The Harris Theatre of Jeannette was in operation prior to 1939, at the time the Harris Amusement Company took a lease on Michael Manos’s new Manos Theatre in the same town. The new house operated as the Harris-Manos Theatre until 1949, at which time operation was taken over by the Manos circuit. The Harris circuit continued to operate the Harris Theatre as well during this decade.
In 1950, Manos bought the Harris Theatre, ending the Harris circuit’s presence in Jeannette. The March 25 issue of Boxoffice that year said that Michael Manos had closed the Harris Theatre. I’ve not found any later mentions of the Harris in Boxoffice.
Through the 1940s, Boxoffice sometimes hyphenates the name of this theater, sometimes calls it the Harris Manos Theatre or Harris' Manos Theatre, and sometimes just calls it the Manos Theatre. The theater was built by Michael Manos in 1939, and then leased to the Harris Amusement Company until 1949.
The November 8, 1939, issue of Boxoffice reveals that the Manos Theatre was designed by architect Victor A. Rigaumont. Arnold Picchi of Tuckahoe, New York, was the decorator. Both John Harris and Michael Manos were present at the opening night ceremonies, November 7, 1939.
The March 18, 1949, issue of Boxoffice ran an item about the Manos circuit which included the information that the Harris circuit’s lease on the Manos Theatre in Jeannette would expire on October 1, and that Manos would then take over operation of the house. After 1949, Boxoffice always calls the house the Manos Theatre, and the name Harris never appears in conjunction with it again.
The name of this theater is currently misspelled. The spelling Kihchel is used throughout the various items about it in issues of Boxoffice. I’m sometimes skeptical of spellings Boxoffice gives, but in this case they agree with posts about the Kihchel family of Jeannette at a couple of genealogy sites, and a history of the town published in 2005.
The Kihchel Theatre was built by Mrs. Bessie Kihchel, widow of Princess Theatre owner Oliver A. Kihchel, and her sons Oliver D. and Burt R. Kihchel.
The April 8, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that construction was about to begin on the new Kihchel Theatre. The item said that the Princess Theatre would be closed in May, and that all but its alley-side wall would be demolished, so the new theater was almost entirely new construction.
The September 2, 1950, issue of Boxoffice said that the Kihchel Theatre had opened on August 25. With 800 seats, the new theater was almost twice the size of the Princess. The new house was designed by architects Sorber & Horne.
Cleveland’s Telenews Theatre was featured in an article in the April 26, 1941, issue of Boxoffice. The design of the theater was attributed to Cleveland architect George Howard Burrows, best known for the hundreds of houses he designed in such neighborhoods as Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights. Boxoffice gave the seating capacity of the Telenews as 480.
Among the features of this theater were a modern art gallery featuring works by local artists, with exhibits changed twice monthly, and a radio studio (including seating for an audience) in the basement, from which programs could be broadcast over a number of area stations.
A photograph of the auditorium of the Temple Theatre appeared in the April 26, 1941, issue of Boxoffice magazine. The 750-seat house featured the first installation of black light illumination in the area. The walls were covered in a velour fabric printed with luminescent dyes in a pattern matching the theater’s carpet. The Art Moderne design of the Temple was the work of Pittsburgh architect Robert C. Bowers.
The recently opened Coast Theatre was featured in an article in the January 18, 1965, issue of Boxoffice. It was originally a single-screen house of 682 seats. Built for the Mann family’s Noyo Theatres, the Coast was designed by San Francisco architect Gale Santocono in a California Modern style. The exterior remains largely unchanged today.
A May 18, 1970, Boxoffice Magazine article about the groundbreaking for the Lark Theatre said that the Lark was a replacement for the Grand, and that the Grand was to be demolished after the opening of the new house.
The Lark Theatre opened on November 19, 1970, according to the November 23 issue of Boxoffice. It was built for the North Central Theatres division of ABC Theatres. The August 24 issue of Boxoffice had said that the new house was intended to replace the circuit’s Grand Theatre, which was located adjacent to the new theater.
