Old Photos (see second photo on this page) show the Orpheum across the street from a rusticated stone building with the name “Long’s Hall” painted on the side. One web site (photos about halfway down this web page) mentions a dime store in that building having the address 247 E. State Street, so the Orpheum was probably at about 244, 246, or 248 E. State.
Also, this web page features Hammond author Jean Shepherd’s nostalgic article about the Orpheum Theatre, “Leopold Doppler And The Orpheum Gravy Boat Riot.”
Several vintage photos of the Orpheum are displayed on this web page.
Here is a pdf file of a 2002 newsletter from the Hammond Historical Society, featuring a brief article about the Orpheum. It gives the opening year as 1912, and says that the theater was designed by a local architectural firm with the unlikely name of Bump & Berry. Prior to the installation of the Kimball organ in 1922, the Orpheum sported a $10,000 Wurlitzer Hope-Jones instrument.
The Orpheum operated for only forty years before closing. The building was demolished in 1952, according to this web page about downtown Hammond architecture.
This web page features several photos of the Paramount Theatre in Hammond and, for some reason, one photo of the Oakland, California, Paramount.
A legal case in the late 1980s revealed that the 99-year lease on the land the Paramount Theatre occupied began in 1929, so construction of the theater most likely also began that year.
Several vintage photos of the Parthenon Theatre can be seen on this web page. The text on the page is mostly quoted from Cinema Treasures, so there’s no new information available.
This web page has several photos of the State Theatre both before and after the bombing. Most of the text is quoted from Cinema Treasures and thus offers no new information, but there are scans of a couple of newspaper items about the bombing.
The September 16, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the new Capitol Theatre in Macon was scheduled to open on October 2. They missed the deadline, though, as the theater’s official web site says that it opened on November 10. Here’s the complete item from MPW:
“Macon, Ga.—R. H. DeBruler, formerly of Atlanta, will be manager of the Capitol, the new moving picture house at Macon, Ga., which is under construction, and will throw its doors open to the public on October 2.
“The house is owned by Troup Howard, R. C. Hazelhurst and Brown Wimberly, of Macon. When completed it will have cost about $60,000. It will seat 1,000 people and will have main floor and a balcony, and boxes on the side, with an orchestra of five. Only first run pictures will be shown.”
Thanks for fixing my mistake in updating Street View. So far, this is the only one I’ve updated to the wrong location, but it was still a dumb move.
I found a second mention of the Superba Theatre in The Moving Picture World, this from the issue of September 19, 1908:
“Augusta, Ga.-The Superba, which has been closed all Summer, will reopen on October 1st and the Airdome will close. Mr. Bandy is satisfied with the conditions and prospects.”
I’ve found a couple of references to Frank and Hubert Bandy, as operators of the Liberty Theatre in Savannah and the Lyric Theatre in Macon. Presumably the Mr. Bandy operating the Superba was one or the other of them.
Google Maps is placing this theater on West Walnut Street instead of East Walnut, even though the address listed above is correct. I’ve seen a couple of other pages where Google misplaces its pin icon by a considerable distance, despite the correct addresses being listed.
This map in the book “Entertainment in Augusta” locates the Star at 723 Broad Street, and shows a house called the Little Grand Theatre at 857 Broad Street.
The building at 723 Broad today (next door to the west of the News Building) looks fairly old (probably from the 1920s,) but doesn’t look like it was ever a theater, the entrance being too narrow. The building that probably includes the address 857 Broad (it must belong to one of the four storefronts in the building) does look as though it could have been a theater. Possibly the Star began operating at 723, and moved to 857 when its original building was replaced by the one that’s there now?
I can’t find the Little Grand Theatre mentioned anywhere other than the book, and there it’s only listed on the map, not mentioned in the text.
According to “Entertainment in Augusta,” the address of the Dreamland Theatre was 879 Broad Street. That address is currently listed on the Internet as the location of Wheels Corner Pub, a bicycle-themed bar. There’s a mural featuring bicycles on the 9th Street side of the building.
