Boxoffice of May 14, 1949 said that “E. B. Hand has opened his Hand Drive-In in Minden, La., making two drive-ins in the town of 6,677 persons. There are three other theatres there.”
The Yazoo Theatre was being operated by Dixie Theatres Corporation when Boxofficeof May 14, 1949 reported that the house had recently reopened following an extended closure to repair fire damage.
An item datelined Newton, N.C. in the May 14, 1949 issue of Boxoffice said “[t]he Catawba Theatre here was completely destroyed by fire last week. It had been operated by Everett Enterprises.”
As the façade of the building at this address looks to date from the late 19th or early 20th century, at least part of the structure clearly survived (though the roof might have collapsed– it’s impossible to tell just from seeing the current front) so “completely destroyed” probably referred to all the theater’s furnishings and equipment.
A house called the Star Theatre was one of the five movie houses listed at Lincoln in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. As the Directory doesn’t provide its address, I can’t be positive that it was the same theater that later became the Vogue.
The Empire Theatre, 119 Kickapoo Street, was one of five movie houses listed at Lincoln in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The entire block it was on, facing the west side of the courthouse in the town square, consists of beautifully restored and well maintained 19th century commercial buildings with retail shops on their ground floors.
I found a note saying that construction on the Martin Theatre in Americus began on April 17, 1941. I’ve been unable to find anything about when it was completed. The note also said that the architect was named McArchen and was from Valdosta, but I’ve been unable to find anything about an architect of that name, so I think it might have been a typo.
The item I cited above also said that the new Martin drive-in at Phenix City Alabama would open that week, but our photo page for the Phenix Drive-In has a grand opening ad dated March 24. I suspect that Boxoffice was tardy in publishing the announcement, so it’s likely that the Sunset was also already open by the time the issue came out.
As far as I’ve been able to determine, the only opera house in Americus was the one that opened on January 27, 1882 as Glover’s Opera House. Cahn guides list it as an 800-seat, second floor theater with a stage 27 feet from footlights to back wall and 56 feet between side walls. Though the theater upstairs has long been dark, the Opera House building is still standing at 111 W. Forsyth Street, its ground floor currently occupied by a medical services lab providing ultrasound.
The Opera House began showing movies fairly early, but does not appear to have remained a movie theater consistently. It was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, unless it was operating under one of the two theater names listed in that publication, the Alcazar and the Grand. But as early as 1907 it was operating as a movie house, as noted in this item from The Moving Picture World in November that year:
“Hub and Comedy Theater Company, of New York, have taken over Glover’s Opera House, Americus, Ga., together with the bookings for the season of 1907-8. Incidentally it may be stated that for the last six weeks the Hub and Comedy Theater Company have been putting on a high-class moving picture show at this amusement house on dark or closed nights. So market has been the success attending this venture that the Glover management made a proposition to the Hub and Comedy Company involving exclusive control of the house, under the management of H. K. Lucas. After some modifications, their offer was accepted. As an instance of the up-to-dateness of the New York concern, the full election news was bulletined at both afternoon and evening performances.”
References to the Opera House in the later 1900s and early 1910s were to live performances, especially vaudeville shows. But by the late 1910s Americus had more modern picture theaters, augmented in the early 1920s by the Rylander, and the old Opera House seems not to have been able to compete with them, as I don’t find any more references to it in the trade publications. Around 2016 a book store and restaurant called BitterSweet opened in the building, apparently just on the ground floor, but it closed in 2017. Aside from that, the history of the Opera House since the early 1920s remains dark.
The Grand Theatre opened as the Great Falls Opera House on January 4, 1892. In style it was a slightly awkward combination of Romanesque and Queen Anne Revival, and was designed by Chicago theater architect Oscar Cobb. It was the leading entertainment venue for Great Falls for many years, still quite popular when Al Jolson made an appearance there on August 31, 1915, by which time it was known as the Grand Opera House.
But after more than a quarter of a century the Opera House was in need of updating, and in 1920 a $50,000 renovation was undertaken. Nothing was changed in the auditorium, which was merely refreshed, as it was blessed with excellent acoustics, but the lobby, lounges, offices, and stage were modernized. After this it was known as the Grand Theatre, though for some years, some high-toned events were still advertised as appearing at the Grand Opera House. I’ve been unable to discover when it became predominantly a movie house.
The Grand also had a life after its years as a movie theater. I found an obituary for a woman who met her husband while they were both working scenery at the Grand in 1946. I’ve also found records of wrestling matches taking place at the Grand in 1947 and 1948.
Sadly, the Grand Theatre was demolished in 1955. I’ve been unable to find the address of the Grand, but it was located on Third Street near Second Avenue North.
