This place was /not/ the Hronek Opera House, the only theater listed at Pocahontas in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but it was just up the block. The Opera House, built in 1901 and seating 400, was upstairs in the building at the northwest corner of Main Street and 2nd Avenue NW. The entrance appears to have been near the back of the building on the 2nd Avenue side. I’ve not been able to find a name for this smaller rival at 211 Main. The earliest mention of Pocahontas I’ve found in the trade journals is from October, 1923, and it was about the first Rialto.
The earliest mention of the Rialto I’ve been able to find in the trade journals is from the October 6, 1923 issue of Exhibitors Herald. This was the first of more than a dozen capsule movie reviews submitted to that volume of the magazine by Rialto managers Pace & Bouma. Jack Bouma was around long enough to open the new Rialto in 1939, but I have no idea what became of Pace. Perhaps the Bouma was just too much for him.
Three movie houses, the Gem, the Grand, and the Lyric, are listed at Lake City in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. I’ve been unable to find Lake City mentioned in the movie theater trade journals before 1921, but two Lake City theaters are listed by name and manager (but not address) in Polk’s 1916-1917 Iowa Gazetteer. The Grand is one of them, and the other was called the Isis.
I’m not sure when itinerant movie exhibitors began touring Iowa, but in California they started as early as 1896. After the Orpheum circuit’s exhibition of films at the former Grand Opera House in Los Angeles that year, the whole show went on tour through the hinterlands of Southern California before settling into a semi-permanent home in the back room of Thomas Tally’s Edison Phonograph and Vitascope Parlors on Spring Street.
Carroll might have gotten a few such visits from movie exhibitors before 1907, but notifications in theatrical trade journals indicate that the Opera House was thriving with live performances into the early 1910s and was still advertising for them as late as 1921. Even its tenure as a movie house in the mid-1910s was probably only seasonal, though by that time they might have installed a permanent projection booth and probably had their own movie screen.
The March 8, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World reported that: “Mr. and Mrs. Ben Peters have leased their houses in Bunceton and Tipton. Mo., to O. L. Dowell, who has houses in Versailles and Eldon, Mo.” On March 22, the same journal noted that “W. C. Sears of Booneville. Mo., has purchased the theatres of Mrs. Brent Peters in Tipton and Bunceton, Mo.” The Tipton and Bunceton houses were both called the Princess.
The March 8, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World reported that: “Mr. and Mrs. Ben Peters have leased their houses in Bunceton and Tipton. Mo., to O. L. Dowell, who has houses in Versailles and Eldon, Mo.” On March 22, the same journal noted that “W. C. Sears of Booneville. Mo., has purchased the theatres of Mrs. Brent Peters in Tipton and Bunceton, Mo.” The Tipton and Bunceton houses were both called the Princess.
Although no theaters are listed at Bunceton in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the “triumphal arch” style front of the Princess is characteristic of theater design in the late 1900s-early 1910s, and was probably ordered from one of the companies that made precast theater fronts during that period. I’d be very surprised if the Princess was built as late as the 1920s. I’d hazard a guess that it dated from before the U.S. entered WWI, at which time the foundries casting metal building fronts shifted to the production of war materiel.
Despite having been closed for much of the 1930s, it did open for at least one period during the middle of that decade, as noted in this item from the October 5, 1936 Motion Picture Daily: “Kansas City, Oct. 4.—J. J. Kametz has purchased the Princess at Bunceton, Mo., from C. A. Woolridge, who opened the theatre about six months ago. Kametz planned to open a house at Burlingame, Kan., several weeks ago, but the deal failed.”
The Bijou name is confirmed by this item from The Billboard of July 18, 1908: “Carroll- -Bijou, 320 North Main St.; Kreider & Rumford, mgrs.; S. C. 150; shows 3.” 320 was the theater’s address on the Sanborn map, and the building had clearly not yet been expanded to accommodate the later seating capacity of 300 in 1908. The item was in the Iowa section of the magazine’s “Nickelodeons” column.
The only other known name associated with Carroll that this house could have had is the Gem, but the only mention of that name I’ve found is the one in the AMPD, while we know that Star was still in use as late as 1916. I suspect the Gem was a short-lived storefront nickelodeon, or perhaps a briefly used aka for the Royal.