I think I just updated Street View for this theater to the wrong location. I was going by this street diagram in the book “Entertainment in Augusta,” and it looked like the Dreamland had been on the southwest corner of 9th and Broad. I’ve now realized that the diagram is inverted from the usual map position, so it has north at the bottom instead of the top. That means the Dreamland was actually on the northeast corner of 9th and Broad.
Kenneth Britten’s book, “Beaver Falls: Gem of Beaver County,” has several paragraphs about the Regent Theatre, which the author attended as a boy. There’s also a 1968 photo of the house, at the time it reopened as the Cinema (the Regent had closed as a movie house in 1957, but had reopened in 1963 for a run as a live theater.)
The book gives the date of the fire that gutted the building as March 2, 1980, so the 1985 photo at American Classic Images was taken some five years after the theater had closed for the last time.
With regard to my previous comment, the caption of the photo in the book I linked to (“Beaver Falls: Gem of Beaver County,” by Kenneth Britten,) has an error in it. It says that the Savoy was renamed the Rialto in 1928 and demolished in 1930, when in fact it was the Lyceum which was renamed the Rialto, and it was the Savoy that was demolished in 1930 (or later in that decade, according to this web page with an article written by Carole Williamson in the 1950s.)
For some reason, the address 500 Seventh Avenue is mis-located by Google Maps. The pin shows up in Patterson Heights, which looks to be about a mile southwest of the correct location. If you use the street number 502 it goes to the right location in Beaver Falls.
502 was the more likely address of the theater in any case, as old photos show that there were storefronts either side of the theater entrance, and the storefront on the corner location would have gotten the address of 500.
This book has a photo of the Lyceum and its neighboring theater, the Savoy, which was demolished in the 1930s, but on the site of which the State Theatre was built in 1940.
The address currently listed on this page is wrong then. The caption of the photo of the Opera House on this web page says that it was located on the north side of Second Street between Boston Avenue and Cincinnati Avenue. That’s the 100 E. block, so 115 E. Second would be the correct address, the entrance having been in the middle of the facade.
A book called “Beaver Falls: Gem of Beaver County,” by Kenneth Britten, says that the Granada was not new construction, but an extensive remodeling of the older New Colonial Theatre. This book is published by the Arcadia Publishing Company, and the author is (or has been) a member of the Beaver Falls Historical Society (Google Books preview.)
It says that the Colonial Theater was built in 1911, that it originally seated 300, and was renamed the New Colonial after being briefly closed in 1917. It was taken over by a Pittsburgh showman named only as S. Goodman in 1928, and subsequently remodeled and renamed.
I’ve been unable to find an S. Goodman mentioned in any of the trade publications from the period, such as The Moving Picture World. However, a snippet view of a 1929 issue of the trade publication The Lather mentions that architect Michael J. DeAngelis was designing a $500,000 theater project for Archie Fineman in Beaver Falls.
It does seem possible that at least parts of the 1911 Colonial Theatre building were incorporated into the Granada (the lower parts of the side walls, for example, might have dated from 1911,) but if Fineman did spend $500,000 on the project, the interior must have been quite opulent. The cost was well above the average for theaters of that size built at that time.
The street view has been “updated” a bit too far north. The theater was still standing when the aerial view they use for bird’s-eye view at Bing Maps was taken, and it looks like its north wall was on a line just about between the street lamp and the utility pole you can see if you pivot street view to the right. The south wall was probably about where the middle of the new building with the gabled entrance is located.
The Street View was “updated” too far from the theater’s entrance. Left click on the photo, then click the street arrow to move one or two turns up the block, then click the right arrow in the compass rose at upper left to pivot to a more direct view of the theater front. You can also left click on the photo and hold the button down, then move your mouse to pivot the view to either side, or up or down.