The May 18, 1970, issue of Boxoffice ran an item about the groundbreaking for the project. This item said that the new theater was designed by New York City architect George Henry Greene, who designed many theaters for ABC during this period. The seating capacity given in the Boxoffice item was 688. It also said that the old Grand Theatre was scheduled for demolition following the opening of the new house.
Joseph E. Rosatti was the lead architect for the 1935 rebuilding of the Grand, with the Minneapolis firm of Liebenberg & Kaplan as consulting architects. The August, 1983, issue of Boxoffice Magazine featured an article about Jack Liebenberg which included a small photo of the Grand from around the time of its opening.
DFC is correct. As the theater was on one of the corners with an obtuse angle, it had to be on either the northwest or southeast corner, and the photo shows the front on Gravesend/McDonald Avenue (note that the street sign shows that Washington/Parkville Avenue ran along the side of the theater, not along the front.) The 1915 directory probably got the number right but the street wrong. There is no 1028 Parkville Avenue. The street is too short to reach that number. The correct address today must be 1028 McDonald Avenue.
The “From the Boxoffice Files (Twenty Years Ago)” feature in the magazine’s issue of February 8, 1947, says that Harry Tanner had bought the Dixie Theatre in Vandalia from S.E. Pirtle.
The March 8, 1941, issue of Boxoffice Magazine reported on extensive fire damage to the Liberty Theatre building, with the total loss estimated at $80,000. The IOOF lodge on the third floor suffered $20,000 in equipment losses, and the building’s $20,000 air conditioning system was destroyed.
The theater was obviously repaired, but I’ve been unable to find a date for the reopening.
The current occupant of the former theater building, and apparently the building next door to the south as well, is an outfit called Medical Purchasing Corporation. It might be a buyer’s co-op of some sort. They use the address 5419 S. Vermont. In Google Street View I don’t see any signage on the building at all. They probably use the space mostly for warehousing.
Not demolished. The Round Up’s building still stands. The L.A. County assessor’s office lists buildings at 5419 and 5425 S. Vermont. From the street they look like one building, but they are separate structures remodeled with a common facade.
The theater was in the northerly building, now using the address 5419 (probably originally the address of a store front, with another store front at 5423, and the theater’s entrance would have been between them.) It’s a 5400 square foot building erected in 1920, very likely as a theater. If you use Google Street view and look up the alley at it from 55th Street, you can see that it still has the paired rear exits characteristic of theater buildings.
Interestingly enough, the 1929 City Directory has the address listed in the Motion Picture Theatres section, but doesn’t give a theater name. Instead, it gives the personal name “Fisher W.D.” for that address. I don’t have access to city directories from earlier in the 1920s, so can’t check to see if the address was listed with a theater name then. However, it is listed in the 1936 directory as the Colonial Theatre, so there’s another aka.
Boxoffice provides lots of confusion in its few items about Omak. To add to the complications, an October 26, 1940, Boxoffice item dateline Omak reads: “‘Dreaming Out Loud’ broke all boxoffice records for a Saturday here at the Gem Theatre, which opened two years ago.”
But a Gem at Omak, Washington, was mentioned in an ad in the December 7, 1929, Movie Age, so the name Gem must have been used for two theaters, unless Boxoffice mistakenly called the new Omak Theatre by the name Gem (and was off about how long it had been open, since the July 1939 opening of the Omak was well covered.) It’s also possible that Boxoffice mistakenly called the rebuilt Gem the Omak Theatre in the 1939 item, but that seems less likely.
After a few more searches, I’ve concluded that the New Omak Theatre, no town specified, mentioned in the same 1929 ad that also mentioned the Gem was probably just misread by Google’s search, and the ad most likely said New Omaha. The fuzzy scan of the magazine itself is as difficult for me to to read as it is for Google.
But Boxoffice in 1938 was quite specific about there being two theaters in Omak, both operated by Charles Grieme, and one of them was called the Gem. Unfortunately the 1939 article about the opening of Charlie Grieme’s new Omak Theatre didn’t mention there being another theater in town.
