According to the Pacific Coast Architecture Database, the Grand Theatre was designed by Edwin W. Houghton. The Aberdeen Herald reported on the opening, which had taken place on Thursday, April 19, 1906, in its issue of Monday, April 23:
“An Immense Audience Greets Blanche Walsh Thursday Night. The new Grand theater was filled from orchestra pit to gallery Thursday night to witness the performance of ‘A Woman in the Case’ by Blanche Walsh company. The new theater proved to be all that was promised, and in its arrangement and appointments is not excelled in the Northwest. The decorations showed the artistic taste of the architect, as the conveniences did his knowledge of theater building. The safety of the audience is particularity well looked after in the matter of exits. Those are sufficient to empty the house in three minutes. All sections of the county were represented at the opening, quite a number being present from Hoquiam, Cosmopolis, Montesano and Elma, and all are loud in praise of a theater of which Aberdeen is justly proud. While Blanche Walsh and company, carried their parts splendidly, the play, which was of melodramatic order, was not as well received as would have been something higher in dramatic art.”
The January 3, 1932 issue of Film Daily said: “Geneva, O.— The Liberty is now called Shea’s.” I think Shea’s must have bought the Liberty, which dated back to at least 1918, and then built a new theater a couple of years later. In FDY’s through the late 1930s both Shea’s and the Liberty are listed, but the Liberty is always listed as closed.
A 1947 ad for a Stafford’s Jewelry and Music Store at 52 West Main Street carries the tag line “Three doors down from Shea’s Theatre.” 52 W. Main is a parking lot now, but what would be three doors up the block at 72 W. Main is a large, red brick building that looks like it could have been built in the 1930s. The front section is fairly low, but behind it is a taller, rectangular building that is just the right size and shape to be a theater auditorium. It now houses the Geneva Community Center. I suspect that this was Shea’s Geneva Theatre.
Orwell had a house called the Temple in 1932, when this item appeared in the January 8 issue of Film Daily: “Orwell, O. — The Temple, now operated by W. L. Chalmers, is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of each week.” Chalmers had recently bought the house from H. J. Walters. The theater had been around for quite a while by then, as it was advertised in the November 12, 1925 issue of the Orwell News-Letter (scan here.) The only theater listed at Orwell in the 1926 FDY was called the Opera House. This might have been an alternate name for the Temple.
Carl Reardon, Cleveland area distributor for Universal Pictures, was deposed for the U.S. Senate’s investigation of movie industry trade practices in 1956. As part of his deposition he noted that Lee Hendershott, then the owner of the Temple Theatre, had gotten a flat-fee service from Universal starting in February, 1956, paying $30 for each feature, with the exception of a few special movies that would still be rented on a percentage basis.
The Temple Theatre building is currently occupied by an antique shop.
1,022 was the reported seating capacity of the Leaf Theatre when it opened in 1949. The FDY probably accidentally switched the capacities of the two theaters. Such mistakes were not uncommon in the Yearbooks.
Motion Picture Herald of September 18, 1948 had this news:
“The new Rosalia Theatre, Rosalia, Wash., has opened. H. H. Wheeldon is the owner of the house, which replaces the theatre destroyed by fire several months ago. Mr. Wheeldon also operates five other houses in eastern Washington and Idaho.”
This probably accounts for the drop in seating capacity between the early 1940s and 1950. Although the item calls the house the Rosalia, I’m sure it was the Family. A 1951 Boxoffice item about Mr. Wheeldon said that he had leased his Family Theatres in two other towns to another operator. I suspect that all six of his theaters were called the Family.
The theater might have been at 606 S. Whitman Avenue (formerly Main Street.) Virtually all of Rosalia’s business are on Whitman Avenue, and this undated photo shows a theater, identifiable by the movie posters leaning against the front, at that location. Rosalia had a movie house at least as early as 1914, listed in the American Motion Picture Directory that year as the Lyric, on Main Street. The theater in the photo might have been the Lyric, and the Rose and later theaters might have been at different locations, but it’s possible that Rosalia’s theater was always at that location, even after the 1948 fire. Even if it was in a different building, it was almost certainly located on Whitman Avenue.
