Southwest Builder & Contractor, issue of March 28, 1930, said that architect Rudolph Falkenrath, Jr. had been authorized to proceed with the final working drawings for a 1200 seat, reinforced concrete theater building to be built at Auburn, for the Auburn Amusement Company.
The September 2, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine revealed that the 4-Screen Drive-In was designed by Los Angeles architect Lewis Eugene Wilson. Wilson was also the architect of the Baldwin Theatre in Los Angeles, opened in 1949, and in 1951 a second four-screen drive-in of his design began operating in St. Ann, Missouri (Cinema Treasures page here.)
Boxoffice published an item in its December 15, 1951, issue, announcing that Chicago’s 4-Screen Drive-In, operated by the Essaness circuit, would not open for the 1952 season. Edwin Silverman, speaking for the company, blamed “featherbedding” by the projectionists union for the decision to remain closed. He said that the union was “…demanding four men at the highest wage scale in America,” and that the operation of the theater was impossible under those circumstances. Apparently, the company was unable to resolve this conflict with the union, and this drive-in never returned to four-screen operation.
There was another Hall Theatre, in Cassville, Missouri, built in 1945, and also designed by Robert Boller. The owners were a Mr. and Mrs. Glen Hall, according to an item in the December 15, 1951, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The article was mainly about a new drive-in to be built by the Halls (and again designed by Boller) on a site south of Cassville. Does anybody know anything about these theaters in Cassville? Cinema Treasures currently has nothing listed for that town.
Charles: Thanks for the clarification. I see that Cinema Treasures has a Victory Drive-In listed as being in Menominee Falls. Is that the one that was actually in Butler? If so, I can place a comment there mentioning the Journal article’s attribution of the design to Urban Peacock.
The December 15, 1951, issue of Boxoffice Magazine carried a small ad placed by Jim West, owner of the Hollywood Theatre, offering the house for sale or lease. No price was quoted, but the ad boasted “Everything Modern – Good Location” and said that the Hollywood had 875 seats.
The current introductory paragraph for this theater needs to be updated with the opening date of June 18, 1940, given by Charles Bruss above.
The ads on the page that he linked to (and Lost Memory re-linked to just above) don’t use the name “Blue Mound Drive-In” until 1949. Before that they usually say simply “Drive-In Theatre” with Blue Mound Road usually mentioned somewhere below. Drive-In Theatre should probably be an AKA.
Here’s another puzzle: A 1995 article from the Milwaukee Journal (about the Paradise Theatre in Milwaukee) mentions that architect Urban Peacock was the designer of the “Victory Drive-In” in Brookfield. Was this theater ever called the Victory? Did Brookfield have another drive-in, not yet listed at Cinema Treasures? Did the Milwaukee Journal make a mistake? Was the Victory Drive-In that Peacock designed in some other town? Charles? Anybody?
The December 9, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine announced the recent opening of the Donna Theatre “…after many delays in construction.” The architect was named as Urban F. Peacock, of Milwaukee. The article says that “The theatre is named after Mrs. Donna Borchert, owner of the Donna and the older Door Theatre here.” A Mr. Herman Graefe was named as being the manager of both houses.
The feature on opening night was “King Solomon’s Mines” and there was also a marionette show. Mrs. Borchert, mayor Stanley Greene, and “…visiting theatre officials” gave brief talks. A glittering night for Sturgeon Bay, indeed.
A small article about this theater appears in the September 2, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. It says the architect was Urban Peacock of Milwaukee. The Kewaskum was built long after the firm of Peacock & Frank was dissolved, so it can just be listed as the work of Urban F. Peacock.
The article says that the theater was of “modernistic” design, built of concrete blocks with a brick facing, and describes the interior as “…finished with varicolored Celotex blocks and lighting is of trough type.” It says that the theater had RCA projection and sound equipment, and “…475 Kroehler seats are installed in the auditorium.”
