doors looked like it had been kicked in. I’m surprised at the low capacity, because the building is really huge. The correct address seems to be 234.
I assume Box 280 was a PO box where they got their mail. I’d assume that like all of these ‘opera’ houses, once movies took hold, there was less of a market for travelling shows, and having a school graduation or political meeting a few times a year wouldn’t pay the bills. Most seem to have closed right around World War I. Fire codes also got a lot less friendly to upstairs auditoriums, although you do see second story theaters hang on until the ‘50s occasionally.
The only Sanborn map I can find any evidence of is from 1929, and is not available online. The building looks like it was constructed sometime around 1920. It was probably not meant to be a theater, since it’s very deep and narrow. Sometime maybe around 1960, the ground floor was remodeled with a rock veneer and plate glass windows.
By the way, the cars in the photo are all wrong for 1932. Movie appears to be ‘The Strange Mr. Gregory’ from 1945. What looks like a date at bottom right must be a stock number.
Address is 703. The building is still there. Everything else in the photo except the nearest building is long gone. It’s in pretty shabby condition, and looked like it was home to a dance studio.
I can’t find any insurance maps of Bethel, but the thing to the north was a very small store that looked a lot like the remaining building with the ice cream ad on the wall. It’s visible on streetview in 2008. At that point, the lot to the south was bare dirt, so the buildings to the south had probably just been demolished.
I think the ‘2 screens’ comes from listing an auditorium as one screen, and the ceremonial room as another. From photos on the web, that room has Egyptian details, and a balcony either side of the floor. Not sure which stage the huge fly tower belongs to.
Name now seems to be The Enfield Performing arts center. Website is http://www.epacnc.org/. The ‘Previous Names’ is not correct, and the hokey marketing consultant name should be dropped from the listing.
Still doesn’t appear to be open. From the outside, it appears to be the typical rotting building in a dead downtown, but the photos on the website appear to show the auditorium in good condition.
SethG
commented about
Theatreon
Jul 20, 2021 at 2:50 pm
Not sure where the closure date came from, but if it had closed then, it would not have appeared on the map.
Looks like the address on Google may be wrong. The church next door is also listed as 13. Not sure if this would be 11 or 15, and the city website has no number in the address. There is no East or West on the square. The odd numbers are on the west, evens on the east.
The 1921 map shows that this side of the square was vacant except for a garage/dealership about where the church is now, so this was not a remodel of an older building. The lobby has a nice terrazzo floor, and appears to have the original doors into the auditorium.
Correct address is 13 Liberty Sq. It appears to be owned by the city and can be rented for events. Since tables are available, I assume the interior has been stripped of the seats.
Address was 204, at least originally. The bank building at 200-202 was built in 1923, and the theater seems to have been part of that structure, although styled differently. It’s a bit hard to match the Sanborn map with the photos, but what I think the newer photo shows is that the theater later expanded into number 206, which was a pre-1887 commercial building, and is shown as a bank on the 1926 map. The older photo can’t be any earlier than 1923.
Anyway, the 1926 map definitely shows the theater as a smaller space in the new building, with a rectangular wooden canopy on the front that looks like what we have in the older photo. At that time, the balcony was a tiny flat-fronted space that only went perhaps 20' into the auditorium starting from the front wall.
For more date information, the 1907 Sanborn shows some very modest businesses on this lot, in what are basically one story brick shacks. The September 1914 map shows the current structure as an ‘Elec. Picture Theatre’. No balcony is shown on that map, although the entrance lobby has a staircase on the south side. The theater is still shown on the February 1924 map, which does show a balcony (and that the rear wall is cracked).
We need to put the correct address and operator in, and also throw away the really blurry copy of the photo currently used as the main picture.
Probably due to the operator, this is nearly identical to the Princess in Bowling Green, KY. Aside from an ugly modern storefront, it’s in pretty good shape and is used as offices.
Correct spelling of the name is indeed Donges. There was an Opera House to the south, on the same side of the square. It is still on the 1919 map, shown as closed, and must have been replaced shortly thereafter by the liquor store now on that corner. Clay Donges seems to have operated a meat market on Center St in later years.
Correct address was 209, and this building is long gone. It was constructed sometime between 1892 and 1897. The 1904 map shows a drugstore in this portion. I’ve uploaded a picture from the 1910 map. By 1919, only the photgrapher in the second story remained. This section of the block was replaced by a large G.C. Murphy store which looks like it might be from about 1930.
If it was under Donge’s, it must have been destroyed in the 1915 fire. The 1910 map does not show a theater under Donge’s. There are two vacant spaces and a bowling alley. Address should have been on Market Sq, but Center St does run roughly N-S through the square.
The 1919 Sanborn shows this building as the Keystone Garage, which could hold 50 cars. It originally had a one story rear section shaped like an ‘L’. The lot is vacant in 1910. Now that streetview coverage is better, bricked up windows along the side wall are clearly visible, as is the line above which the brick changes color. Not sure when it was remodeled into a theater.