Here’s the gist of five relevant Boxoffice items in chronological order.
June 11, 1938: Charlie Grieme turns over operation of his two theaters at Omak to his son Will.
June 3, 1939: Charley Greime, owner of the Gem at Omak, says the town will get “…a brand new theater.”
July 15, 1939: Charlie Grieme opens his new Omak Theatre in Omak on July 12.
The next two are an example of Boxoffice’s left and right hands being ignorant of one another’s actions (even the spelling is inconsistent:)
July 22, 1939, p. 20" “Omak— Charley Greime who operates the Gem will build second house here.”
July 22, 1939, p 78: “Filmrow looked deserted for a couple of days this week when the gang went to Omak to attend the opening of Charlie Grieme’s new house, the Omak.”
Trying to puzzle out from Boxoffice what really happened in this town is a series of WTF moments. What’s clear is that a theater opened in Omak in 1939, and it was probably the one that is now called the Omak. In the photos linked above it certainly looks like something that would have been built in 1939. This theater might have been the Gem rebuilt and renamed, and most likely was.
I’ve found only two mentions in Boxoffice of a Fox Theatre in Omak. The April 10, 1948, item says: “As soon as building restrictions are lifted, the old Red Apple Theatre here will be rebuilt and reopened as the Fox, according to Ike Rodgers, manager here of the Omak Theatre.” (Perhaps Red Apple was an aka for the Red Fox?) And then The May 1 issue the same year has a longer item which says that the old Fox Theatre in Omak was to be renovated and reopened, that it had been dark since 1940, and that it had 300 seats. I can’t find any later mentions of the Fox. Perhaps the project to reopen it was abandoned.
According to the caption of a small photo of its facade published in Boxoffice Magazine, December 8, 1945, the Pioneer Theatre had recently opened at Falfurrias, Texas.
The original Tower Theatre in Drumright, opened in 1937 by the Griffith Amusement Company, burned on December 11, 1944. Rebuilding was delayed due to wartime shortages. Boxoffice Magazine of March 30, 1946, announced that the opening of the rebuilt Tower was scheduled for April 12 that year.
I can find no mention of a Boomtown Theatre in Boxoffice Magazine or any of its predecessors. The closest in name was a Boom Town Theatre in Martin City, Montana. The only theaters in Drumright I’ve found mentioned in Boxoffice are the Tower and the Midwest.
There were apparently at least two theaters called the Omak. The July 15, 1939, issue of Boxoffice reported that the Omak Theatre at Omak had opened on July 12. The owner of the new house was Charlie Grieme (Boxoffice sometimes spells the name Greime), operator of several inland Washington theaters.
An item in the April 10, 1948, issue of Boxoffice mentioned in passing that Charles Greime had rebuilt the Omak Theatre in 1939. The wording suggests that the new theater was built on the same site that a theater of the same name had occupied.
I’ve found a reference from 1929 to a New Omak Theatre as well as a Gem Theatre at Omak. A 1938 Boxoffice item mentions Charlie Grieme as owner of two theaters at Omak, one being the Gem, but no name was given for the other. If the New Omak Theater of 1929 was the theater rebuilt in 1939, the fact that it was called the New Omak then suggests that there might have had been a still earlier Omak Theatre.
The May 14, 1949, issue of Boxoffice included the Mayfair on its list of new theater projects recently opened or under construction. Scheduled opening of the Mayfair was May 15. The house had 800 seats and was to be operated under a 20 year lease by Paul Catalano and Arthur Yarimie.
From Boxoffice, June 24, 1950: “P.V. Williams of Munday and Clyde Williams of Knox City have broken ground on a new drive-in theatre between Munday and Knox City.” That was probably the Sunset.
Elmo Hooser was probably related to T.J. Hooser, business partner of P.V. Williams. Williams managed the pair’s theaters in Munday while Hooser managed the Ritz and Texas in Seymour. The pair were also partners in a drive-in at Brazos.