The architect for the restoration of the Grand Opera House was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The architect for the restoration of the Ritz Theatre was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The architect for the restoration of the Paramount Theatre was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The architect for the restoration of the Fox Theatre was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The architect for the restoration of the Palace Theater was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The architect for the restoration of the Alameda Theater was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The architect for the restoration of the Majestic Theater was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The architect of the Cinemark Melrose 10 was Kip E. Daniel. Here’s a pdf file about the construction of this theater. It mistakenly adds an “s” to the end of his name. Kip E. Daniel is a principal and a managing director of the Beck Group, a design-build firm headquartered in Dallas, which has built numerous multiplex cinemas for Cinemark and other exhibitors.
Ken: I’ve been trying to discover if the Plaza had formerly been the Fox’s Hall mentioned on this page, and this page at the Healdsburg Museum’s web site. The former page says that Fox’s Hall was built “behind” the Masonic building, suggesting a ground floor site, and the latter page gives the location as the west side of West Street between Plaza and North Streets, which is the block where the Plaza was (it also has a smallphoto of Fox’s Hall in 1904.) Healdsburg has short blocks, and I can’t find any evidence for another theater of the Plaza’s size ever being on that block, but I can’t find the exact address of Fox’s Hall to confirm that they were the same building.
Thanks, Ken. If the Plaza was on West Street, then the Raven must be the 1950 house designed by Gale Santocono. Santocono, like his father, Matteo, was an artist and designer based in San Francisco (he did the decoration the Varsity Theatre in Davis, California, among others), but there are also a couple of cards in the California Index citing 1950 issues of Architect & Engineer saying which refer to him as an architect, specifically of this theater. I’ve been unable to confirm that he was actually a licensed architect, though. He might have been working with an engineer, but doing the actual architectural design himself.
The February 2, 1952, issue of Boxoffice Magazine cites him as the designer of the Seaview Theatre in Pacifica, the Village Theatre in Sacramento, and the Guild Theatre in San Francisco, as well as the Terrace Drive-In (the subject of the article- and yet to be added to Cinema Treasures) in San Francisco.
The February 16, 1952, issue of Boxoffice refers to Santocono as a “theater architect” and says that he is preparing designs for improvements to the Vacaville Theatre in Vacaville.
Also, ken mc unearthed a 1962 L.A. Times article naming Santocono as the architect of the Showcase Theater in Oakland (see Ken’s comment on that page.) And, as robertgippy says in the first comment above, the Raven was a near twin of the Clover Cinema in Cloverdale, before the Clover was remodeled, so that’s probably one of Santocono’s designs as well. The Boxoffice article says, after listing four of Santocono’s theaters, that he designed “many others” as well. I wish there was more about him on the Internet.
By the way, the aka’s listed for this theater should be Avon Theater and Raven Theater. Currently it just says “Aven” Theater.
This theater has not been demolished. It opened in 1926 as the Clark Theater, owned by W.J. Clark. It was purchased by the Redwood Theatres chain in 1937, according to an item in Motion Picture Herald’s April 3 issue that year. A brief item in the February 16, 1952, issue of Boxoffice Magazine mentioned that theater architect Gale (misspelled “Gail” in the magazine) Santocono was preparing plans for improvements to the Vacaville Theater, and the owner at that time was named as Dom Isabells.
In 2005, the theater was owned by an outfit called New Life Production Company, and a woman named Leatha Dillon applied for a permit to convert the balcony of the theater into a living space (I don’t know if the balcony in question is a true balcony or just a stadium seating section.) There was considerable opposition, and the city’s planning commission denied the request. The record of the meeting about Ms. Dillon’s permit application revealed that, at that time, all but about 100 of the theater’s seats had been removed.
The February, 2008 article about possible restoration of the theater, linked above by Lost Memory (and yes, LM, it is the same theater), is now behind the Vacaville Reporter’s pay wall, so I haven’t read it, and I can’t find anything else about such a project on the Internet. Apparently the future of this theater is still undecided.
Google Maps street view of the building shows that it still has its marquee, box office, and attraction poster cases, and the facade bears a sign for the web address moviechurches dot com. This URL currently fetches some unrelated site, in German.