This is a really old theater, and the facade is very crudely formed concrete with quite evident marks where the boards were used to form it. It first appears on the 1910 map as a skating rink and ‘electric theatre’ (in 1904 the lot was mostly empty, although partially occupied by a wooden ‘hall’). The 1919 map calls it the Auditorium Skating Rink & Moving Pictures. That’s the last available online, but it’s very evident from the fading of the marquee that it spent some time as the Strand before becoming the State. The marquee mostly obscures the original entry, which was a tall arch with light bulbs set in it.
This building is now abandoned. One of the front apartment doors looked like it had been kicked in. I’m surprised at the low capacity, because the building is really huge. The correct address seems to be 234.
Both the 1916 and 1932 maps call this the Broadway.
At some point after the mid 1950s, the top story was hacked off. The auditorium, or much of it, was demolished in 1974.
I assume Box 280 was a PO box where they got their mail. I’d assume that like all of these ‘opera’ houses, once movies took hold, there was less of a market for travelling shows, and having a school graduation or political meeting a few times a year wouldn’t pay the bills. Most seem to have closed right around World War I. Fire codes also got a lot less friendly to upstairs auditoriums, although you do see second story theaters hang on until the ‘50s occasionally.
The text should be adjusted to show that this opened as the Photoplay Palace. By Feb 1913, it’s shown as the Princess.
The only Sanborn map I can find any evidence of is from 1929, and is not available online. The building looks like it was constructed sometime around 1920. It was probably not meant to be a theater, since it’s very deep and narrow. Sometime maybe around 1960, the ground floor was remodeled with a rock veneer and plate glass windows.
By the way, the cars in the photo are all wrong for 1932. Movie appears to be ‘The Strange Mr. Gregory’ from 1945. What looks like a date at bottom right must be a stock number.
Address is 703. The building is still there. Everything else in the photo except the nearest building is long gone. It’s in pretty shabby condition, and looked like it was home to a dance studio.
I can’t find any insurance maps of Bethel, but the thing to the north was a very small store that looked a lot like the remaining building with the ice cream ad on the wall. It’s visible on streetview in 2008. At that point, the lot to the south was bare dirt, so the buildings to the south had probably just been demolished.
Thanks for finding the draft. Took a quick look for NRHP listings and didn’t see one.
I think the ‘2 screens’ comes from listing an auditorium as one screen, and the ceremonial room as another. From photos on the web, that room has Egyptian details, and a balcony either side of the floor. Not sure which stage the huge fly tower belongs to.
Name now seems to be The Enfield Performing arts center. Website is http://www.epacnc.org/. The ‘Previous Names’ is not correct, and the hokey marketing consultant name should be dropped from the listing.
Still doesn’t appear to be open. From the outside, it appears to be the typical rotting building in a dead downtown, but the photos on the website appear to show the auditorium in good condition.
Not sure where the closure date came from, but if it had closed then, it would not have appeared on the map.
Should be listed as demolished. There’s some dumpy ‘80s building there now.
Looks like the address on Google may be wrong. The church next door is also listed as 13. Not sure if this would be 11 or 15, and the city website has no number in the address. There is no East or West on the square. The odd numbers are on the west, evens on the east.
The 1921 map shows that this side of the square was vacant except for a garage/dealership about where the church is now, so this was not a remodel of an older building. The lobby has a nice terrazzo floor, and appears to have the original doors into the auditorium.
Correct address is 13 Liberty Sq. It appears to be owned by the city and can be rented for events. Since tables are available, I assume the interior has been stripped of the seats.
Surely we can do better than a terrible picture of cars in the street out front?
Address was 204, at least originally. The bank building at 200-202 was built in 1923, and the theater seems to have been part of that structure, although styled differently. It’s a bit hard to match the Sanborn map with the photos, but what I think the newer photo shows is that the theater later expanded into number 206, which was a pre-1887 commercial building, and is shown as a bank on the 1926 map. The older photo can’t be any earlier than 1923.
Anyway, the 1926 map definitely shows the theater as a smaller space in the new building, with a rectangular wooden canopy on the front that looks like what we have in the older photo. At that time, the balcony was a tiny flat-fronted space that only went perhaps 20' into the auditorium starting from the front wall.
For more date information, the 1907 Sanborn shows some very modest businesses on this lot, in what are basically one story brick shacks. The September 1914 map shows the current structure as an ‘Elec. Picture Theatre’. No balcony is shown on that map, although the entrance lobby has a staircase on the south side. The theater is still shown on the February 1924 map, which does show a balcony (and that the rear wall is cracked).
We need to put the correct address and operator in, and also throw away the really blurry copy of the photo currently used as the main picture.
Probably due to the operator, this is nearly identical to the Princess in Bowling Green, KY. Aside from an ugly modern storefront, it’s in pretty good shape and is used as offices.