The earliest mention of the Fox I’ve found in trade journals is in the October 8, 1938 issue of Motion Picture Herald. Charles F. Dearman was the manager. Charles F. Dearman, Jr. was operating the Fox when it was mentioned in the August 22, 1953 issue of Boxoffice, reporting on Dearman’s plans to renovate the house, installing a wide screen and new booth equipment.
Much earlier, Smithville had a house called the Star Theatre, managed by a J. E. Evins, mentioned in the May 6, 1922 Moving Picture World.
The Electric Theatre was one of four movie houses listed at Sterling in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the others being the Opera House, the Princess, and the Sterling.
Back in 1924, the March 1 issue of Moving Picture World mentioned a house in Sterling called the U.S.A. Theatre. I wonder if that might have been an aka for this house?
The New Orleans-based trade journal Building Review published an item in its issue of September 30, 1916 saying that the Victoria Hotel next to the Orpheum Theatre on St. Charles Avenue would be demolished beginning October 1 to make way for a moving picture theater to be built for Ernest Boehringer. The theater was being designed and built by the Fromherz & Drennan company (Joseph Fromherz and Albert Drennan.)
This page at New Orleans Historical says the Liberty opened in 1918, operated by Boehringer Amusement Company on behalf of the owners, Saenger Amusement. The page also says the Liberty was last operated by RKO, and closed in 1955.
This brief item from the August 21, 1930 issue ofVariety is one of the few mentions of this house I’ve found in trade journals: “Farewell Week for the Merrill, which goes into the hands of the architects next week.” “The architects” referred to would have been whoever prepared the plans for the conversion of the theater into a Kresge store.
The Palace Theatre was built for V. U. Young’s Young Amusement Company, according to this item from Motion Picture News of January 7, 1928:
“John Eberson to Plan Theatre at Marion, O.
“John Eberson, prominent Chicago theatre architect, has been selected to develop the plans for the new Palace Theatre, to be built at Marion, Ohio, by the Young Amusement Co., V. U. Young, president, Gary, Indiana, in which project Ed. E. Bender and Sol Bernstein, Canton, Ohio, are also interested. The building is to house five stores and seven apartments in addition to the theatre”
The February 4, 1950 issue of Boxoffice reported that T. J. Cramblett had set February 11 as the opening day for his new Village Theatre at Salisbury.
The Village must have been open at least as late as 1957, as a post on a Salisbury nostalgia page at Facebook has locals sharing memories of the theater, and some remember seeing “The Ten Commandments” and the Elvis Presley film “Love Me Tender” at the Village. Both were released in late 1956, and even the Presley film is unlikely to have played here first run, while “Commandments” had a very long exclusive road show run in major cities before being released to small towns. I’m not sure when the first prints went into general release, but it had to have been well into 1957 at the earliest, and the Village might not have been in the first group of theaters to get it. It’s quite possible that it didn’t appear here until 1958.
“The Ten Commandments” was also known for its very slow international road show rollout, and didn’t premier in London until November 28, 1957, after which it played at the Plaza for 36 weeks.
The December, 1911 issue of Motography reported that a movie house to be called the Princess Theatre was under construction at Frankfort, Indiana. The same item noted that a house called the Palace Theatre had recently opened. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists no fewer than seven movie houses in Frankfort, the Princess (but not the Palace) being among them.
A December 21, 2008 article in the Ocala Star-Banner said that the Temple Theatre opened in early 1910 with an operetta. It was showing movies by 1914, when the New Temple Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The Temple is mentioned in the April 15, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World. The operator at that time was a Mr. E. C. Bennett.
The May 2, 1925 Motion Picture News said that E. J. Sparks was in negotiations to acquire the Temple. Ocala was one of the towns at which Sparks had lately acquired theaters, which he had turned over to the Famous Players chain, according the the June 6 issue of the same journal. The June 20 issue of the News reported that Sparks had also acquired the Dixie Theatre at Ocala on behalf of Famous Players.
After closing as a theater, the Temple was long occupied by a church, but it had been vacant for a number of years when, following an unsuccessful campaign by the local Marion Players theater group to save the house, the city had it demolished in 1969.