It’s possible to get decent views of most theaters, but a lot of pages have been updated with inferior views, and in some cases with no view of the theater at all. Many CT users who have updated the views seem to be unaware of the finer points of Street View’s workings (not surprising, since those workings aren’t explained anywhere on the page, and not everybody is familiar with the application.)
Given its 1910 opening, it seems likely that the New Strand is the opera house mentioned in various 1910 issues of The American Contractor. The item in the May 28 issue says:
“Opera House: 43x102. $12,000. West Liberty, Ia. Architects Dieman & Fiske, Cedar Rapids. Owner West Liberty Opera House Co., George Ganse, sec'y, West Liberty. Owner is taking bids. Brick, composition roof, oak finish, maple floors, gas & electric fixtures, lavatories, water closets.”
Architects Charles Dieman and Ferdinand Fiske maintained offices in both Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Lincoln, Nebraska, and their firm was among the busiest in the region during their late 19th and early 20th century partnership.
I’m wondering if an item in the Daily Bulletin of the Manufacturer’s Record for March 12, 1907, could be about the theater on the Palace’s site that was destroyed by an explosion in 1947? It says:
“Seguin, Texas—Theater.—E. Nolte & Sons are having plans prepared by J. C. Ayers of San Antonio, Texas, for a modern theater 60x125 feet: cost $14,000.”
The Palace looks to be about that size.
I considered the possibility that the 1907 project was the Kempenstein Opera House, which, according to advertisements reproduced in this book, opened in 1908, but the web site of the Seguin Heritage Museum says that the opera house was upstairs in a building built in 1898.
Still, the Kempenstein Theatre is the only theater listed for Seguin in the 1909-1910 edition of Julius Cahn’s Theatrical Guide, so perhaps the 1907 project was never carried out. But then maybe Julius Cahn was simply never notified of its existence by the mystery theater’s operators. Does anyone have any clues?
As Edwards Street no longer exists, Google Maps is incapable of finding the location. The nearest you can get to an address for this theater on a vanished lot is Broadway Street at Park Avenue. If you look east along Broadway from Park, you’re looking directly across the spot where the Marlow stood. The west side wall of its stage house would have crossed Broadway just a few feet south of the current intersection. This web page (the same one ken mc linked to earlier) has a map showing its location. The section on the Marlow begins below two pictures of the Antlers Theatre.
Old Photos (see second photo on this page) show the Orpheum across the street from a rusticated stone building with the name “Long’s Hall” painted on the side. One web site (photos about halfway down this web page) mentions a dime store in that building having the address 247 E. State Street, so the Orpheum was probably at about 244, 246, or 248 E. State.
Correction: This 1952 newspaper article says that the Orpheum opened on Christmas Day, 1911.
Also, this web page features Hammond author Jean Shepherd’s nostalgic article about the Orpheum Theatre, “Leopold Doppler And The Orpheum Gravy Boat Riot.”
Several vintage photos of the Orpheum are displayed on this web page.
Here is a pdf file of a 2002 newsletter from the Hammond Historical Society, featuring a brief article about the Orpheum. It gives the opening year as 1912, and says that the theater was designed by a local architectural firm with the unlikely name of Bump & Berry. Prior to the installation of the Kimball organ in 1922, the Orpheum sported a $10,000 Wurlitzer Hope-Jones instrument.
The Orpheum operated for only forty years before closing. The building was demolished in 1952, according to this web page about downtown Hammond architecture.
This web page features several photos of the Paramount Theatre in Hammond and, for some reason, one photo of the Oakland, California, Paramount.
A legal case in the late 1980s revealed that the 99-year lease on the land the Paramount Theatre occupied began in 1929, so construction of the theater most likely also began that year.
Several vintage photos of the Parthenon Theatre can be seen on this web page. The text on the page is mostly quoted from Cinema Treasures, so there’s no new information available.
This web page has several photos of the State Theatre both before and after the bombing. Most of the text is quoted from Cinema Treasures and thus offers no new information, but there are scans of a couple of newspaper items about the bombing.