I found a reference to someone opening a shoe shine parlor in the Conway Theatre Building in 1925. The September 1, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World had this item in their “Theaters Projected” column:
“CONWAY, ARK.— S. G. and Theodore
Smith have plans by Sanders & Ginnochio, of Little Rock, for fireproof theatre to be erected at North Front and Spencer streets, having main auditorium, 65 by 85 feet, to cost $50,000.”
The parking lot where the Conway Theatre once stood runs through the narrow block from Front Street to Spencer Street, and given that the building had been built by 1925 this notice seems likely to be about the Conway.
The Grand has not been demolished, just extensively remodeled. The auditorium appears to have been gutted and subdivided for retail space, but the stage tower is still standing. As of 2017, the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce, which had the building under contract for purchase (the purchase had been completed by July 2018), was looking into the possibility of returning the structure to theatrical use, as noted in this article from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The article says the Grand closed in 1956.
A house called the Grand Theatre was listed at Conway in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. I’m not positive that it was the same Grand, but given the age of the bricks of the surviving stage tower it’s certainly likely. The Grand was also advertised in the December 10, 1916 Log Cabin Democrat, a local daily.
The corner store now in the Grand’s building, Vesta’s, is at 1101 Oak Street, so we need to update the theater’s address.
A Facebook page called Chincoteague Family Heritage appears to be run by a descendant of the Powell family, and on this page there is a photo of Mabel Powell with a somewhat blurry and washed out view of the New Theatre in the background. The marquee looks quite similar to that of the Island Theatre, but close inspection shows that the New had a narrower entrance.
Multiple sources indicate that the New Theatre building has been demolished, and one suggests that it was perhaps demolished as the result of a flood the area suffered in 1962. The New is mentioned in documents from the Virginia Division of Motion Picture Censorship in 1958, so it must have still been in operation at that time.
It’s now looking like the Powell operated well past the 1920s. The Library of Virginia has a document titled “A Guide to the Records of the Division of Motion Picture Censorship, 1926-1968” (text file here) and it mentions both the New Theatre in 1958 and a house called the New Powell Theatre in 1957-1958. There’s no evidence that the New ever had the aka New Powell, so it looks like the Powell was open into the 1950s.
There is also a brief passage in a book called Chincoteague Summer of 1948: A Waterman’s Childhood Stories by Ed Waterhouse, which says that the Powell and the New were both in operation in the 1940s, though the credibility of this source is somewhat diminished by the repeated misspelling of the name Powell as Pawell. Probably more reliable is an oral history interview of Anne Lumley Davis (PDF here) who moved to Chincoteague at the age of 13 in the mid-1940s, and who says that all three theaters, the Powell, the Island, and the New, were in operation during that period.
Chincoteague is represented in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory only by the listing “M. P. Theatre,” but item number 10 in a walking tour of Chincoteague (PDF here) is listed as the “Old Powell Opera House and Theater,” 4098 Main Street, built by James T. Powell in 1909.
The December 25, 1926 issue of Exhibitors Herald mentioned “Powell, J. T., Powell’s Theatre, Chicoteague Island, Va.” as a participant in a survey the magazine had conducted that year, so the theater must have still been open for at least part of 1926.
And, for what it’s worth, the July 3, 1948 issue of Motion Picture Herald had this item:
“Down on the Eastern Shore
“Marsh Gollner reports that Shore Amusements Inc., have acquired the Powell and New theatres at Chincoteague, down on the eastern shore of Maryland. Marsh is credited with having consummated the deal.”
It’s possible (even likely) that the houses Shore bought in 1948 were the the Island and the New, but the magazine mistakenly gave the name of the seller as the name of the first theater.
There’s an error in this theater’s description. The Movie Misty, which was released in 1961, could not have been the opening night feature at the Island Theatre, but the movie was premiered there. The 1947 book on which it was based was called Misty of Chincoteague, and the movie filmed in the area. The real Misty was still living at the time of the premier, and that was when her hoofprints were set in cement in front of the theater.
I’m just going to speculate from the available evidence for a while. Our recently added page for the Park Theatre says that it was at 417 Main Street, across the street from what is now the Showboat at 418 Main. The October 29, 1949 issue of Boxoffice said that the new Park Theatre in Polson had recently opened with 600 seats. Looking at Google’s satellite view of Polson it seems to me that the building at 417 is too small to have held 600 (or even 541) seats, but the Showboat’s building at 418 would be quite adequate for a theater of that size.
What if we’ve somehow gotten the names and histories of the theaters reversed? I think there’s a pretty good chance that the 375 (or 350, according to the 1951 FDY) seat New Lake Theatre was the house at 417 Main, and that it was the 600 (or 541)-seat Park Theatre that was at 418 Main, and later became the Showboat Cinemas.