The recent opening October 1) of the new Dixie Theatre in Ocala was noted in the October 7, 1923 issue of Film Daily. The June 20, 1925 Motion Picture News noted that the Dixie was one of two Ocala houses (the Temple was the other) recently acquired by E. J. Sparks on behalf of Famous Players.
The Marion was originally an E. J. Sparks house, according to this item from the September 26, 1941 Film Daily: “The new Marion Theater, Ocala, Fla., was opened recently with a three minute dedicatory speech by Mayor M. C. Izlar. This house is one of the finest in the Sparks chain and is managed by C. T. Chapin.”
In August and September, 1918, ads in theater trade journals touted the U.S. government’s war propaganda film “Pershing’s Crusaders” and listed theaters that had shown the movie. One of those listed was the Wray.
An article first published in the Julesburg Advocate in 1997 says that the two-story building at 204-206 Main housed the opera house upstairs (the “Hall 2nd” notation on the Sanborn.) This does make me wonder if the current 100 E. First was not the historic 102 E. First. But that would leave the puzzle of the “Foss Theatre” building that was remodeled for apartments in 1917. That building on the corner would have been a very odd shape for a theater, being almost square.
An April 24, 2019 article in the Julesburg Advocate noted the centennial of the Hippodrome Theatre taking place that week. The article also notes the brief use of the name New Hipp Theatre for the new house in 1919:
“To clarify Hipp vs. Hippodrome: In February, 1913, Davis and Brock were new managers of the Plezol theatre located at 102 E. 1st and were making extensive repairs. They changed the name to Hipp. A. E. Lanning purchased the business from C. W. Rozell early in 1919. Rozell had been managing the Hipp for three years. When Lanning’s new Hippodrome theatre building was completed at 215 Cedar, the name Hipp followed him in ads and news items. Project researchers use July 22, 1919 as the date to distinguish between the two locations. Even the Grand Opening advertisement for 215 Cedar was headed ‘NEW HIPP THEATRE.’ One week later, a one column ad displayed ‘Hippodrome:’ however, for years editors continued to have Hipp-relapses and confuse the issue.”
Incidentally, the Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection provides and extensive assortment of Julesburg’s early newspapers, and many issues have items about the early theaters (I found more using the search terms “picture show” than using the names of the theaters themselves.) Unfortunately, I’ve also found the site’s search feature to be sometimes rather cranky, though otherwise the site is quite well designed and very useful.
The September 1, 1910 issue of the Julesburg Grit-Advocate ran this item:
“The moving picture show has been opened up again and is now known as the Foss theatre. Mr. Foss is giving the people the best pictures that can be secured. The pictures are clear and bright, and every move is distinct. The show is well worth the 10c price of admission.”
The December 29, 1910 issue of the paper noted changes of program at the house every night. The Foss was being supplied with movies through the Swanson Film Exchange in Denver.
Mr. Foss apparently gave up the theater less than two years later, as this item is found in the May 13, 1912 Dirt-Advocate:
“Messrs Stone and Harvey of Crawford, Nebraska have leased the building where the moving Picture show is located and will open the show under the name of ‘The Plezol’ on next Monday night. These gentlemen are very pleasant to meet and tell us that they are here to make the show a success and we believe they will do so. Mr. Harvey is a married man and has moved his family to Julesburg. The boys have had a thorough cleaning house time and have ordered a new picture machine, one of the best made and propose to give Julesburg a first class Moving Picture Show in every respect. We wish them success.”
At some point, the theater was moved next door from its original location, as a history of the Hippodrome in the April 24, 2019 Julesburg Advocate gives the address 102 for the Plezol as of February, 1913. Here is an item from the February 6, 1913 issue of the Grit-Advocate:
“Moving Picture Show to Open
“The moving picture show is now under the management of Messrs Davis & Brock who are busy at work making extensive repairs to the old Plezol theater. The new theater will be operated under the name of the Hipp Theater and the boys hope to have everything ready for opening no next Monday night. They will change their film three times a week with an extra feature each week and promise that they have come to stay and to please the people. Their machine and equipment is all new and up-to-date. The Grit-Advocate wish them success in their new enterprise.”