I’ve been unable to discover who was the architect for the conversion of this building into a movie theater in 1970, but the building itself was designed by Russell E. Collins, and built for Ralphs Market in 1929. In 1988, the city of Los Angeles declared the building Historic Cultural Monument #360. In 1992, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
There’s an article in the February 2, 1952, issue of Boxoffice Magazine about a Corral Theatre that was located near the Fort Worth, Texas, suburb of Forest Hills. It says that this open air walk-in theatre had recently been completed by owner J.C. Wilson, to replace his Forest Theatre which had burned the previous year.
A couple of photos show rough plank walls and wooden bench seating, and a “chuck wagon” that served as the concession stand, located near the screen. I can’t find anything else about it on the Internet, but it must have been built in imitation of this theater in Wimberly.
The February 2, 1952 issue of Boxoffice Magazine has an ad for Heywood-Wakefield theater seating featuring the Ridgeway, with a couple of interior photos and one of the exterior, all grey scale.
The text says that the theater was both designed and decorated by Alfons Bach. Alfons Bach Associates (the firm he founded in 1932) did design the Ridgway Center, as the shopping mall in which this theater was located was called. There is supposed to be material on this project in the Alfons Bach collection at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in New York City, but I don’t know if it’s accessible to the public. It’s not online.
Bach was one of the major figures of modern design, and a co-founder of the American Designers Institute. Here’s a brief biography.
The Kent Theatre opened earlier than 1955. It had “recently” opened, according to the February 2nd, 1952 issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The owner was J. Harper Kent, and the theatre featured a private lounge for members of the Kent family and their guests. A big fish in a small pond, I suppose. The article gives the seating capacity as only 400.
There is also mention of another theatre in Bathurst, a 350 seat house called the Opera House and then the Capitol, which had been operated by a Mr. Peter Leger “…for about 40 years.”
Southwest Builder & Contractor, issue of March 28, 1930, said that architect Rudolph Falkenrath, Jr. had been authorized to proceed with the final working drawings for a 1200 seat, reinforced concrete theater building to be built at Auburn, for the Auburn Amusement Company.
The September 2, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine revealed that the 4-Screen Drive-In was designed by Los Angeles architect Lewis Eugene Wilson. Wilson was also the architect of the Baldwin Theatre in Los Angeles, opened in 1949, and in 1951 a second four-screen drive-in of his design began operating in St. Ann, Missouri (Cinema Treasures page here.)
Boxoffice published an item in its December 15, 1951, issue, announcing that Chicago’s 4-Screen Drive-In, operated by the Essaness circuit, would not open for the 1952 season. Edwin Silverman, speaking for the company, blamed “featherbedding” by the projectionists union for the decision to remain closed. He said that the union was “…demanding four men at the highest wage scale in America,” and that the operation of the theater was impossible under those circumstances. Apparently, the company was unable to resolve this conflict with the union, and this drive-in never returned to four-screen operation.
There was another Hall Theatre, in Cassville, Missouri, built in 1945, and also designed by Robert Boller. The owners were a Mr. and Mrs. Glen Hall, according to an item in the December 15, 1951, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The article was mainly about a new drive-in to be built by the Halls (and again designed by Boller) on a site south of Cassville. Does anybody know anything about these theaters in Cassville? Cinema Treasures currently has nothing listed for that town.
Charles: Thanks for the clarification. I see that Cinema Treasures has a Victory Drive-In listed as being in Menominee Falls. Is that the one that was actually in Butler? If so, I can place a comment there mentioning the Journal article’s attribution of the design to Urban Peacock.
The December 15, 1951, issue of Boxoffice Magazine carried a small ad placed by Jim West, owner of the Hollywood Theatre, offering the house for sale or lease. No price was quoted, but the ad boasted “Everything Modern – Good Location” and said that the Hollywood had 875 seats.
The current introductory paragraph for this theater needs to be updated with the opening date of June 18, 1940, given by Charles Bruss above.
The ads on the page that he linked to (and Lost Memory re-linked to just above) don’t use the name “Blue Mound Drive-In” until 1949. Before that they usually say simply “Drive-In Theatre” with Blue Mound Road usually mentioned somewhere below. Drive-In Theatre should probably be an AKA.