The Bungalow Theatre was at 223 N. Main Street. A historic building survey says that the Bungalow opened in 1911, but that the building had previously been occupied by a movie house called the Dime Theatre. The building currently on the site is believed to have been built in 1921, but it might have been only a major reconstruction and enlargement of the old building.
I found the Bungalow mentioned in the September, 1911 issue of Motography (also mentioning the Orpheum) and in the January 22, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World, which said that Robert Clendinning was remodeling the house and planned to reopen it with Mutual pictures.
The oddest thing is that the historic building survey says that the Sanborn insurance map shows a movie theater at this address as late as 1939. I’ll look into this surprising news when I have more energy. It’s getting very late now.
The Colfax Gazette of August 8, 1908 mentioned “The New Ridgeway Theatre Company.” A page about Spokane architect George Herbert Keith attributes the design of the Ridgway Theatre to him, listing it as a 1908 project. As the theater company apparently wasn’t formed until August, it might be that the Ridgeway didn’t open until 1909. The Ridgeway was one of three theaters listed at Colfax in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, along with the Bungalow and the Pastime.
A walking tour of downtown Colfax says that the Rose Theatre opened in 1916. 1920 was the year of its remodeling by architect Gustav Pehrson. The Rose Theatre is mentioned in both the May 11 and the June 29, 1918 issue of Motography.
The Liberty Theatre had a temporary precursor, noted in the March 10, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World:
“On Saturday, February 17, Jensen & Von Herberg opened the Liberty Theatre in Astoria, Oregon. The house is said to be temporary, to be replaced later by a large, high-class theatre. The present structure seats 800.”
Oops. We already had a page for the Grand Theatre, listed at its last address on Commercial Street. I’ll move my comment there (with some additional information I came across after posting it.)
The Grand Theatre is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, though with the address 127 W. Holly Street. Two web sites have considerable information about the Grand: This web page from WhatcomTalk, with histories of several lost Bellingham theaters, and this page from the Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society. Each page features several photos.
The Grand was built to replace a smaller house of the same name that had opened in 1905 and was demolished in 1912 to make way for a new commercial building. The new theater was behind the new building and fronted on Commercial Street, though an entrance was retained on Holly Street. The house actually had two entrances, at 127 W. Holly and at 1224 Commercial Street. The Holly Street entrance served as the main entrance for much of the Grand’s history, but it was closed in 1957 and converted for retail use, so for the last few years of the theater’s life it was entered only from Commercial Street. The Grand’s last show, in 1973, featured the movie “Last Tango in Paris.” The building was demolished in 1974.
The Pacific Coast Architecture Database says that the Grand Theatre was designed by local architect Frederick Stanley Piper (firm name F. Stanley Piper), who also designed the Edison (Liberty/Egyptian) Theatre in 1914. Piper practiced in Bellingham from 1908 to about 1927, having immigrated from the U.K., where he had worked as a draughtsman in Plymouth. He had received an architectural degree from Blundell College, Tiverton, Devonshire, England, around 1900.
According to the Pacific Coast Architecture Database, “[t]he Bellingham architect James Zervas (1926-2010) was instrumental in saving the [Mount Baker] theatre from demolition and for renovating it as a community performing arts center.”
This web page with a history of some of Bellingham’s early theaters has a slightly different history of this house. It says that it opened in 1914 as the Edison Theatre, an 800-seat house equipped with an organ. The February 14th, 1916 ad for the Liberty uploaded to the photo page by rivest266 says “Formerly the Edison” on it (the September 30, 1912 ad for the Metropolitan says “Formerly Beck’s” on it, so that ad should be moved to the American Theatre’s photo page.)
The PSTOS page for the Liberty also confirms the Edison aka. The Pacific Coast Architecture Database says that the Edison Theatre was designed by the highly accomplished local architect Frederick Stanley Piper, who also designed the Grand Theatre. The WhatcomTalk page also says that the Egyptian Theatre closed in 1928 and was converted for retail space. The building was demolished in 1969.
A history of some of Bellingham’s theaters on this web page says that the Bell Show opened as a storefront nickelodeon in 1908. It was acquired by W. S. Quimby in 1910 and remodeled with a sloping floor and the admission price was raised to ten cents. The house was renamed the Rialto Theatre in 1921, but closed permanently in 1922.