The 2019 article about the Hippodrome said that that house opened in April, 1919, operated by the owner of the Hipp Theatre, who took the old name with him but only used it for one week. The start of remodeling of the Foss Theatre building for use as an apartment house was noted in the April 26, 1917 issue of the paper. As that was two years before The Hipp moved to its new location on Cedar Street, it indicates that the Foss and the Plezol/Hipp were not in the same building. I still haven’t been able to pin down the date of the first move to 102 First Street, but it was probably sometime in 1913, though it must have been after the Sanborn map was published. Neither have I been able to discover what name the original theater operated under before it became the Foss in September, 1910.
Holyoke had a movie house called the Universal Theatre in 1918. It was one of the theaters listed in ads for the official U.S. government war propaganda film “Pershing’s Crusaders” that were run in various trade journals in August and September that year. These are the only mentions of the Universal I’ve found in the trades, and I’ve found no other Holyoke theaters mentioned until the Peerless appears in 1925.
The earliest mention of the Gem I’ve found in the trades is in the June 17, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World, which notes a recent disaster:
“The Gem theater at Yuma Colo was partially destroyed by a cyclone which caused several deaths, injured many and did great property damage. A. B. Conant, proprietor of the house, immediately began work of rebuilding the theater and expects to be operating again in a few days.”
In ads touting the wartime movie “Pershing’s Crusaders” in Moving Picture World in August and September, 1918, the Gem is listed among theaters showing the film.
A fire started by an overhead furnace caused $2,000 damage to the Gem in early 1928, according to the January 17 issue of Film Daily.
Akron, Colorado was mentioned in the January 4, 1913 issue of Moving Picture World, but the name of the theater was not given. However, a Mr. Al C. Stewart might have been the previous owner or manager of this house. He had lately moved to Pendleton, Oregon, and by 1923 would be running the Empire Theatre in Waitsburg, Washington.
The Variety Theatre was mentioned in the December 25, 1925 issue of Exhibitors Herald. Grant L. Beach was the name of the manager at that time. Akron, Colorado was mentioned in the January 4, 1913 issue of Moving Picture World, but the name of the theater was not given.
Pitner of the Dixie Theatre, Ripley, Mississippi was submitting capsule movie reviews to the trade journal Exhibitors Herald at least as early as October, 1923.
Rob’s vintage photo of the Dixie shows it sharing a corner building with a drug store. The current Dixie Theatre (now Stage on Main) at 106 S. Main is not a corner building, so can’t be the place in the vintage photo. I think the original Dixie must have been at a different location and we’ve got the wrong address for it.
My guess would be that it was on Jefferson Street at the southeast corner of Commerce Street, just off the square, where there is some fairly new construction housing an accounting firm. This location would also fit the background scene in the photo uploaded by asimplekindofman in 2011. That looks like Commerce Street along the east side of the square. The drug store must have been at 101 S. Commerce (unless its corner entrance had a Jefferson Street address) and the theater would have been at 103 (again unless the drug store had a Jefferson Street address, in which case the theater was probably 101 S. Commerce.
The earliest mention of the Fox I’ve found in trade journals is in the October 8, 1938 issue of Motion Picture Herald. Charles F. Dearman was the manager. Charles F. Dearman, Jr. was operating the Fox when it was mentioned in the August 22, 1953 issue of Boxoffice, reporting on Dearman’s plans to renovate the house, installing a wide screen and new booth equipment.
Much earlier, Smithville had a house called the Star Theatre, managed by a J. E. Evins, mentioned in the May 6, 1922 Moving Picture World.
The Electric Theatre was one of four movie houses listed at Sterling in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the others being the Opera House, the Princess, and the Sterling.
Back in 1924, the March 1 issue of Moving Picture World mentioned a house in Sterling called the U.S.A. Theatre. I wonder if that might have been an aka for this house?
The October 6, 1934 Motion Picture Herald mentions this house as the Fox Rialto Theatre.