Our page for the Lake Theatre seems to be pretty accurate, except for the obviously wrong address on 2nd Street. (It’s also missing a major remodeling that took place in late 1936, with a December 5 reopening as the New Lake Theatre.) The page for the Park also seems accurate, except maybe the address and the closing date, if it did in fact, as I suspect, stay open through the 1950s and later become the Showboat. This page (for the Showboat) is the one that appears to have first conflated the histories of the two theaters.
When remodeled and reopened in late 1936, this house was called the New Lake Theatre, according to the December 3, 1936 issue of The Flathead Courier, which announced that the grand opening of the house was to take place on December 5.
This section of Pocatello was in independent city called Alameda at the time the Crest Theatre opened. It was consolidated with Pocatello in 1962. References to this theater from before that year will probably be found under the city name Alameda.
Boxoffice of May 14, 1949 said that “E. B. Hand has opened his Hand Drive-In in Minden, La., making two drive-ins in the town of 6,677 persons. There are three other theatres there.”
The Yazoo Theatre was being operated by Dixie Theatres Corporation when Boxofficeof May 14, 1949 reported that the house had recently reopened following an extended closure to repair fire damage.
The comment I just left did not post correctly. Mr. Lacy’s initials were W. V.
An item datelined Newton, N.C. in the May 14, 1949 issue of Boxoffice said “[t]he Catawba Theatre here was completely destroyed by fire last week. It had been operated by Everett Enterprises.”
As the façade of the building at this address looks to date from the late 19th or early 20th century, at least part of the structure clearly survived (though the roof might have collapsed– it’s impossible to tell just from seeing the current front) so “completely destroyed” probably referred to all the theater’s furnishings and equipment.
A house called the Star Theatre was one of the five movie houses listed at Lincoln in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. As the Directory doesn’t provide its address, I can’t be positive that it was the same theater that later became the Vogue.
The Broadway must have reopened by 1914, as it was one of five movie houses at Lincoln listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
The Empire Theatre, 119 Kickapoo Street, was one of five movie houses listed at Lincoln in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The entire block it was on, facing the west side of the courthouse in the town square, consists of beautifully restored and well maintained 19th century commercial buildings with retail shops on their ground floors.
I found a note saying that construction on the Martin Theatre in Americus began on April 17, 1941. I’ve been unable to find anything about when it was completed. The note also said that the architect was named McArchen and was from Valdosta, but I’ve been unable to find anything about an architect of that name, so I think it might have been a typo.
The item I cited above also said that the new Martin drive-in at Phenix City Alabama would open that week, but our photo page for the Phenix Drive-In has a grand opening ad dated March 24. I suspect that Boxoffice was tardy in publishing the announcement, so it’s likely that the Sunset was also already open by the time the issue came out.
The April 1, 1950 issue of Boxoffice said that Martin’s new drive-in at Americus would open that week.
As far as I’ve been able to determine, the only opera house in Americus was the one that opened on January 27, 1882 as Glover’s Opera House. Cahn guides list it as an 800-seat, second floor theater with a stage 27 feet from footlights to back wall and 56 feet between side walls. Though the theater upstairs has long been dark, the Opera House building is still standing at 111 W. Forsyth Street, its ground floor currently occupied by a medical services lab providing ultrasound.
The Opera House began showing movies fairly early, but does not appear to have remained a movie theater consistently. It was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, unless it was operating under one of the two theater names listed in that publication, the Alcazar and the Grand. But as early as 1907 it was operating as a movie house, as noted in this item from The Moving Picture World in November that year:
References to the Opera House in the later 1900s and early 1910s were to live performances, especially vaudeville shows. But by the late 1910s Americus had more modern picture theaters, augmented in the early 1920s by the Rylander, and the old Opera House seems not to have been able to compete with them, as I don’t find any more references to it in the trade publications. Around 2016 a book store and restaurant called BitterSweet opened in the building, apparently just on the ground floor, but it closed in 2017. Aside from that, the history of the Opera House since the early 1920s remains dark.There is no Main Street in Great Falls. The Capitol Theatre was on Central Avenue.
The Grand Theatre opened as the Great Falls Opera House on January 4, 1892. In style it was a slightly awkward combination of Romanesque and Queen Anne Revival, and was designed by Chicago theater architect Oscar Cobb. It was the leading entertainment venue for Great Falls for many years, still quite popular when Al Jolson made an appearance there on August 31, 1915, by which time it was known as the Grand Opera House.