The Plaza Theatre was built in 1953. A photo of the auditorium appeared in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of July 7, 1956, as part of a feature about wide screens. The caption included the line: “The Plaza, erected in 1953, is said to be the first new theatre especially designed for widescreen and stereosound.”
A March 12, 1949, Boxoffice item about the opening of the El Rancho Drive-In had information about other theaters in Vernon. There were four indoor houses in operation then, these being the 350-seat Majestic and the 400-seat Mecca, both operated by Cortez Hamm, and the 1000-seat Vernon and 500-seat Pic, operated by Interstate Theatres. A second drive-in was already under construction as well.
A 1941 Boxoffice item mentions a Pictorium Theatre at Vernon. That was probably the Pic’s earlier name.
The Vernon Theatre was destroyed by fire in September, 1952, and a January 31, 1953, Boxoffice item said that a new theater was being built to replace it. The item called the new house the Vernon Theatre, but I’ve found no later mentions of a Vernon Theatre in Vernon, so I’m wondering if perhaps the new theater was named the Plaza instead. The new house was described in Boxoffice as having a front of tan face brick, which the Plaza has, and the opening year is certainly right.
An item in the January 10, 1948, Boxoffice says that P.V. Williams had recently opened a second theater at Munday, the Roy. “He rigged up some equipment from Herber Bros. and got the house going for roving agricultural workers who come from the southwest and Mexico” the item said. Williams told Boxoffice that the Roy did well when showing Mexican pictures.
A November, 1949, Boxoffice item said that the Roy had reopened for the winter, so it was apparently a seasonal theater.
Williams opened the Roxy in 1928, and there was a brief article with photo in the September 15 issue of Motion Picture Times that year. The Roxy had 490 seats.
A July 16, 1949, Boxoffice article about Williams said that he had opened his first theater in Munday in 1913. No name was given for that house.
The Harris Theatre of Jeannette was in operation prior to 1939, at the time the Harris Amusement Company took a lease on Michael Manos’s new Manos Theatre in the same town. The new house operated as the Harris-Manos Theatre until 1949, at which time operation was taken over by the Manos circuit. The Harris circuit continued to operate the Harris Theatre as well during this decade.
In 1950, Manos bought the Harris Theatre, ending the Harris circuit’s presence in Jeannette. The March 25 issue of Boxoffice that year said that Michael Manos had closed the Harris Theatre. I’ve not found any later mentions of the Harris in Boxoffice.
Through the 1940s, Boxoffice sometimes hyphenates the name of this theater, sometimes calls it the Harris Manos Theatre or Harris' Manos Theatre, and sometimes just calls it the Manos Theatre. The theater was built by Michael Manos in 1939, and then leased to the Harris Amusement Company until 1949.
The November 8, 1939, issue of Boxoffice reveals that the Manos Theatre was designed by architect Victor A. Rigaumont. Arnold Picchi of Tuckahoe, New York, was the decorator. Both John Harris and Michael Manos were present at the opening night ceremonies, November 7, 1939.
The March 18, 1949, issue of Boxoffice ran an item about the Manos circuit which included the information that the Harris circuit’s lease on the Manos Theatre in Jeannette would expire on October 1, and that Manos would then take over operation of the house. After 1949, Boxoffice always calls the house the Manos Theatre, and the name Harris never appears in conjunction with it again.
The name of this theater is currently misspelled. The spelling Kihchel is used throughout the various items about it in issues of Boxoffice. I’m sometimes skeptical of spellings Boxoffice gives, but in this case they agree with posts about the Kihchel family of Jeannette at a couple of genealogy sites, and a history of the town published in 2005.
The Kihchel Theatre was built by Mrs. Bessie Kihchel, widow of Princess Theatre owner Oliver A. Kihchel, and her sons Oliver D. and Burt R. Kihchel.
The April 8, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that construction was about to begin on the new Kihchel Theatre. The item said that the Princess Theatre would be closed in May, and that all but its alley-side wall would be demolished, so the new theater was almost entirely new construction.