Here’s another puzzle: A 1995 article from the Milwaukee Journal (about the Paradise Theatre in Milwaukee) mentions that architect Urban Peacock was the designer of the “Victory Drive-In” in Brookfield. Was this theater ever called the Victory? Did Brookfield have another drive-in, not yet listed at Cinema Treasures? Did the Milwaukee Journal make a mistake? Was the Victory Drive-In that Peacock designed in some other town? Charles? Anybody?
The December 9, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine announced the recent opening of the Donna Theatre “…after many delays in construction.” The architect was named as Urban F. Peacock, of Milwaukee. The article says that “The theatre is named after Mrs. Donna Borchert, owner of the Donna and the older Door Theatre here.” A Mr. Herman Graefe was named as being the manager of both houses.
The feature on opening night was “King Solomon’s Mines” and there was also a marionette show. Mrs. Borchert, mayor Stanley Greene, and “…visiting theatre officials” gave brief talks. A glittering night for Sturgeon Bay, indeed.
A small article about this theater appears in the September 2, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. It says the architect was Urban Peacock of Milwaukee. The Kewaskum was built long after the firm of Peacock & Frank was dissolved, so it can just be listed as the work of Urban F. Peacock.
The article says that the theater was of “modernistic” design, built of concrete blocks with a brick facing, and describes the interior as “…finished with varicolored Celotex blocks and lighting is of trough type.” It says that the theater had RCA projection and sound equipment, and “…475 Kroehler seats are installed in the auditorium.”
The architect for the restoration of the Grand Opera House was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The architect for the restoration of the Ritz Theatre was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The architect for the restoration of the Paramount Theatre was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The architect for the restoration of the Fox Theatre was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The architect for the restoration of the Palace Theater was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The architect for the restoration of the Alameda Theater was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The architect for the restoration of the Majestic Theater was Killis Almond, of Killis Almond & Associates, a San Antonio, Texas, based firm specializing in the restoration of historic buildings. Click on their “Projects” link to find a link to a page about this theater, as well as links to pages about some of their other theater projects.
The AmStar Stadium 12 is now operated by Southern Theatres.
Here’s Southern Theatres' The Grand Theatre web site, which provides listings for all seven AmStar Theatres locations.
The architect of the Cinemark Melrose 10 was Kip E. Daniel. Here’s a pdf file about the construction of this theater. It mistakenly adds an “s” to the end of his name. Kip E. Daniel is a principal and a managing director of the Beck Group, a design-build firm headquartered in Dallas, which has built numerous multiplex cinemas for Cinemark and other exhibitors.
Don’t miss Floyd B. Bariscale’s profusely illustrated page about the Hollywood Pantages, at his Big Orange Landmarks web site.
Ken: I’ve been trying to discover if the Plaza had formerly been the Fox’s Hall mentioned on this page, and this page at the Healdsburg Museum’s web site. The former page says that Fox’s Hall was built “behind” the Masonic building, suggesting a ground floor site, and the latter page gives the location as the west side of West Street between Plaza and North Streets, which is the block where the Plaza was (it also has a smallphoto of Fox’s Hall in 1904.) Healdsburg has short blocks, and I can’t find any evidence for another theater of the Plaza’s size ever being on that block, but I can’t find the exact address of Fox’s Hall to confirm that they were the same building.
Thanks, Ken. If the Plaza was on West Street, then the Raven must be the 1950 house designed by Gale Santocono. Santocono, like his father, Matteo, was an artist and designer based in San Francisco (he did the decoration the Varsity Theatre in Davis, California, among others), but there are also a couple of cards in the California Index citing 1950 issues of Architect & Engineer saying which refer to him as an architect, specifically of this theater. I’ve been unable to confirm that he was actually a licensed architect, though. He might have been working with an engineer, but doing the actual architectural design himself.
The February 2, 1952, issue of Boxoffice Magazine cites him as the designer of the Seaview Theatre in Pacifica, the Village Theatre in Sacramento, and the Guild Theatre in San Francisco, as well as the Terrace Drive-In (the subject of the article- and yet to be added to Cinema Treasures) in San Francisco.