The September 16, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the new Capitol Theatre in Macon was scheduled to open on October 2. They missed the deadline, though, as the theater’s official web site says that it opened on November 10. Here’s the complete item from MPW:
Thanks for fixing my mistake in updating Street View. So far, this is the only one I’ve updated to the wrong location, but it was still a dumb move.
I found a second mention of the Superba Theatre in The Moving Picture World, this from the issue of September 19, 1908:
I’ve found a couple of references to Frank and Hubert Bandy, as operators of the Liberty Theatre in Savannah and the Lyric Theatre in Macon. Presumably the Mr. Bandy operating the Superba was one or the other of them.Kewpie’s links worked for me. Here they are embedded in glorious HTML:
Opera House photo from 1971.
Opera House photo from 1906.
And here is the 1920 Tulsa City Directory (you’ll have to click the “pages 40 & 41” link in the frame on the left.)
Google Maps is placing this theater on West Walnut Street instead of East Walnut, even though the address listed above is correct. I’ve seen a couple of other pages where Google misplaces its pin icon by a considerable distance, despite the correct addresses being listed.
This map in the book “Entertainment in Augusta” locates the Star at 723 Broad Street, and shows a house called the Little Grand Theatre at 857 Broad Street.
The building at 723 Broad today (next door to the west of the News Building) looks fairly old (probably from the 1920s,) but doesn’t look like it was ever a theater, the entrance being too narrow. The building that probably includes the address 857 Broad (it must belong to one of the four storefronts in the building) does look as though it could have been a theater. Possibly the Star began operating at 723, and moved to 857 when its original building was replaced by the one that’s there now?
I can’t find the Little Grand Theatre mentioned anywhere other than the book, and there it’s only listed on the map, not mentioned in the text.
According to “Entertainment in Augusta,” the address of the Dreamland Theatre was 879 Broad Street. That address is currently listed on the Internet as the location of Wheels Corner Pub, a bicycle-themed bar. There’s a mural featuring bicycles on the 9th Street side of the building.
I think I just updated Street View for this theater to the wrong location. I was going by this street diagram in the book “Entertainment in Augusta,” and it looked like the Dreamland had been on the southwest corner of 9th and Broad. I’ve now realized that the diagram is inverted from the usual map position, so it has north at the bottom instead of the top. That means the Dreamland was actually on the northeast corner of 9th and Broad.
Kenneth Britten’s book, “Beaver Falls: Gem of Beaver County,” has several paragraphs about the Regent Theatre, which the author attended as a boy. There’s also a 1968 photo of the house, at the time it reopened as the Cinema (the Regent had closed as a movie house in 1957, but had reopened in 1963 for a run as a live theater.)
The book gives the date of the fire that gutted the building as March 2, 1980, so the 1985 photo at American Classic Images was taken some five years after the theater had closed for the last time.
Here is an updated link to the article by Helen Kent about the Comerford Theatre, in Boxoffice of August 19, 1939.
With regard to my previous comment, the caption of the photo in the book I linked to (“Beaver Falls: Gem of Beaver County,” by Kenneth Britten,) has an error in it. It says that the Savoy was renamed the Rialto in 1928 and demolished in 1930, when in fact it was the Lyceum which was renamed the Rialto, and it was the Savoy that was demolished in 1930 (or later in that decade, according to this web page with an article written by Carole Williamson in the 1950s.)
For some reason, the address 500 Seventh Avenue is mis-located by Google Maps. The pin shows up in Patterson Heights, which looks to be about a mile southwest of the correct location. If you use the street number 502 it goes to the right location in Beaver Falls.
502 was the more likely address of the theater in any case, as old photos show that there were storefronts either side of the theater entrance, and the storefront on the corner location would have gotten the address of 500.
This book has a photo of the Lyceum and its neighboring theater, the Savoy, which was demolished in the 1930s, but on the site of which the State Theatre was built in 1940.
