This theater opened as the Grand. Look at this photo of the Lyric Theatre, then compare this photo from the August 2, 1913, issue of the trade journal The Moving Picture Age, depicting the theater when it was called the Grand. The caption reveals that the Grand opened on June 5, 1913.
Although the interior of this theater could certainly be classed as Art Deco, the facade, apart from the marquee and boxoffice, is not. The building’s front is splendidly classical, and deserves to be noted as Beaux Arts in style.
Should the Lorraine close, it won’t be the first theater Hoopeston has lost. The August 14, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World mentions a Princess Theatre and a Lyric Theatre in operation at Hoopeston. I would assume that both are long gone. There was also the McFerren Opera House, which was listed in the 1906 edition of Julius Cahn’s Theatrical Guide. A booklet published for Hoopeston’s centennial in 1977 said that the opera House had burned down on February 20, 1937.
According to a brief biography of Tacoma architect Roland Borhek, the Rialto was the second theater he designed in the city. In 1914, he had designed the Colonial Theatre, though that house went through a couple of significant remodeling projects before finally being demolished.
I noticed that the PSTOS page Chuck linked above to misspells Borhek’s first name (it should be Roland, with only one “l”) which is probably where the misspelling currently in the theater description on this page came from.
A brief biography of Tacoma architect Roland Borhek credits him with the original 1914 design of the Colonial Theatre, as well as that of the Rialto Theatre in 1918. The PSTOS page chuck linked to misspells his first name.
Andrew Craig Morrison’s book Theaters mentions the Savoy Theatre. The book has a drawing of the Savoy by artist Anthony Dumas, which is dated 1928. The caption also gives the name Woods Theatre as an aka for the house. The caption says that the Savoy opened in 1907, and seated 1,500.
The drawing is not visible in the Google Books view, but it can currently be seen online at this web page at Pop Art Machine. The theater’s entrance was in the Hotel Dunlop’s building, which was located at the north corner of Boardwalk and Ocean Avenue.
The “Theatrical Notes” column of The New York Times, July 5, 1920, mentions a play opening at A.H. Woods' Woods Theatre in Atlantic City, so the house had gotten its new name by that year, but the 1924 billboard ad ken mc linked to above calls the house the Savoy again. I’ve only found references to the house as the Woods Theatre dating from 1920 through 1922. A.H. Woods must have operated the house for just a few years under a lease.
I’ve been unable to discover any references to the Savoy later than 1928, so it’s possible that there was another name change, or perhaps the theater didn’t survive past the 1920s.
While the Acme/Wayne was on South Center Street, the Variety Theatre mentioned in the introduction was actually on North Center. The Variety’s marquee was still on the building when the camera truck went by to take the current Google Street View pictures.
Google Maps' little pin misplaces this address by half a block. The Alkrama Theatre building is the one with the red roof in the satellite view. Its back wall abuts the Carolina Theatre & Grille, which fronts on the next street to the east.
An interesting coincidence: I saw a couple of Ava Gardner movies yesterday (she’s November’s “star of the month” on the Turner Classic Movies channel) and just now, when I did a Google search on the Paramount in Goldsboro, I found a biography of her that says that in 1940, when she was attending Atlantic Christian College (now Barton College) in nearby Wilson, North Carolina, a fellow named J.M. Fordham took her to a movie at the Paramount.
The correct address of the Acme/Wayne Theatre is 111 S. Center Street, not N. Center. The theater building and its neighbors as depicted in the photo Chuck linked to can be seen in the 100 S. block on Google Street View.
The UNC library web site’s “Going to the Show” database lists the Acme Theatre at 111-113 S.W. Center, saying it opened about 1914 (the S.W. in the address means it was on the west side of South Center.) The database doesn’t mention the Wayne Theatre. It doesn’t mention the Paramount, the Carolina, or the Variety, either. Apparently it only gives original names of the theaters included in it— at least those in Goldsboro.
The December 20, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World included the Acme Theatre at Goldsboro on a list of theater subscribing to the American Motion Picture Supply League. The decorative tile work on the Acme’s facade is of a style that was popular in the 1910s, and is probably the theater’s original decoration.
The book also gives the date of the ad below the theater’s photo as 1911, but the version of “A Tale of Two Cities” that starred William Farnum wasn’t released until 1917.
I like the Arcadia Publishing Company’s historic picture books, but some of them do look to be rush jobs with sketchy editing.