I found a reference in the October, 1922 Hancock County Farm Bureau Bulletin to a Park Theatre at LaHarpe, possibly a later name of this house.
The New Orleans-based trade journal Building Review published an item in its issue of September 30, 1916 saying that the Victoria Hotel next to the Orpheum Theatre on St. Charles Avenue would be demolished beginning October 1 to make way for a moving picture theater to be built for Ernest Boehringer. The theater was being designed and built by the Fromherz & Drennan company (Joseph Fromherz and Albert Drennan.)
This page at New Orleans Historical says the Liberty opened in 1918, operated by Boehringer Amusement Company on behalf of the owners, Saenger Amusement. The page also says the Liberty was last operated by RKO, and closed in 1955.
This brief item from the August 21, 1930 issue ofVariety is one of the few mentions of this house I’ve found in trade journals: “Farewell Week for the Merrill, which goes into the hands of the architects next week.” “The architects” referred to would have been whoever prepared the plans for the conversion of the theater into a Kresge store.
The Palace Theatre was built for V. U. Young’s Young Amusement Company, according to this item from Motion Picture News of January 7, 1928:
The aka Lyric Theatre needs to be added.
The February 4, 1950 issue of Boxoffice reported that T. J. Cramblett had set February 11 as the opening day for his new Village Theatre at Salisbury.
The Village must have been open at least as late as 1957, as a post on a Salisbury nostalgia page at Facebook has locals sharing memories of the theater, and some remember seeing “The Ten Commandments” and the Elvis Presley film “Love Me Tender” at the Village. Both were released in late 1956, and even the Presley film is unlikely to have played here first run, while “Commandments” had a very long exclusive road show run in major cities before being released to small towns. I’m not sure when the first prints went into general release, but it had to have been well into 1957 at the earliest, and the Village might not have been in the first group of theaters to get it. It’s quite possible that it didn’t appear here until 1958.
“The Ten Commandments” was also known for its very slow international road show rollout, and didn’t premier in London until November 28, 1957, after which it played at the Plaza for 36 weeks.
The December, 1911 issue of Motography reported that a movie house to be called the Princess Theatre was under construction at Frankfort, Indiana. The same item noted that a house called the Palace Theatre had recently opened. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists no fewer than seven movie houses in Frankfort, the Princess (but not the Palace) being among them.
A December 21, 2008 article in the Ocala Star-Banner said that the Temple Theatre opened in early 1910 with an operetta. It was showing movies by 1914, when the New Temple Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The Temple is mentioned in the April 15, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World. The operator at that time was a Mr. E. C. Bennett.
The May 2, 1925 Motion Picture News said that E. J. Sparks was in negotiations to acquire the Temple. Ocala was one of the towns at which Sparks had lately acquired theaters, which he had turned over to the Famous Players chain, according the the June 6 issue of the same journal. The June 20 issue of the News reported that Sparks had also acquired the Dixie Theatre at Ocala on behalf of Famous Players.
After closing as a theater, the Temple was long occupied by a church, but it had been vacant for a number of years when, following an unsuccessful campaign by the local Marion Players theater group to save the house, the city had it demolished in 1969.
Plans to remodel the Etta Theatre and reopen it under the name Ritz Theatre were noted in the July 5, 1932 Film Daily.
The recent opening October 1) of the new Dixie Theatre in Ocala was noted in the October 7, 1923 issue of Film Daily. The June 20, 1925 Motion Picture News noted that the Dixie was one of two Ocala houses (the Temple was the other) recently acquired by E. J. Sparks on behalf of Famous Players.
The Marion was originally an E. J. Sparks house, according to this item from the September 26, 1941 Film Daily: “The new Marion Theater, Ocala, Fla., was opened recently with a three minute dedicatory speech by Mayor M. C. Izlar. This house is one of the finest in the Sparks chain and is managed by C. T. Chapin.”
In August and September, 1918, ads in theater trade journals touted the U.S. government’s war propaganda film “Pershing’s Crusaders” and listed theaters that had shown the movie. One of those listed was the Wray.