I cane across an item in a 1907 issue of The Billboard about a moving picture film bursting into flames at the end of a show in the Carroll Opera House. The building apparently suffered no serious damage, and the audience evacuated safely, but it cost the owner of the projector and films $150.00.
As this house was still in operation in 1923 it is most likely the one that was called the Irving Theatre in 1921 and the Strand Theatre by 1926, when it was under the same management as the Royal. The Strand was listed in the 1926 and 1927 FDYs but gone in 1929. I don’t have access to the 1928 FDY, but the Strand might have closed when the Earle Theatre opened in 1927.
A September 19, 2009 comment by kencmcintyre on the Carroll Theatre page quotes a March, 1973 article from the local newspaper that includes the line “[t]he first film house was the Bijou, opened in 1910 and located in the building now housing the G-Store on North Main Street.”
The G-store, whatever it was, appears to no longer exist, and I’ve been unable to find its then-address, but as the 523 N. Main house appears on the 1909 Sanborn there’s a good chance it was the town’s first, and the 1973 article just got the opening year wrong. By 1915 it was apparently no longer called the Bijou, as the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only three houses at Carroll: the Carroll Opera House, on 5th Street, the Gem Theatre, and the Star Theater, on Main Street.
Oddly, there is no listing of the Royal, which a comment on our State Theatre page says had opened by 1913. Be that as it may, both the Royal and the Star are mentioned in issues of Moving Picture World in February and March, 1916, so they were not the same house. I’ve found no mentions of the Gem other than the AMPD, so by process of elimination it seems most likely that the house at 523 N. Main opened as the Bijou in 1909 and later became the Star.
Not only is the address wrong, but this theater was not a twin. Carroll’s urban renewal project was already under way when Fridley bought this single-screener in 1970, and Fridley would not have wasted money twinning a theater they knew they would have to replace in a few years.
Here is a photo at Flickr. A comment by a local says the building was built as “…a German opera house….” on the site of the current post office and later moved to this lot, after which a new façade was built for it. It looks plastered to me, but I suppose it could be painted metal. The building is now shared by the Masonic lodge and a martial arts studio.
An item in the May 31, 1913 issue of The Billboard says that “W. A. Coates & Son, Whiting, Iowa, will open a moving picture theater In Everham Block, Glenwood, Iowa.” I haven’t been able to track down an Everham Block in Glenwood, so I don’t know if it could be this theater or not. What is certain is that the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists two theaters at Glenwood: the Motiograph Theatre and the Glenwood Opera House. The latter must be a missing aka for the Rex, and the former could be the Coates’s house.
But there is an ad from the Mills County Tribune of October 28, 1915 promoting a special feature at the Rex Theatre in Glenwood, and sporting a line at the bottom reading “Regular program at the Scenic…..5c and 10c.”
The 1905 Polk guide to Iowa lists the Glenwood Opera House, and the theater is still listed that way in the 1914-1915 Gus Hill Guide, but it is listed as the Rex Theatre in the Cahn Guide at least as early as the 1912-1913 edition.
I’ve re-read the NRHP registration form for the IOOF Opera House/Onawa Theater, and it mentions a connection with the Majestic in October, 1912. The two houses were coordinating their schedules so people could attend both of them. The form’s first mention of the Royal is in the period from 1907-1909. It notes that Onawa’s first regular movie house, the Scenic, opened on Iowa Avenue in late 1907, and the Royal opened later.
The Royal is mentioned again in 1917, when by August, it was under the same management as the Opera house. As there is no evidence that the Royal and Majestic operated at the same time, it’s possible that they were the same theater under different names, though so far there’s no evidence of that either. But if there is only one movie theater on the 1913 Sanborn, that could be a hint that the Royal and Majestic were the same house.
An issue of Moving Picture World from between March and April, 1926 (I can’t be more specific right now because Internet Archive has been unavailable for much of the last couple of weeks, so all I’ve seen is a snippet from Google search results) has this line: “…Whiting, Opera House (250 seats), Whiting, Iowa, PARISIAN NIGHTS.” I suspect this line is from a capsule review of the 1925 Boris Karloff movie of that name.
The only theater listed at Whiting in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory is a house called the Cube Theatre, which I’ve been unable to find mentioned anywhere else on the Internet. No details are given for it.
124 East Broadway is given as the address of a house called the Majestic Theatre, listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. It was the only theater listed at Denison.