The Grand Theatre is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, though with the address 127 W. Holly Street. Two web sites have considerable information about the Grand: This web page from the Whatcom Museum, with histories of several lost Bellingham theaters, and this page from the Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society. Each page features several photos.
The Grand was built in 1912 (one source says 1916, but that is belied by the 1914 AMPD listing) to replace a smaller house of the same name that had opened in 1905 and was demolished to make way for a new commercial building. The new theater was behind the new building and fronted on Commercial Street, though an entrance was retained on Holly Street. The house actually had two entrances, at 127 W. Holly and at 1224 Commercial Street. The Holly Street entrance was the main entrance for much of the Grand’s history, but it was closed in 1957 and converted for retail use, so for the last few years of the theater’s life it was entered only from Commercial Street. The Grand’s last show, in 1973, featured the movie “Last Tango in Paris.” The building was demolished in 1974.
The Grand briefly had an aka, Our Theatre, when it was one of many houses acquired in 1931 by Howard Hughes for his attempt to establish a theater chain, but Hughes abandoned the project the following year and the name Grand was restored.
The Paramount Theatre opened in February, 1929. Financial reverses due to the depression led to its closure in 1931. Local sources say that it reopened in 1933 as the Roxy Theatre, but that name never appears in the Film Daily Yearbook, so it may have been a very short-lived operation. In the 1936 FDY the Island Theatre makes its first appearance. As the Island, the house survived the other indoor theaters in Anacortes, operating into the 1970s. The theater was dismantled and the building converted into a bank in 1977.
A circa 1940 photo of the Empire can be seen on this web page from the Anacortes Museum. The text quotes a December 18, 1913 item from the Anacortes American saying that the new theater was scheduled to open Monday (December 22.) A Sanborn map shows a theater at the Empire’s location in 1907, but I’ve been unable to find any information about it, and the 1913 building appears to have been new construction.
The Empire underwent a thorough redecorating in 1927. In the 1940s, the local high school mounted its school plays on the Empire’s stage. In 1937, a local jewelry store moved into a storefront in the theater building, and in 1958 the store expanded into the entire theater space. The Empire is still listed in the Film Daily Year Book in 1951. I don’t have access to later editions, but the theater must have closed during that decade.
This web page from the Anacortes Museum has several photos in which the Rose Theatre appears. The Rose operated in two locations. Some of the photo descriptions on the Museum’s page say that the Rose was originally located at 509 Commercial Street, and in 1911 it moved to the block of Commercial between 5th and 6th. However, the photos themselves show the original Rose was on the west (even numbered) side of Commercial south of 6th Street, and the second location was on the east (odd numbered) side of Commercial south of 5th– in fact, at 509.
As near as I can tell from the photos, the original Rose was at 604 Commercial. I don’t know if the building there now, which has one of those godawful shingled fake mansards from the 1960s on it, is the same building the original Rose was in or not, but it could be. In any case, the second Rose at 509 Commercial was converted into a bowling alley in 1925, and the building was demolished in 1928.
The second, fourth and fifth photos on the museum’s page are close views of the original Rose at (probably) 604 Commercial, and the third and the second to last photos on the page are close views of the second Rose at 509 Commercial. The others (except the final one) are general street views with one or the other versions of the theater buildings as part of the scene. The last photo, taken from the steps of the Post Office in 1941, shows at far right part of the site of the second Rose, which by then had been demolished.
JackCoursey: The Empire was on the corner, and the Rose a few doors up the block. The Anacortes Museum has a web page with quite a bit of information about the Rose, which I’ll link to on the Rose page.
The permalinks in my previous comment are supposed to open directly to the parts of the pages with the articles on them, and be enlarged, but the links aren’t working properly, at least for me. All four articles are at the top of their respective pages, so you’ll have to scroll up and then enlarge using the bar at the upper left of the page (unless the scroll wheel on your mouse will enlarge it, as mine does.)
The Queen Theatre was mentioned in the February 2, 1922 issue of The Celina Record. A 1937 article about the theater’s operators, Mr. and Mrs. J. T. McClure and their son Richard, said that the Queen had been in the last building on the street running along the north side of the square. The article did not specify which of the two storefronts in that building housed the theater, but it would have been at either 301 or 303 West Pecan Street. When the first Ritz Theatre burned in 1946, the new Ritz was built in the former Queen building, but being larger it occupied both storefronts.