A Historic Resources Inventory prepared for the State of Califronia in 1981 included the South Coast Theatre, and the report said that this this house opened as the New Lynn Theatre in 1935, and that the architect was James Conway. (This 9.8MB PDF file includes the data on the theater, along with numerous other buildings in Laguna Beach.)
It looks as though the 1930 rebuilding planned for Mr. Aufdenkamp by architect Walter J. Saunders was not carried out. The report also includes the information that the original Lynn Theatre, opened in 1915 on this same site, was moved to a lot on Ocean Avenue and operated there while construction of the new theater was underway. If the projected 1930 rebuilding of the original Lynn, which called for a large steel and concrete structure, had taken place, the building would probably not have been moved. The original Lynn was most likely a wood-framed building of the sort typical in Laguna Beach during its early years.
Although the Historic Resources report calls James Neil Conway a “distinguished theatre architect”, I’ve been unable to discover any other theaters he designed. Almost the only source of information about him on the Internet is this page from the Pacific Coast Architecture Database, and no theaters are among the five projects it lists. He was apparently a designer by profession, not a licensed architect. That means he would either have had a licensed engineer working with him on this project, or have had someone who was licensed to sign off on his plans, but I’ve been unable to discover who that was.
I don’t think Anthony F. Dumas was the architect of this theater. He did a drawing of it, but that was quite some time after it was built. So far I’ve been unable to discover who the actual architect was.
There’s a misspelling in the architect field above. Mr. Spillman’s first name is spelled Beverly, not Beverley. Apparently there’s no differentiation between male and female forms of the name in America.
On opening, this house was called the Luzerne Theatre, and it was later known as the Majestic Theatre, according to the book Theaters, by Andrew Craig Morrison. The Luzerne opened on February 9, 1908. The house was designed by architect William H. McElfatrick, and it originally seated 1,626.
This theater was located at 206 South Main Street. (Incidentally, Google Maps will not map this location. It fetches up a location a couple of miles down the road. I’d suggest using Bing Maps, which puts this address only a couple of lots north of where it actually should be.)
The theater might have become the Majestic about 1912, as a list of charters of corporations I found includes a Majestic Theatre Amusement Company that was chartered on November 11 that year, for the purposes of “…maintenance of a theatre in Wilkes-Barre….”
According to this timeline of Wyoming Valley history from Wilkes University, the Irving Theatre opened in 1923. The timeline does not mention this being a name change, nor is the name Majestic Theatre ever mentioned, although the opening of the Luzerne Theatre in 1908 is mentioned. Still, I trust Morrison’s book, which appears to be very well researched.
Here is a news item from September 3, 1923, noted in the 1924 Almanac of the Wilkes-Barre Record, a daily newspaper: “Irving theatre on South Main street, formally the Majestic, now the leading theatre in Wilkes-Barre owing to the sale of the Grand for commercial purposes, opens with Oliver S. Morosco’s production Willis M. Goodhue’s comedy drama ‘Dust.’”
Poli’s Theatre in Wilkes-Barre opened on October 19, 1908, and the architect was Albert E. Westover. The source for this information is a book called Theaters, by Andrew Craig Morrison.
I’ve been unable to discover when the theater was renamed the Penn, but it had happened by 1942, when the June 6 issue of Billboard Magazine made reference to it, and it happened no earlier than 1931, when an artist named Anthony F. Dumas made a drawing of it as Poli’s.
The Capitol was in operation by at least 1928, when a drawing was made of it by artist Anthony F. Dumas. If this house was owned by the Comerford circuit, then it might have been under construction in 1919, when the October 11 issue of the trade journal Domestic Engineering carried a brief item in its “New Construction Work” column reading: “$150,000 theatre, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; M.E. Comerford Amusement Co.” I suspect that this project was indeed the theater that became the Capitol.
Here is a photo from the 1940s depicting the east side of Wilkes-Barre’s public square. The marquee of the Capitol Theatre can be seen at left. The Comerford Theatre can also be seen in this photo, at the end of the street.
Here is a later bird’s-eye view from a few years later, looking the opposite direction along the east side of the square, with the remodeled facade of the theater, by then renamed the Comerford (see Alan Bone’s comment above), at right.
The Colonial Theatre in Lancaster is mentioned in the 1914 edition of The Stage Year Book. I’ve come across a couple of later references to it as Boyd’s Colonial Theatre.