The February 16, 1952, issue of Boxoffice refers to Santocono as a “theater architect” and says that he is preparing designs for improvements to the Vacaville Theatre in Vacaville.
Also, ken mc unearthed a 1962 L.A. Times article naming Santocono as the architect of the Showcase Theater in Oakland (see Ken’s comment on that page.) And, as robertgippy says in the first comment above, the Raven was a near twin of the Clover Cinema in Cloverdale, before the Clover was remodeled, so that’s probably one of Santocono’s designs as well. The Boxoffice article says, after listing four of Santocono’s theaters, that he designed “many others” as well. I wish there was more about him on the Internet.
By the way, the aka’s listed for this theater should be Avon Theater and Raven Theater. Currently it just says “Aven” Theater.
This theater has not been demolished. It opened in 1926 as the Clark Theater, owned by W.J. Clark. It was purchased by the Redwood Theatres chain in 1937, according to an item in Motion Picture Herald’s April 3 issue that year. A brief item in the February 16, 1952, issue of Boxoffice Magazine mentioned that theater architect Gale (misspelled “Gail” in the magazine) Santocono was preparing plans for improvements to the Vacaville Theater, and the owner at that time was named as Dom Isabells.
In 2005, the theater was owned by an outfit called New Life Production Company, and a woman named Leatha Dillon applied for a permit to convert the balcony of the theater into a living space (I don’t know if the balcony in question is a true balcony or just a stadium seating section.) There was considerable opposition, and the city’s planning commission denied the request. The record of the meeting about Ms. Dillon’s permit application revealed that, at that time, all but about 100 of the theater’s seats had been removed.
The February, 2008 article about possible restoration of the theater, linked above by Lost Memory (and yes, LM, it is the same theater), is now behind the Vacaville Reporter’s pay wall, so I haven’t read it, and I can’t find anything else about such a project on the Internet. Apparently the future of this theater is still undecided.
Google Maps street view of the building shows that it still has its marquee, box office, and attraction poster cases, and the facade bears a sign for the web address moviechurches dot com. This URL currently fetches some unrelated site, in German.
I’ve been unable to discover who was the architect for the conversion of this building into a movie theater in 1970, but the building itself was designed by Russell E. Collins, and built for Ralphs Market in 1929. In 1988, the city of Los Angeles declared the building Historic Cultural Monument #360. In 1992, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
There’s an article in the February 2, 1952, issue of Boxoffice Magazine about a Corral Theatre that was located near the Fort Worth, Texas, suburb of Forest Hills. It says that this open air walk-in theatre had recently been completed by owner J.C. Wilson, to replace his Forest Theatre which had burned the previous year.
A couple of photos show rough plank walls and wooden bench seating, and a “chuck wagon” that served as the concession stand, located near the screen. I can’t find anything else about it on the Internet, but it must have been built in imitation of this theater in Wimberly.
The February 2, 1952 issue of Boxoffice Magazine has an ad for Heywood-Wakefield theater seating featuring the Ridgeway, with a couple of interior photos and one of the exterior, all grey scale.
The text says that the theater was both designed and decorated by Alfons Bach. Alfons Bach Associates (the firm he founded in 1932) did design the Ridgway Center, as the shopping mall in which this theater was located was called. There is supposed to be material on this project in the Alfons Bach collection at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in New York City, but I don’t know if it’s accessible to the public. It’s not online.
Bach was one of the major figures of modern design, and a co-founder of the American Designers Institute. Here’s a brief biography.
The Kent Theatre opened earlier than 1955. It had “recently” opened, according to the February 2nd, 1952 issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The owner was J. Harper Kent, and the theatre featured a private lounge for members of the Kent family and their guests. A big fish in a small pond, I suppose. The article gives the seating capacity as only 400.
There is also mention of another theatre in Bathurst, a 350 seat house called the Opera House and then the Capitol, which had been operated by a Mr. Peter Leger “…for about 40 years.”