The first Ritz was down the block from the Queen’s location, probably at either 307 or 309 Pecan. The 1937 article said that the McClures had been in the theater business at Celina for most of the previous twenty years, and that their original theater (no name was given) had been on the south side of the square. It didn’t say how long that house had remained in operation, but did note that prior to the McClures arrival movies had been shown in the town’s old opera house, which had been upstairs over the old Post Office.
The opening of Celina’s first Ritz Theatre on September 2, 1932 (permalink) was announced in the previous day’s edition of The Celina Record. The opening feature was Paramount’s “Sky Bride” with Richard Arlen, Virginia Bruce, Jack Oakie, and child star Robert Coogan, younger brother of Jackie Coogan.
The destruction of the first Ritz by fire on January 29, 1946, was reported in the Record of January 31, (permalink) which said that theater owner J. T. McClure said that he would begin construction on a new Ritz in the former Queen Theatre building immediately. The opening of that house on June 15 was announced in the June 13 issue of the Record (permalink).
An article about McClure in the August 5, 1937 Record (permalink) said that “[f]or years, the last building on the street running across the north side of the square was the picture show building.” That building must have been the one at 301-303 West Pecan Street. From the article about the fire it appears that the intervening Ritz, from 1932 to 1946, was a couple of doors down the block from the Queen/second Ritz, probably at 307 or 309 West Pecan.
This April 26, 2020 article from Broadway World Dallas has about a dozen photos of the Fine Arts Theatre taken in March, 2018.
This web page from the Denton County Office of History and Culture has a few historic photos. It says that the theater building was built in 1890 on the site of an opera house built in 1877. The building was occupied by a funeral parlor and then a furniture store until being converted for the Texas Theatre in 1935.
The original restoration project’s Facebook page is still up, but hasn’t been updated since 2014. Likewise their Twitter page. The Facebook page is worth scrolling through, though, as it also has some vintage photos. I don’t think the current owners of the building have anything to do with those pages. I can’t find anything recent about them, so the whole project appears to be in limbo.
The renovation of the Fairborn Theatre is being managed by the Fairborn Phoenix Foundation, a local non-profit group. Here is their web site. It has a few recent photos, mostly on the “News & Updates” page. A couple of events have been held for fundraising (screenings of a locally-made movie and of The Rocky Horror Picture Show) and only one live event is scheduled (a Beatles tribute in June) so it’s not really open yet. The place is still pretty rough, as can be seen from the photos, and most of the renovation work remains to be done, but progress is being made, bit by bit.
The New Bijou Theatre advertised its opening that night in the April 29, 1908 issue of the Aberdeen Herald. The admission price was ten cents.
According to the Pacific Coast Architecture Database, the Grand Theatre was designed by Edwin W. Houghton. The Aberdeen Herald reported on the opening, which had taken place on Thursday, April 19, 1906, in its issue of Monday, April 23:
The January 3, 1932 issue of Film Daily said: “Geneva, O.— The Liberty is now called Shea’s.” I think Shea’s must have bought the Liberty, which dated back to at least 1918, and then built a new theater a couple of years later. In FDY’s through the late 1930s both Shea’s and the Liberty are listed, but the Liberty is always listed as closed.
A 1947 ad for a Stafford’s Jewelry and Music Store at 52 West Main Street carries the tag line “Three doors down from Shea’s Theatre.” 52 W. Main is a parking lot now, but what would be three doors up the block at 72 W. Main is a large, red brick building that looks like it could have been built in the 1930s. The front section is fairly low, but behind it is a taller, rectangular building that is just the right size and shape to be a theater auditorium. It now houses the Geneva Community Center. I suspect that this was Shea’s Geneva Theatre.
Google street view
Orwell had a house called the Temple in 1932, when this item appeared in the January 8 issue of Film Daily: “Orwell, O. — The Temple, now operated by W. L. Chalmers, is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of each week.” Chalmers had recently bought the house from H. J. Walters. The theater had been around for quite a while by then, as it was advertised in the November 12, 1925 issue of the Orwell News-Letter (scan here.) The only theater listed at Orwell in the 1926 FDY was called the Opera House. This might have been an alternate name for the Temple.