Are we certain of the 1915 opening for this house? The April 12, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World had this item about the proposed Auditorium Theatre:
“Plans have been completed for the Auditorium Theater, to be erected at Dawson Springs, Ky., at once. The seating capacity of the house will be 1,000, while the cost is estimated at $10,000. The structure will be ready by June 1. The Kentucky Pharmaceutical Association, which will hold its annual convention in Dawson Springs, beginning June 1, will use it for a week. The theater will be devoted to vaudeville and moving pictures. Dawson Springs is a popular summer resort, thousands of folk from Kentucky and adjoining states spending the summer there to obtain the benefit of tbe waters. W. I. Hamby is president of the company, which is erecting the theater.”
The May 10, 1913 issue of The Moving Picture World had this item:
“Paducah, Ky. — Architect A. L. Lassiter, of this city, has completed plans for the Auditorium theater to be erected at Dawson Springs by an association, headed by W. I. Hamby, a prominent resident of the health resort.“
I’ve been unable to find any later items about the Auditorium Theatre confirming that it opened in 1913, but not knowing seanjung’s source for the 1915 date I can’t judge how accurate it is likely to have been. Building projects have often suffered long delays.
I couldn’t make this stuff up, and if I could I’m sure readers would find it too contrived.
The Bijou Theatre began operating in February, 1908, said a brief article in a 1913 issue of The Moving Picture Age. The building had been the city’s opera house prior to its conversion into a combination movie and vaudeville theater by the new operator, Mr. J.E. Hippie. Mr. Hippie, a man clearly ahead of his time, was a former postmaster of Pierre, and editor and publisher of a daily newspaper. The article included this passage about the aptly named exhibitor:
“Mr. Hippie… let it be made known that he is the man who made the successful fight for the Sunday opening of picture shows in that city. Mr. Hippie in a letter to the Moving Picture World says that he is going to look after the interests of the exhibition business at the next legislature, as some local ministers and other persons are contemplating the introduction of bills looking toward a state censorship and other interferences with the picture industry.”
As for the Bijou itself, the article said that it seated 606 patrons in an area 40x97 feet, and that the stage was 16x40 feet. The house was steam-heated, had both alternating current from the city and direct current from its own power plant, and featured such amenities as “…a sanitary drinking fountain, checking rooms, and retiring rooms.”
Trade journal The Moving Picture World reported in its issue of November 18, 1916, that the new Hippodrome Theatre in Lancaster had recently opened. The owners were Mr. and Mrs. George Krupa.
This theater opened as the Grand. Look at this photo of the Lyric Theatre, then compare this photo from the August 2, 1913, issue of the trade journal The Moving Picture Age, depicting the theater when it was called the Grand. The caption reveals that the Grand opened on June 5, 1913.
Although the interior of this theater could certainly be classed as Art Deco, the facade, apart from the marquee and boxoffice, is not. The building’s front is splendidly classical, and deserves to be noted as Beaux Arts in style.
Should the Lorraine close, it won’t be the first theater Hoopeston has lost. The August 14, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World mentions a Princess Theatre and a Lyric Theatre in operation at Hoopeston. I would assume that both are long gone. There was also the McFerren Opera House, which was listed in the 1906 edition of Julius Cahn’s Theatrical Guide. A booklet published for Hoopeston’s centennial in 1977 said that the opera House had burned down on February 20, 1937.
According to a brief biography of Tacoma architect Roland Borhek, the Rialto was the second theater he designed in the city. In 1914, he had designed the Colonial Theatre, though that house went through a couple of significant remodeling projects before finally being demolished.
I noticed that the PSTOS page Chuck linked above to misspells Borhek’s first name (it should be Roland, with only one “l”) which is probably where the misspelling currently in the theater description on this page came from.
Actually, the PSTOS page for the Colonial/Broadway doesn’t even mention Borhek. It’s their page for the Rialto that misspells his name.
A brief biography of Tacoma architect Roland Borhek credits him with the original 1914 design of the Colonial Theatre, as well as that of the Rialto Theatre in 1918. The PSTOS page chuck linked to misspells his first name.
Andrew Craig Morrison’s book Theaters mentions the Savoy Theatre. The book has a drawing of the Savoy by artist Anthony Dumas, which is dated 1928. The caption also gives the name Woods Theatre as an aka for the house. The caption says that the Savoy opened in 1907, and seated 1,500.
The drawing is not visible in the Google Books view, but it can currently be seen online at this web page at Pop Art Machine. The theater’s entrance was in the Hotel Dunlop’s building, which was located at the north corner of Boardwalk and Ocean Avenue.