The address currently listed on this page is wrong then. The caption of the photo of the Opera House on this web page says that it was located on the north side of Second Street between Boston Avenue and Cincinnati Avenue. That’s the 100 E. block, so 115 E. Second would be the correct address, the entrance having been in the middle of the facade.
A book called “Beaver Falls: Gem of Beaver County,” by Kenneth Britten, says that the Granada was not new construction, but an extensive remodeling of the older New Colonial Theatre. This book is published by the Arcadia Publishing Company, and the author is (or has been) a member of the Beaver Falls Historical Society (Google Books preview.)
It says that the Colonial Theater was built in 1911, that it originally seated 300, and was renamed the New Colonial after being briefly closed in 1917. It was taken over by a Pittsburgh showman named only as S. Goodman in 1928, and subsequently remodeled and renamed.
I’ve been unable to find an S. Goodman mentioned in any of the trade publications from the period, such as The Moving Picture World. However, a snippet view of a 1929 issue of the trade publication The Lather mentions that architect Michael J. DeAngelis was designing a $500,000 theater project for Archie Fineman in Beaver Falls.
It does seem possible that at least parts of the 1911 Colonial Theatre building were incorporated into the Granada (the lower parts of the side walls, for example, might have dated from 1911,) but if Fineman did spend $500,000 on the project, the interior must have been quite opulent. The cost was well above the average for theaters of that size built at that time.
The street view has been “updated” a bit too far north. The theater was still standing when the aerial view they use for bird’s-eye view at Bing Maps was taken, and it looks like its north wall was on a line just about between the street lamp and the utility pole you can see if you pivot street view to the right. The south wall was probably about where the middle of the new building with the gabled entrance is located.
Here are updated links for the Boxoffice Magazine items mentioned in my earlier comment:
Photo of the Shady Oak Theatre on the cover of Boxoffice, September 24, 1955.
The article abouttheater manager Howard Albertson begins on this page of the same issue.
The Street View was “updated” too far from the theater’s entrance. Left click on the photo, then click the street arrow to move one or two turns up the block, then click the right arrow in the compass rose at upper left to pivot to a more direct view of the theater front. You can also left click on the photo and hold the button down, then move your mouse to pivot the view to either side, or up or down.
It’s possible to get decent views of most theaters, but a lot of pages have been updated with inferior views, and in some cases with no view of the theater at all. Many CT users who have updated the views seem to be unaware of the finer points of Street View’s workings (not surprising, since those workings aren’t explained anywhere on the page, and not everybody is familiar with the application.)
Given its 1910 opening, it seems likely that the New Strand is the opera house mentioned in various 1910 issues of The American Contractor. The item in the May 28 issue says:
Architects Charles Dieman and Ferdinand Fiske maintained offices in both Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Lincoln, Nebraska, and their firm was among the busiest in the region during their late 19th and early 20th century partnership.I’m wondering if an item in the Daily Bulletin of the Manufacturer’s Record for March 12, 1907, could be about the theater on the Palace’s site that was destroyed by an explosion in 1947? It says:
The Palace looks to be about that size.I considered the possibility that the 1907 project was the Kempenstein Opera House, which, according to advertisements reproduced in this book, opened in 1908, but the web site of the Seguin Heritage Museum says that the opera house was upstairs in a building built in 1898.
Still, the Kempenstein Theatre is the only theater listed for Seguin in the 1909-1910 edition of Julius Cahn’s Theatrical Guide, so perhaps the 1907 project was never carried out. But then maybe Julius Cahn was simply never notified of its existence by the mystery theater’s operators. Does anyone have any clues?
As Edwards Street no longer exists, Google Maps is incapable of finding the location. The nearest you can get to an address for this theater on a vanished lot is Broadway Street at Park Avenue. If you look east along Broadway from Park, you’re looking directly across the spot where the Marlow stood. The west side wall of its stage house would have crossed Broadway just a few feet south of the current intersection. This web page (the same one ken mc linked to earlier) has a map showing its location. The section on the Marlow begins below two pictures of the Antlers Theatre.