Carl Reardon, Cleveland area distributor for Universal Pictures, was deposed for the U.S. Senate’s investigation of movie industry trade practices in 1956. As part of his deposition he noted that Lee Hendershott, then the owner of the Temple Theatre, had gotten a flat-fee service from Universal starting in February, 1956, paying $30 for each feature, with the exception of a few special movies that would still be rented on a percentage basis.
The Temple Theatre building is currently occupied by an antique shop.
1,022 was the reported seating capacity of the Leaf Theatre when it opened in 1949. The FDY probably accidentally switched the capacities of the two theaters. Such mistakes were not uncommon in the Yearbooks.
Motion Picture Herald of September 18, 1948 had this news:
This probably accounts for the drop in seating capacity between the early 1940s and 1950. Although the item calls the house the Rosalia, I’m sure it was the Family. A 1951 Boxoffice item about Mr. Wheeldon said that he had leased his Family Theatres in two other towns to another operator. I suspect that all six of his theaters were called the Family.The theater might have been at 606 S. Whitman Avenue (formerly Main Street.) Virtually all of Rosalia’s business are on Whitman Avenue, and this undated photo shows a theater, identifiable by the movie posters leaning against the front, at that location. Rosalia had a movie house at least as early as 1914, listed in the American Motion Picture Directory that year as the Lyric, on Main Street. The theater in the photo might have been the Lyric, and the Rose and later theaters might have been at different locations, but it’s possible that Rosalia’s theater was always at that location, even after the 1948 fire. Even if it was in a different building, it was almost certainly located on Whitman Avenue.
The Bungalow Theatre was at 223 N. Main Street. A historic building survey says that the Bungalow opened in 1911, but that the building had previously been occupied by a movie house called the Dime Theatre. The building currently on the site is believed to have been built in 1921, but it might have been only a major reconstruction and enlargement of the old building.
I found the Bungalow mentioned in the September, 1911 issue of Motography (also mentioning the Orpheum) and in the January 22, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World, which said that Robert Clendinning was remodeling the house and planned to reopen it with Mutual pictures.
The oddest thing is that the historic building survey says that the Sanborn insurance map shows a movie theater at this address as late as 1939. I’ll look into this surprising news when I have more energy. It’s getting very late now.
The Colfax Gazette of August 8, 1908 mentioned “The New Ridgeway Theatre Company.” A page about Spokane architect George Herbert Keith attributes the design of the Ridgway Theatre to him, listing it as a 1908 project. As the theater company apparently wasn’t formed until August, it might be that the Ridgeway didn’t open until 1909. The Ridgeway was one of three theaters listed at Colfax in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, along with the Bungalow and the Pastime.
A walking tour of downtown Colfax says that the Rose Theatre opened in 1916. 1920 was the year of its remodeling by architect Gustav Pehrson. The Rose Theatre is mentioned in both the May 11 and the June 29, 1918 issue of Motography.
The Liberty Theatre had a temporary precursor, noted in the March 10, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World:
Oops. We already had a page for the Grand Theatre, listed at its last address on Commercial Street. I’ll move my comment there (with some additional information I came across after posting it.)
The Grand Theatre is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, though with the address 127 W. Holly Street. Two web sites have considerable information about the Grand: This web page from WhatcomTalk, with histories of several lost Bellingham theaters, and this page from the Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society. Each page features several photos.
The Grand was built to replace a smaller house of the same name that had opened in 1905 and was demolished in 1912 to make way for a new commercial building. The new theater was behind the new building and fronted on Commercial Street, though an entrance was retained on Holly Street. The house actually had two entrances, at 127 W. Holly and at 1224 Commercial Street. The Holly Street entrance served as the main entrance for much of the Grand’s history, but it was closed in 1957 and converted for retail use, so for the last few years of the theater’s life it was entered only from Commercial Street. The Grand’s last show, in 1973, featured the movie “Last Tango in Paris.” The building was demolished in 1974.