The September 2, 1950, issue of Boxoffice said that the Kihchel Theatre had opened on August 25. With 800 seats, the new theater was almost twice the size of the Princess. The new house was designed by architects Sorber & Horne.
Cleveland’s Telenews Theatre was featured in an article in the April 26, 1941, issue of Boxoffice. The design of the theater was attributed to Cleveland architect George Howard Burrows, best known for the hundreds of houses he designed in such neighborhoods as Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights. Boxoffice gave the seating capacity of the Telenews as 480.
Among the features of this theater were a modern art gallery featuring works by local artists, with exhibits changed twice monthly, and a radio studio (including seating for an audience) in the basement, from which programs could be broadcast over a number of area stations.
A photograph of the auditorium of the Temple Theatre appeared in the April 26, 1941, issue of Boxoffice magazine. The 750-seat house featured the first installation of black light illumination in the area. The walls were covered in a velour fabric printed with luminescent dyes in a pattern matching the theater’s carpet. The Art Moderne design of the Temple was the work of Pittsburgh architect Robert C. Bowers.
The September 21, 1964, issue of Boxoffice gives the exact opening date of the Coast Theatre as September 10.
The recently opened Coast Theatre was featured in an article in the January 18, 1965, issue of Boxoffice. It was originally a single-screen house of 682 seats. Built for the Mann family’s Noyo Theatres, the Coast was designed by San Francisco architect Gale Santocono in a California Modern style. The exterior remains largely unchanged today.
A May 18, 1970, Boxoffice Magazine article about the groundbreaking for the Lark Theatre said that the Lark was a replacement for the Grand, and that the Grand was to be demolished after the opening of the new house.
The Lark Theatre opened on November 19, 1970, according to the November 23 issue of Boxoffice. It was built for the North Central Theatres division of ABC Theatres. The August 24 issue of Boxoffice had said that the new house was intended to replace the circuit’s Grand Theatre, which was located adjacent to the new theater.
The May 18, 1970, issue of Boxoffice ran an item about the groundbreaking for the project. This item said that the new theater was designed by New York City architect George Henry Greene, who designed many theaters for ABC during this period. The seating capacity given in the Boxoffice item was 688. It also said that the old Grand Theatre was scheduled for demolition following the opening of the new house.
Joseph E. Rosatti was the lead architect for the 1935 rebuilding of the Grand, with the Minneapolis firm of Liebenberg & Kaplan as consulting architects. The August, 1983, issue of Boxoffice Magazine featured an article about Jack Liebenberg which included a small photo of the Grand from around the time of its opening.
DFC is correct. As the theater was on one of the corners with an obtuse angle, it had to be on either the northwest or southeast corner, and the photo shows the front on Gravesend/McDonald Avenue (note that the street sign shows that Washington/Parkville Avenue ran along the side of the theater, not along the front.) The 1915 directory probably got the number right but the street wrong. There is no 1028 Parkville Avenue. The street is too short to reach that number. The correct address today must be 1028 McDonald Avenue.
The “From the Boxoffice Files (Twenty Years Ago)” feature in the magazine’s issue of February 8, 1947, says that Harry Tanner had bought the Dixie Theatre in Vandalia from S.E. Pirtle.
The March 8, 1941, issue of Boxoffice Magazine reported on extensive fire damage to the Liberty Theatre building, with the total loss estimated at $80,000. The IOOF lodge on the third floor suffered $20,000 in equipment losses, and the building’s $20,000 air conditioning system was destroyed.
The theater was obviously repaired, but I’ve been unable to find a date for the reopening.
The current occupant of the former theater building, and apparently the building next door to the south as well, is an outfit called Medical Purchasing Corporation. It might be a buyer’s co-op of some sort. They use the address 5419 S. Vermont. In Google Street View I don’t see any signage on the building at all. They probably use the space mostly for warehousing.
Not demolished. The Round Up’s building still stands. The L.A. County assessor’s office lists buildings at 5419 and 5425 S. Vermont. From the street they look like one building, but they are separate structures remodeled with a common facade.