In 1884, eight years before designing the Carson Block with its upper floor Ingomar Theatre, architects Samuel and Joseph Cather Newsom designed Eureka’s most iconic building, the ornate and towering Carson mansion, for the same client. Since 1950, the mansion has been the home of the Ingomar Club, a private men’s club named for the theater which, in turn, was named for William Carson’s favorite play, “Ingomar, the Barbarian.”
The 1952 version of the Golden Bough Playhouse was designed by local architect James B. Pruitt. Since being taken over by the Pacific Repertory Theatre group in 1994, the building has undergone two major periods of renovations, from 2008-2011 and from 2021-2024, which have significantly altered the original configuration of the house.
The March 30, 1925 issue of the Bristol, Tennessee Evening Herald Courier had an article about the opening of the Cameo Theatre which attributed the design of the house to the noted Richmond, Virginia theater architect Claude K. Howell. After several major remodeling projects over the decades it’s unlikely that any of Mr. Howell’s original details remain.
A page about Claude K. Howell at the Architects of Richmond web site attributes the design of the Lyric to him. The Keith circuit was sufficiently pleased with his work to hire him to design additional theaters for them throughout the south.
The October 10, 1926 issue of The Dixie Manufacturer featured a photo of the Ritz. The house had been designed by Atlanta Architect C. K. Howell. Prior to opening an office in Atlanta, Claude Howell had practiced in Richmond, Virginia for more than a decade, designing at least four theaters in that city.
Bhamwiki’s Frolic Theatre page says the the house had operated in the 1910s as the Dixie Theatre. The Dixie was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, so it most likely opened in the latter half of the decade. A contract between the African-American production company Norman Studios and the New Dixie Theatre in Bessemer for films to be run in September, 1920 does exist. A contract between the same studio and the Frolic Theatre dated 1923 also exists. The NRHP registration form for the Downtown Bessemer Historic District says the building was razed in 1959.
Bhamwiki says that the Grand Theatre closed after 1957, and features a photo with the 1956 release “Lust for Life” on the marquee. For some reason the Grand was not listed in the 1954 Bessemer telephone directory, though its smaller sister theater down the street, the State, was.
This place was /not/ the Hronek Opera House, the only theater listed at Pocahontas in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but it was just up the block. The Opera House, built in 1901 and seating 400, was upstairs in the building at the northwest corner of Main Street and 2nd Avenue NW. The entrance appears to have been near the back of the building on the 2nd Avenue side. I’ve not been able to find a name for this smaller rival at 211 Main. The earliest mention of Pocahontas I’ve found in the trade journals is from October, 1923, and it was about the first Rialto.
The earliest mention of the Rialto I’ve been able to find in the trade journals is from the October 6, 1923 issue of Exhibitors Herald. This was the first of more than a dozen capsule movie reviews submitted to that volume of the magazine by Rialto managers Pace & Bouma. Jack Bouma was around long enough to open the new Rialto in 1939, but I have no idea what became of Pace. Perhaps the Bouma was just too much for him.
Three movie houses, the Gem, the Grand, and the Lyric, are listed at Lake City in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. I’ve been unable to find Lake City mentioned in the movie theater trade journals before 1921, but two Lake City theaters are listed by name and manager (but not address) in Polk’s 1916-1917 Iowa Gazetteer. The Grand is one of them, and the other was called the Isis.
I’m not sure when itinerant movie exhibitors began touring Iowa, but in California they started as early as 1896. After the Orpheum circuit’s exhibition of films at the former Grand Opera House in Los Angeles that year, the whole show went on tour through the hinterlands of Southern California before settling into a semi-permanent home in the back room of Thomas Tally’s Edison Phonograph and Vitascope Parlors on Spring Street.
Carroll might have gotten a few such visits from movie exhibitors before 1907, but notifications in theatrical trade journals indicate that the Opera House was thriving with live performances into the early 1910s and was still advertising for them as late as 1921. Even its tenure as a movie house in the mid-1910s was probably only seasonal, though by that time they might have installed a permanent projection booth and probably had their own movie screen.
The March 8, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World reported that: “Mr. and Mrs. Ben Peters have leased their houses in Bunceton and Tipton. Mo., to O. L. Dowell, who has houses in Versailles and Eldon, Mo.” On March 22, the same journal noted that “W. C. Sears of Booneville. Mo., has purchased the theatres of Mrs. Brent Peters in Tipton and Bunceton, Mo.” The Tipton and Bunceton houses were both called the Princess.