The Pacific Coast Architecture Database says that the Grand Theatre was designed by local architect Frederick Stanley Piper (firm name F. Stanley Piper), who also designed the Edison (Liberty/Egyptian) Theatre in 1914. Piper practiced in Bellingham from 1908 to about 1927, having immigrated from the U.K., where he had worked as a draughtsman in Plymouth. He had received an architectural degree from Blundell College, Tiverton, Devonshire, England, around 1900.
According to the Pacific Coast Architecture Database, “[t]he Bellingham architect James Zervas (1926-2010) was instrumental in saving the [Mount Baker] theatre from demolition and for renovating it as a community performing arts center.”
This web page with a history of some of Bellingham’s early theaters has a slightly different history of this house. It says that it opened in 1914 as the Edison Theatre, an 800-seat house equipped with an organ. The February 14th, 1916 ad for the Liberty uploaded to the photo page by rivest266 says “Formerly the Edison” on it (the September 30, 1912 ad for the Metropolitan says “Formerly Beck’s” on it, so that ad should be moved to the American Theatre’s photo page.)
The PSTOS page for the Liberty also confirms the Edison aka. The Pacific Coast Architecture Database says that the Edison Theatre was designed by the highly accomplished local architect Frederick Stanley Piper, who also designed the Grand Theatre. The WhatcomTalk page also says that the Egyptian Theatre closed in 1928 and was converted for retail space. The building was demolished in 1969.
A history of some of Bellingham’s theaters on this web page says that the Bell Show opened as a storefront nickelodeon in 1908. It was acquired by W. S. Quimby in 1910 and remodeled with a sloping floor and the admission price was raised to ten cents. The house was renamed the Rialto Theatre in 1921, but closed permanently in 1922.
The Grand Theatre is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, though with the address 127 W. Holly Street. Two web sites have considerable information about the Grand: This web page from the Whatcom Museum, with histories of several lost Bellingham theaters, and this page from the Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society. Each page features several photos.
The Grand was built in 1912 (one source says 1916, but that is belied by the 1914 AMPD listing) to replace a smaller house of the same name that had opened in 1905 and was demolished to make way for a new commercial building. The new theater was behind the new building and fronted on Commercial Street, though an entrance was retained on Holly Street. The house actually had two entrances, at 127 W. Holly and at 1224 Commercial Street. The Holly Street entrance was the main entrance for much of the Grand’s history, but it was closed in 1957 and converted for retail use, so for the last few years of the theater’s life it was entered only from Commercial Street. The Grand’s last show, in 1973, featured the movie “Last Tango in Paris.” The building was demolished in 1974.
The Grand briefly had an aka, Our Theatre, when it was one of many houses acquired in 1931 by Howard Hughes for his attempt to establish a theater chain, but Hughes abandoned the project the following year and the name Grand was restored.
The Paramount Theatre opened in February, 1929. Financial reverses due to the depression led to its closure in 1931. Local sources say that it reopened in 1933 as the Roxy Theatre, but that name never appears in the Film Daily Yearbook, so it may have been a very short-lived operation. In the 1936 FDY the Island Theatre makes its first appearance. As the Island, the house survived the other indoor theaters in Anacortes, operating into the 1970s. The theater was dismantled and the building converted into a bank in 1977.
A circa 1940 photo of the Empire can be seen on this web page from the Anacortes Museum. The text quotes a December 18, 1913 item from the Anacortes American saying that the new theater was scheduled to open Monday (December 22.) A Sanborn map shows a theater at the Empire’s location in 1907, but I’ve been unable to find any information about it, and the 1913 building appears to have been new construction.
The Empire underwent a thorough redecorating in 1927. In the 1940s, the local high school mounted its school plays on the Empire’s stage. In 1937, a local jewelry store moved into a storefront in the theater building, and in 1958 the store expanded into the entire theater space. The Empire is still listed in the Film Daily Year Book in 1951. I don’t have access to later editions, but the theater must have closed during that decade.
This web page from the Anacortes Museum has several photos in which the Rose Theatre appears. The Rose operated in two locations. Some of the photo descriptions on the Museum’s page say that the Rose was originally located at 509 Commercial Street, and in 1911 it moved to the block of Commercial between 5th and 6th. However, the photos themselves show the original Rose was on the west (even numbered) side of Commercial south of 6th Street, and the second location was on the east (odd numbered) side of Commercial south of 5th– in fact, at 509.