The “Theatrical Notes” column of The New York Times, July 5, 1920, mentions a play opening at A.H. Woods' Woods Theatre in Atlantic City, so the house had gotten its new name by that year, but the 1924 billboard ad ken mc linked to above calls the house the Savoy again. I’ve only found references to the house as the Woods Theatre dating from 1920 through 1922. A.H. Woods must have operated the house for just a few years under a lease.
I’ve been unable to discover any references to the Savoy later than 1928, so it’s possible that there was another name change, or perhaps the theater didn’t survive past the 1920s.
While the Acme/Wayne was on South Center Street, the Variety Theatre mentioned in the introduction was actually on North Center. The Variety’s marquee was still on the building when the camera truck went by to take the current Google Street View pictures.
Google Maps' little pin misplaces this address by half a block. The Alkrama Theatre building is the one with the red roof in the satellite view. Its back wall abuts the Carolina Theatre & Grille, which fronts on the next street to the east.
An interesting coincidence: I saw a couple of Ava Gardner movies yesterday (she’s November’s “star of the month” on the Turner Classic Movies channel) and just now, when I did a Google search on the Paramount in Goldsboro, I found a biography of her that says that in 1940, when she was attending Atlantic Christian College (now Barton College) in nearby Wilson, North Carolina, a fellow named J.M. Fordham took her to a movie at the Paramount.
The correct address of the Acme/Wayne Theatre is 111 S. Center Street, not N. Center. The theater building and its neighbors as depicted in the photo Chuck linked to can be seen in the 100 S. block on Google Street View.
The UNC library web site’s “Going to the Show” database lists the Acme Theatre at 111-113 S.W. Center, saying it opened about 1914 (the S.W. in the address means it was on the west side of South Center.) The database doesn’t mention the Wayne Theatre. It doesn’t mention the Paramount, the Carolina, or the Variety, either. Apparently it only gives original names of the theaters included in it— at least those in Goldsboro.
The December 20, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World included the Acme Theatre at Goldsboro on a list of theater subscribing to the American Motion Picture Supply League. The decorative tile work on the Acme’s facade is of a style that was popular in the 1910s, and is probably the theater’s original decoration.
The University of North Carolina’s web site about theaters, “Going to the Show,” lists the James Theatre as having been an African-American house.
The book also gives the date of the ad below the theater’s photo as 1911, but the version of “A Tale of Two Cities” that starred William Farnum wasn’t released until 1917.
I like the Arcadia Publishing Company’s historic picture books, but some of them do look to be rush jobs with sketchy editing.
The book is A Brief History of the Town of Maynard, Massachusetts by William H. Gutteridge. The photo is on page 75, and the theater is also mentioned briefly on page 64.
A Historic Resources Inventory prepared for the State of Califronia in 1981 included the South Coast Theatre, and the report said that this this house opened as the New Lynn Theatre in 1935, and that the architect was James Conway. (This 9.8MB PDF file includes the data on the theater, along with numerous other buildings in Laguna Beach.)
It looks as though the 1930 rebuilding planned for Mr. Aufdenkamp by architect Walter J. Saunders was not carried out. The report also includes the information that the original Lynn Theatre, opened in 1915 on this same site, was moved to a lot on Ocean Avenue and operated there while construction of the new theater was underway. If the projected 1930 rebuilding of the original Lynn, which called for a large steel and concrete structure, had taken place, the building would probably not have been moved. The original Lynn was most likely a wood-framed building of the sort typical in Laguna Beach during its early years.
Although the Historic Resources report calls James Neil Conway a “distinguished theatre architect”, I’ve been unable to discover any other theaters he designed. Almost the only source of information about him on the Internet is this page from the Pacific Coast Architecture Database, and no theaters are among the five projects it lists. He was apparently a designer by profession, not a licensed architect. That means he would either have had a licensed engineer working with him on this project, or have had someone who was licensed to sign off on his plans, but I’ve been unable to discover who that was.
I don’t think Anthony F. Dumas was the architect of this theater. He did a drawing of it, but that was quite some time after it was built. So far I’ve been unable to discover who the actual architect was.
The Theatre Historical Society has this page about Dumas' drawings, sixty of which are in the Society’s archives.
There’s a misspelling in the architect field above. Mr. Spillman’s first name is spelled Beverly, not Beverley. Apparently there’s no differentiation between male and female forms of the name in America.