The theater was in the northerly building, now using the address 5419 (probably originally the address of a store front, with another store front at 5423, and the theater’s entrance would have been between them.) It’s a 5400 square foot building erected in 1920, very likely as a theater. If you use Google Street view and look up the alley at it from 55th Street, you can see that it still has the paired rear exits characteristic of theater buildings.
Interestingly enough, the 1929 City Directory has the address listed in the Motion Picture Theatres section, but doesn’t give a theater name. Instead, it gives the personal name “Fisher W.D.” for that address. I don’t have access to city directories from earlier in the 1920s, so can’t check to see if the address was listed with a theater name then. However, it is listed in the 1936 directory as the Colonial Theatre, so there’s another aka.
Boxoffice provides lots of confusion in its few items about Omak. To add to the complications, an October 26, 1940, Boxoffice item dateline Omak reads: “‘Dreaming Out Loud’ broke all boxoffice records for a Saturday here at the Gem Theatre, which opened two years ago.”
But a Gem at Omak, Washington, was mentioned in an ad in the December 7, 1929, Movie Age, so the name Gem must have been used for two theaters, unless Boxoffice mistakenly called the new Omak Theatre by the name Gem (and was off about how long it had been open, since the July 1939 opening of the Omak was well covered.) It’s also possible that Boxoffice mistakenly called the rebuilt Gem the Omak Theatre in the 1939 item, but that seems less likely.
After a few more searches, I’ve concluded that the New Omak Theatre, no town specified, mentioned in the same 1929 ad that also mentioned the Gem was probably just misread by Google’s search, and the ad most likely said New Omaha. The fuzzy scan of the magazine itself is as difficult for me to to read as it is for Google.
But Boxoffice in 1938 was quite specific about there being two theaters in Omak, both operated by Charles Grieme, and one of them was called the Gem. Unfortunately the 1939 article about the opening of Charlie Grieme’s new Omak Theatre didn’t mention there being another theater in town.
Here’s the gist of five relevant Boxoffice items in chronological order.
June 11, 1938: Charlie Grieme turns over operation of his two theaters at Omak to his son Will.
June 3, 1939: Charley Greime, owner of the Gem at Omak, says the town will get “…a brand new theater.”
July 15, 1939: Charlie Grieme opens his new Omak Theatre in Omak on July 12.
The next two are an example of Boxoffice’s left and right hands being ignorant of one another’s actions (even the spelling is inconsistent:)
July 22, 1939, p. 20" “Omak— Charley Greime who operates the Gem will build second house here.”
July 22, 1939, p 78: “Filmrow looked deserted for a couple of days this week when the gang went to Omak to attend the opening of Charlie Grieme’s new house, the Omak.”
Trying to puzzle out from Boxoffice what really happened in this town is a series of WTF moments. What’s clear is that a theater opened in Omak in 1939, and it was probably the one that is now called the Omak. In the photos linked above it certainly looks like something that would have been built in 1939. This theater might have been the Gem rebuilt and renamed, and most likely was.
I’ve found only two mentions in Boxoffice of a Fox Theatre in Omak. The April 10, 1948, item says: “As soon as building restrictions are lifted, the old Red Apple Theatre here will be rebuilt and reopened as the Fox, according to Ike Rodgers, manager here of the Omak Theatre.” (Perhaps Red Apple was an aka for the Red Fox?) And then The May 1 issue the same year has a longer item which says that the old Fox Theatre in Omak was to be renovated and reopened, that it had been dark since 1940, and that it had 300 seats. I can’t find any later mentions of the Fox. Perhaps the project to reopen it was abandoned.
The Capitan Theatre was nearing completion according to the July 20, 1946, issue of Boxoffice. It was part of the Underwood-Ezell circuit.
According to the caption of a small photo of its facade published in Boxoffice Magazine, December 8, 1945, the Pioneer Theatre had recently opened at Falfurrias, Texas.