As near as I can tell from the photos, the original Rose was at 604 Commercial. I don’t know if the building there now, which has one of those godawful shingled fake mansards from the 1960s on it, is the same building the original Rose was in or not, but it could be. In any case, the second Rose at 509 Commercial was converted into a bowling alley in 1925, and the building was demolished in 1928.
The second, fourth and fifth photos on the museum’s page are close views of the original Rose at (probably) 604 Commercial, and the third and the second to last photos on the page are close views of the second Rose at 509 Commercial. The others (except the final one) are general street views with one or the other versions of the theater buildings as part of the scene. The last photo, taken from the steps of the Post Office in 1941, shows at far right part of the site of the second Rose, which by then had been demolished.
JackCoursey: The Empire was on the corner, and the Rose a few doors up the block. The Anacortes Museum has a web page with quite a bit of information about the Rose, which I’ll link to on the Rose page.
The permalinks in my previous comment are supposed to open directly to the parts of the pages with the articles on them, and be enlarged, but the links aren’t working properly, at least for me. All four articles are at the top of their respective pages, so you’ll have to scroll up and then enlarge using the bar at the upper left of the page (unless the scroll wheel on your mouse will enlarge it, as mine does.)
The Queen Theatre was mentioned in the February 2, 1922 issue of The Celina Record. A 1937 article about the theater’s operators, Mr. and Mrs. J. T. McClure and their son Richard, said that the Queen had been in the last building on the street running along the north side of the square. The article did not specify which of the two storefronts in that building housed the theater, but it would have been at either 301 or 303 West Pecan Street. When the first Ritz Theatre burned in 1946, the new Ritz was built in the former Queen building, but being larger it occupied both storefronts.
The first Ritz was down the block from the Queen’s location, probably at either 307 or 309 Pecan. The 1937 article said that the McClures had been in the theater business at Celina for most of the previous twenty years, and that their original theater (no name was given) had been on the south side of the square. It didn’t say how long that house had remained in operation, but did note that prior to the McClures arrival movies had been shown in the town’s old opera house, which had been upstairs over the old Post Office.
The opening of Celina’s first Ritz Theatre on September 2, 1932 (permalink) was announced in the previous day’s edition of The Celina Record. The opening feature was Paramount’s “Sky Bride” with Richard Arlen, Virginia Bruce, Jack Oakie, and child star Robert Coogan, younger brother of Jackie Coogan.
The destruction of the first Ritz by fire on January 29, 1946, was reported in the Record of January 31, (permalink) which said that theater owner J. T. McClure said that he would begin construction on a new Ritz in the former Queen Theatre building immediately. The opening of that house on June 15 was announced in the June 13 issue of the Record (permalink).
An article about McClure in the August 5, 1937 Record (permalink) said that “[f]or years, the last building on the street running across the north side of the square was the picture show building.” That building must have been the one at 301-303 West Pecan Street. From the article about the fire it appears that the intervening Ritz, from 1932 to 1946, was a couple of doors down the block from the Queen/second Ritz, probably at 307 or 309 West Pecan.
This April 26, 2020 article from Broadway World Dallas has about a dozen photos of the Fine Arts Theatre taken in March, 2018.
This web page from the Denton County Office of History and Culture has a few historic photos. It says that the theater building was built in 1890 on the site of an opera house built in 1877. The building was occupied by a funeral parlor and then a furniture store until being converted for the Texas Theatre in 1935.
The original restoration project’s Facebook page is still up, but hasn’t been updated since 2014. Likewise their Twitter page. The Facebook page is worth scrolling through, though, as it also has some vintage photos. I don’t think the current owners of the building have anything to do with those pages. I can’t find anything recent about them, so the whole project appears to be in limbo.
The renovation of the Fairborn Theatre is being managed by the Fairborn Phoenix Foundation, a local non-profit group. Here is their web site. It has a few recent photos, mostly on the “News & Updates” page. A couple of events have been held for fundraising (screenings of a locally-made movie and of The Rocky Horror Picture Show) and only one live event is scheduled (a Beatles tribute in June) so it’s not really open yet. The place is still pretty rough, as can be seen from the photos, and most of the renovation work remains to be done, but progress is being made, bit by bit.