An article first published in the Julesburg Advocate in 1997 says that the two-story building at 204-206 Main housed the opera house upstairs (the “Hall 2nd” notation on the Sanborn.) This does make me wonder if the current 100 E. First was not the historic 102 E. First. But that would leave the puzzle of the “Foss Theatre” building that was remodeled for apartments in 1917. That building on the corner would have been a very odd shape for a theater, being almost square.
An April 24, 2019 article in the Julesburg Advocate noted the centennial of the Hippodrome Theatre taking place that week. The article also notes the brief use of the name New Hipp Theatre for the new house in 1919:
Incidentally, the Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection provides and extensive assortment of Julesburg’s early newspapers, and many issues have items about the early theaters (I found more using the search terms “picture show” than using the names of the theaters themselves.) Unfortunately, I’ve also found the site’s search feature to be sometimes rather cranky, though otherwise the site is quite well designed and very useful.
The September 1, 1910 issue of the Julesburg Grit-Advocate ran this item:
The December 29, 1910 issue of the paper noted changes of program at the house every night. The Foss was being supplied with movies through the Swanson Film Exchange in Denver.Mr. Foss apparently gave up the theater less than two years later, as this item is found in the May 13, 1912 Dirt-Advocate:
At some point, the theater was moved next door from its original location, as a history of the Hippodrome in the April 24, 2019 Julesburg Advocate gives the address 102 for the Plezol as of February, 1913. Here is an item from the February 6, 1913 issue of the Grit-Advocate:The 2019 article about the Hippodrome said that that house opened in April, 1919, operated by the owner of the Hipp Theatre, who took the old name with him but only used it for one week. The start of remodeling of the Foss Theatre building for use as an apartment house was noted in the April 26, 1917 issue of the paper. As that was two years before The Hipp moved to its new location on Cedar Street, it indicates that the Foss and the Plezol/Hipp were not in the same building. I still haven’t been able to pin down the date of the first move to 102 First Street, but it was probably sometime in 1913, though it must have been after the Sanborn map was published. Neither have I been able to discover what name the original theater operated under before it became the Foss in September, 1910.Holyoke had a movie house called the Universal Theatre in 1918. It was one of the theaters listed in ads for the official U.S. government war propaganda film “Pershing’s Crusaders” that were run in various trade journals in August and September that year. These are the only mentions of the Universal I’ve found in the trades, and I’ve found no other Holyoke theaters mentioned until the Peerless appears in 1925.
The earliest mention of the Gem I’ve found in the trades is in the June 17, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World, which notes a recent disaster:
In ads touting the wartime movie “Pershing’s Crusaders” in Moving Picture World in August and September, 1918, the Gem is listed among theaters showing the film.A fire started by an overhead furnace caused $2,000 damage to the Gem in early 1928, according to the January 17 issue of Film Daily.
Akron, Colorado was mentioned in the January 4, 1913 issue of Moving Picture World, but the name of the theater was not given. However, a Mr. Al C. Stewart might have been the previous owner or manager of this house. He had lately moved to Pendleton, Oregon, and by 1923 would be running the Empire Theatre in Waitsburg, Washington.
The Variety Theatre was mentioned in the December 25, 1925 issue of Exhibitors Herald. Grant L. Beach was the name of the manager at that time. Akron, Colorado was mentioned in the January 4, 1913 issue of Moving Picture World, but the name of the theater was not given.
Rob’s vintage photo of the Dixie shows it sharing a corner building with a drug store. The current Dixie Theatre (now Stage on Main) at 106 S. Main is not a corner building, so can’t be the place in the vintage photo. I think the original Dixie must have been at a different location and we’ve got the wrong address for it.
My guess would be that it was on Jefferson Street at the southeast corner of Commerce Street, just off the square, where there is some fairly new construction housing an accounting firm. This location would also fit the background scene in the photo uploaded by asimplekindofman in 2011. That looks like Commerce Street along the east side of the square. The drug store must have been at 101 S. Commerce (unless its corner entrance had a Jefferson Street address) and the theater would have been at 103 (again unless the drug store had a Jefferson Street address, in which case the theater was probably 101 S. Commerce.