The original Tower Theatre in Drumright, opened in 1937 by the Griffith Amusement Company, burned on December 11, 1944. Rebuilding was delayed due to wartime shortages. Boxoffice Magazine of March 30, 1946, announced that the opening of the rebuilt Tower was scheduled for April 12 that year.
I can find no mention of a Boomtown Theatre in Boxoffice Magazine or any of its predecessors. The closest in name was a Boom Town Theatre in Martin City, Montana. The only theaters in Drumright I’ve found mentioned in Boxoffice are the Tower and the Midwest.
The three-screen De Anza Drive-In was designed by Charles Cox & Associates, according to an article in the February 14, 1977, issue of Boxoffice.
There were apparently at least two theaters called the Omak. The July 15, 1939, issue of Boxoffice reported that the Omak Theatre at Omak had opened on July 12. The owner of the new house was Charlie Grieme (Boxoffice sometimes spells the name Greime), operator of several inland Washington theaters.
An item in the April 10, 1948, issue of Boxoffice mentioned in passing that Charles Greime had rebuilt the Omak Theatre in 1939. The wording suggests that the new theater was built on the same site that a theater of the same name had occupied.
I’ve found a reference from 1929 to a New Omak Theatre as well as a Gem Theatre at Omak. A 1938 Boxoffice item mentions Charlie Grieme as owner of two theaters at Omak, one being the Gem, but no name was given for the other. If the New Omak Theater of 1929 was the theater rebuilt in 1939, the fact that it was called the New Omak then suggests that there might have had been a still earlier Omak Theatre.
The May 14, 1949, issue of Boxoffice included the Mayfair on its list of new theater projects recently opened or under construction. Scheduled opening of the Mayfair was May 15. The house had 800 seats and was to be operated under a 20 year lease by Paul Catalano and Arthur Yarimie.
From Boxoffice, June 24, 1950: “P.V. Williams of Munday and Clyde Williams of Knox City have broken ground on a new drive-in theatre between Munday and Knox City.” That was probably the Sunset.
Elmo Hooser was probably related to T.J. Hooser, business partner of P.V. Williams. Williams managed the pair’s theaters in Munday while Hooser managed the Ritz and Texas in Seymour. The pair were also partners in a drive-in at Brazos.
The Plaza Theatre was built in 1953. A photo of the auditorium appeared in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of July 7, 1956, as part of a feature about wide screens. The caption included the line: “The Plaza, erected in 1953, is said to be the first new theatre especially designed for widescreen and stereosound.”
A March 12, 1949, Boxoffice item about the opening of the El Rancho Drive-In had information about other theaters in Vernon. There were four indoor houses in operation then, these being the 350-seat Majestic and the 400-seat Mecca, both operated by Cortez Hamm, and the 1000-seat Vernon and 500-seat Pic, operated by Interstate Theatres. A second drive-in was already under construction as well.
A 1941 Boxoffice item mentions a Pictorium Theatre at Vernon. That was probably the Pic’s earlier name.
The Vernon Theatre was destroyed by fire in September, 1952, and a January 31, 1953, Boxoffice item said that a new theater was being built to replace it. The item called the new house the Vernon Theatre, but I’ve found no later mentions of a Vernon Theatre in Vernon, so I’m wondering if perhaps the new theater was named the Plaza instead. The new house was described in Boxoffice as having a front of tan face brick, which the Plaza has, and the opening year is certainly right.
An item in the January 10, 1948, Boxoffice says that P.V. Williams had recently opened a second theater at Munday, the Roy. “He rigged up some equipment from Herber Bros. and got the house going for roving agricultural workers who come from the southwest and Mexico” the item said. Williams told Boxoffice that the Roy did well when showing Mexican pictures.
A November, 1949, Boxoffice item said that the Roy had reopened for the winter, so it was apparently a seasonal theater.
Williams opened the Roxy in 1928, and there was a brief article with photo in the September 15 issue of Motion Picture Times that year. The Roxy had 490 seats.
A July 16, 1949, Boxoffice article about Williams said that he had opened his first theater in Munday in 1913. No name was given for that house.