The March 8, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World reported that: “Mr. and Mrs. Ben Peters have leased their houses in Bunceton and Tipton. Mo., to O. L. Dowell, who has houses in Versailles and Eldon, Mo.” On March 22, the same journal noted that “W. C. Sears of Booneville. Mo., has purchased the theatres of Mrs. Brent Peters in Tipton and Bunceton, Mo.” The Tipton and Bunceton houses were both called the Princess.
Although no theaters are listed at Bunceton in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the “triumphal arch” style front of the Princess is characteristic of theater design in the late 1900s-early 1910s, and was probably ordered from one of the companies that made precast theater fronts during that period. I’d be very surprised if the Princess was built as late as the 1920s. I’d hazard a guess that it dated from before the U.S. entered WWI, at which time the foundries casting metal building fronts shifted to the production of war materiel.
Despite having been closed for much of the 1930s, it did open for at least one period during the middle of that decade, as noted in this item from the October 5, 1936 Motion Picture Daily: “Kansas City, Oct. 4.—J. J. Kametz has purchased the Princess at Bunceton, Mo., from C. A. Woolridge, who opened the theatre about six months ago. Kametz planned to open a house at Burlingame, Kan., several weeks ago, but the deal failed.”
The Bijou name is confirmed by this item from The Billboard of July 18, 1908: “Carroll- -Bijou, 320 North Main St.; Kreider & Rumford, mgrs.; S. C. 150; shows 3.” 320 was the theater’s address on the Sanborn map, and the building had clearly not yet been expanded to accommodate the later seating capacity of 300 in 1908. The item was in the Iowa section of the magazine’s “Nickelodeons” column.
The only other known name associated with Carroll that this house could have had is the Gem, but the only mention of that name I’ve found is the one in the AMPD, while we know that Star was still in use as late as 1916. I suspect the Gem was a short-lived storefront nickelodeon, or perhaps a briefly used aka for the Royal.
I cane across an item in a 1907 issue of The Billboard about a moving picture film bursting into flames at the end of a show in the Carroll Opera House. The building apparently suffered no serious damage, and the audience evacuated safely, but it cost the owner of the projector and films $150.00.
As this house was still in operation in 1923 it is most likely the one that was called the Irving Theatre in 1921 and the Strand Theatre by 1926, when it was under the same management as the Royal. The Strand was listed in the 1926 and 1927 FDYs but gone in 1929. I don’t have access to the 1928 FDY, but the Strand might have closed when the Earle Theatre opened in 1927.
A September 19, 2009 comment by kencmcintyre on the Carroll Theatre page quotes a March, 1973 article from the local newspaper that includes the line “[t]he first film house was the Bijou, opened in 1910 and located in the building now housing the G-Store on North Main Street.”
The G-store, whatever it was, appears to no longer exist, and I’ve been unable to find its then-address, but as the 523 N. Main house appears on the 1909 Sanborn there’s a good chance it was the town’s first, and the 1973 article just got the opening year wrong. By 1915 it was apparently no longer called the Bijou, as the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only three houses at Carroll: the Carroll Opera House, on 5th Street, the Gem Theatre, and the Star Theater, on Main Street.
Oddly, there is no listing of the Royal, which a comment on our State Theatre page says had opened by 1913. Be that as it may, both the Royal and the Star are mentioned in issues of Moving Picture World in February and March, 1916, so they were not the same house. I’ve found no mentions of the Gem other than the AMPD, so by process of elimination it seems most likely that the house at 523 N. Main opened as the Bijou in 1909 and later became the Star.
Not only is the address wrong, but this theater was not a twin. Carroll’s urban renewal project was already under way when Fridley bought this single-screener in 1970, and Fridley would not have wasted money twinning a theater they knew they would have to replace in a few years.
Here is a photo at Flickr. A comment by a local says the building was built as “…a German opera house….” on the site of the current post office and later moved to this lot, after which a new façade was built for it. It looks plastered to me, but I suppose it could be painted metal. The building is now shared by the Masonic lodge and a martial arts studio.
An item in the May 31, 1913 issue of The Billboard says that “W. A. Coates & Son, Whiting, Iowa, will open a moving picture theater In Everham Block, Glenwood, Iowa.” I haven’t been able to track down an Everham Block in Glenwood, so I don’t know if it could be this theater or not. What is certain is that the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists two theaters at Glenwood: the Motiograph Theatre and the Glenwood Opera House. The latter must be a missing aka for the Rex, and the former could be the Coates’s house.