On opening, this house was called the Luzerne Theatre, and it was later known as the Majestic Theatre, according to the book Theaters, by Andrew Craig Morrison. The Luzerne opened on February 9, 1908. The house was designed by architect William H. McElfatrick, and it originally seated 1,626.
This theater was located at 206 South Main Street. (Incidentally, Google Maps will not map this location. It fetches up a location a couple of miles down the road. I’d suggest using Bing Maps, which puts this address only a couple of lots north of where it actually should be.)
The theater might have become the Majestic about 1912, as a list of charters of corporations I found includes a Majestic Theatre Amusement Company that was chartered on November 11 that year, for the purposes of “…maintenance of a theatre in Wilkes-Barre….”
According to this timeline of Wyoming Valley history from Wilkes University, the Irving Theatre opened in 1923. The timeline does not mention this being a name change, nor is the name Majestic Theatre ever mentioned, although the opening of the Luzerne Theatre in 1908 is mentioned. Still, I trust Morrison’s book, which appears to be very well researched.
Here is a news item from September 3, 1923, noted in the 1924 Almanac of the Wilkes-Barre Record, a daily newspaper: “Irving theatre on South Main street, formally the Majestic, now the leading theatre in Wilkes-Barre owing to the sale of the Grand for commercial purposes, opens with Oliver S. Morosco’s production Willis M. Goodhue’s comedy drama ‘Dust.’”
Posted to soon. I found this timeline of Wyoming Valley history from Wilkes University which says that Poli’s Theatre was renamed the Penn Theatre in 1931.
Poli’s Theatre in Wilkes-Barre opened on October 19, 1908, and the architect was Albert E. Westover. The source for this information is a book called Theaters, by Andrew Craig Morrison.
I’ve been unable to discover when the theater was renamed the Penn, but it had happened by 1942, when the June 6 issue of Billboard Magazine made reference to it, and it happened no earlier than 1931, when an artist named Anthony F. Dumas made a drawing of it as Poli’s.
The Capitol was in operation by at least 1928, when a drawing was made of it by artist Anthony F. Dumas. If this house was owned by the Comerford circuit, then it might have been under construction in 1919, when the October 11 issue of the trade journal Domestic Engineering carried a brief item in its “New Construction Work” column reading: “$150,000 theatre, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; M.E. Comerford Amusement Co.” I suspect that this project was indeed the theater that became the Capitol.
Here is a photo from the 1940s depicting the east side of Wilkes-Barre’s public square. The marquee of the Capitol Theatre can be seen at left. The Comerford Theatre can also be seen in this photo, at the end of the street.
Here is a later bird’s-eye view from a few years later, looking the opposite direction along the east side of the square, with the remodeled facade of the theater, by then renamed the Comerford (see Alan Bone’s comment above), at right.
The Colonial Theatre in Lancaster is mentioned in the 1914 edition of The Stage Year Book. I’ve come across a couple of later references to it as Boyd’s Colonial Theatre.
Are we certain of the 1915 opening for this house? The April 12, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World had this item about the proposed Auditorium Theatre:
The May 10, 1913 issue of The Moving Picture World had this item:I’ve been unable to find any later items about the Auditorium Theatre confirming that it opened in 1913, but not knowing seanjung’s source for the 1915 date I can’t judge how accurate it is likely to have been. Building projects have often suffered long delays.
I couldn’t make this stuff up, and if I could I’m sure readers would find it too contrived.
The Bijou Theatre began operating in February, 1908, said a brief article in a 1913 issue of The Moving Picture Age. The building had been the city’s opera house prior to its conversion into a combination movie and vaudeville theater by the new operator, Mr. J.E. Hippie. Mr. Hippie, a man clearly ahead of his time, was a former postmaster of Pierre, and editor and publisher of a daily newspaper. The article included this passage about the aptly named exhibitor:
As for the Bijou itself, the article said that it seated 606 patrons in an area 40x97 feet, and that the stage was 16x40 feet. The house was steam-heated, had both alternating current from the city and direct current from its own power plant, and featured such amenities as “…a sanitary drinking fountain, checking rooms, and retiring rooms.”The Hamilton Theatre was opened in 1917 by Mr. and Mrs. George Krupa, who had opened the Hippodrome Theatre the previous year.
Trade journal The Moving Picture World reported in its issue of November 18, 1916, that the new Hippodrome Theatre in Lancaster had recently opened. The owners were Mr. and Mrs. George Krupa.