But there is an ad from the Mills County Tribune of October 28, 1915 promoting a special feature at the Rex Theatre in Glenwood, and sporting a line at the bottom reading “Regular program at the Scenic…..5c and 10c.”
The 1905 Polk guide to Iowa lists the Glenwood Opera House, and the theater is still listed that way in the 1914-1915 Gus Hill Guide, but it is listed as the Rex Theatre in the Cahn Guide at least as early as the 1912-1913 edition.
I’ve re-read the NRHP registration form for the IOOF Opera House/Onawa Theater, and it mentions a connection with the Majestic in October, 1912. The two houses were coordinating their schedules so people could attend both of them. The form’s first mention of the Royal is in the period from 1907-1909. It notes that Onawa’s first regular movie house, the Scenic, opened on Iowa Avenue in late 1907, and the Royal opened later.
The Royal is mentioned again in 1917, when by August, it was under the same management as the Opera house. As there is no evidence that the Royal and Majestic operated at the same time, it’s possible that they were the same theater under different names, though so far there’s no evidence of that either. But if there is only one movie theater on the 1913 Sanborn, that could be a hint that the Royal and Majestic were the same house.
An issue of Moving Picture World from between March and April, 1926 (I can’t be more specific right now because Internet Archive has been unavailable for much of the last couple of weeks, so all I’ve seen is a snippet from Google search results) has this line: “…Whiting, Opera House (250 seats), Whiting, Iowa, PARISIAN NIGHTS.” I suspect this line is from a capsule review of the 1925 Boris Karloff movie of that name.
The only theater listed at Whiting in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory is a house called the Cube Theatre, which I’ve been unable to find mentioned anywhere else on the Internet. No details are given for it.
The Majestic, on Iowa Avenue, was the only theater listed at Onawa in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
124 East Broadway is given as the address of a house called the Majestic Theatre, listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. It was the only theater listed at Denison.
In 1884, eight years before designing the Carson Block with its upper floor Ingomar Theatre, architects Samuel and Joseph Cather Newsom designed Eureka’s most iconic building, the ornate and towering Carson mansion, for the same client. Since 1950, the mansion has been the home of the Ingomar Club, a private men’s club named for the theater which, in turn, was named for William Carson’s favorite play, “Ingomar, the Barbarian.”
The 1952 version of the Golden Bough Playhouse was designed by local architect James B. Pruitt. Since being taken over by the Pacific Repertory Theatre group in 1994, the building has undergone two major periods of renovations, from 2008-2011 and from 2021-2024, which have significantly altered the original configuration of the house.
The current occupant of the Rialto’s space at 1024 Noble Street and the adjacent storefront at 1022 is a restaurant called Classic On Noble.
The March 30, 1925 issue of the Bristol, Tennessee Evening Herald Courier had an article about the opening of the Cameo Theatre which attributed the design of the house to the noted Richmond, Virginia theater architect Claude K. Howell. After several major remodeling projects over the decades it’s unlikely that any of Mr. Howell’s original details remain.
A page about Claude K. Howell at the Architects of Richmond web site attributes the design of the Lyric to him. The Keith circuit was sufficiently pleased with his work to hire him to design additional theaters for them throughout the south.
The October 10, 1926 issue of The Dixie Manufacturer featured a photo of the Ritz. The house had been designed by Atlanta Architect C. K. Howell. Prior to opening an office in Atlanta, Claude Howell had practiced in Richmond, Virginia for more than a decade, designing at least four theaters in that city.
Bhamwiki’s Frolic Theatre page says the the house had operated in the 1910s as the Dixie Theatre. The Dixie was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, so it most likely opened in the latter half of the decade. A contract between the African-American production company Norman Studios and the New Dixie Theatre in Bessemer for films to be run in September, 1920 does exist. A contract between the same studio and the Frolic Theatre dated 1923 also exists. The NRHP registration form for the Downtown Bessemer Historic District says the building was razed in 1959.
Bhamwiki says that the Grand Theatre closed after 1957, and features a photo with the 1956 release “Lust for Life” on the marquee. For some reason the Grand was not listed in the 1954 Bessemer telephone directory, though its smaller sister theater down the street, the State, was.