But after more than a quarter of a century the Opera House was in need of updating, and in 1920 a $50,000 renovation was undertaken. Nothing was changed in the auditorium, which was merely refreshed, as it was blessed with excellent acoustics, but the lobby, lounges, offices, and stage were modernized. After this it was known as the Grand Theatre, though for some years, some high-toned events were still advertised as appearing at the Grand Opera House. I’ve been unable to discover when it became predominantly a movie house.
The Grand also had a life after its years as a movie theater. I found an obituary for a woman who met her husband while they were both working scenery at the Grand in 1946. I’ve also found records of wrestling matches taking place at the Grand in 1947 and 1948.
Sadly, the Grand Theatre was demolished in 1955. I’ve been unable to find the address of the Grand, but it was located on Third Street near Second Avenue North.
The May 1, 1919 issue of Industrial Record had a notice saying that H. H. Julian was having the Ideal Theatre at Conway, Arkansas remodeled.
I found a reference to someone opening a shoe shine parlor in the Conway Theatre Building in 1925. The September 1, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World had this item in their “Theaters Projected” column:
The parking lot where the Conway Theatre once stood runs through the narrow block from Front Street to Spencer Street, and given that the building had been built by 1925 this notice seems likely to be about the Conway.The Grand has not been demolished, just extensively remodeled. The auditorium appears to have been gutted and subdivided for retail space, but the stage tower is still standing. As of 2017, the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce, which had the building under contract for purchase (the purchase had been completed by July 2018), was looking into the possibility of returning the structure to theatrical use, as noted in this article from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The article says the Grand closed in 1956.
A house called the Grand Theatre was listed at Conway in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. I’m not positive that it was the same Grand, but given the age of the bricks of the surviving stage tower it’s certainly likely. The Grand was also advertised in the December 10, 1916 Log Cabin Democrat, a local daily.
The corner store now in the Grand’s building, Vesta’s, is at 1101 Oak Street, so we need to update the theater’s address.
A Facebook page called Chincoteague Family Heritage appears to be run by a descendant of the Powell family, and on this page there is a photo of Mabel Powell with a somewhat blurry and washed out view of the New Theatre in the background. The marquee looks quite similar to that of the Island Theatre, but close inspection shows that the New had a narrower entrance.
Multiple sources indicate that the New Theatre building has been demolished, and one suggests that it was perhaps demolished as the result of a flood the area suffered in 1962. The New is mentioned in documents from the Virginia Division of Motion Picture Censorship in 1958, so it must have still been in operation at that time.
It’s now looking like the Powell operated well past the 1920s. The Library of Virginia has a document titled “A Guide to the Records of the Division of Motion Picture Censorship, 1926-1968” (text file here) and it mentions both the New Theatre in 1958 and a house called the New Powell Theatre in 1957-1958. There’s no evidence that the New ever had the aka New Powell, so it looks like the Powell was open into the 1950s.
There is also a brief passage in a book called Chincoteague Summer of 1948: A Waterman’s Childhood Stories by Ed Waterhouse, which says that the Powell and the New were both in operation in the 1940s, though the credibility of this source is somewhat diminished by the repeated misspelling of the name Powell as Pawell. Probably more reliable is an oral history interview of Anne Lumley Davis (PDF here) who moved to Chincoteague at the age of 13 in the mid-1940s, and who says that all three theaters, the Powell, the Island, and the New, were in operation during that period.
Chincoteague is represented in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory only by the listing “M. P. Theatre,” but item number 10 in a walking tour of Chincoteague (PDF here) is listed as the “Old Powell Opera House and Theater,” 4098 Main Street, built by James T. Powell in 1909.
The December 25, 1926 issue of Exhibitors Herald mentioned “Powell, J. T., Powell’s Theatre, Chicoteague Island, Va.” as a participant in a survey the magazine had conducted that year, so the theater must have still been open for at least part of 1926.
And, for what it’s worth, the July 3, 1948 issue of Motion Picture Herald had this item:
It’s possible (even likely) that the houses Shore bought in 1948 were the the Island and the New, but the magazine mistakenly gave the name of the seller as the name of the first theater.There’s an error in this theater’s description. The Movie Misty, which was released in 1961, could not have been the opening night feature at the Island Theatre, but the movie was premiered there. The 1947 book on which it was based was called Misty of Chincoteague, and the movie filmed in the area. The real Misty was still living at the time of the premier, and that was when her hoofprints were set in cement in front of the theater.
I’m just going to speculate from the available evidence for a while. Our recently added page for the Park Theatre says that it was at 417 Main Street, across the street from what is now the Showboat at 418 Main. The October 29, 1949 issue of Boxoffice said that the new Park Theatre in Polson had recently opened with 600 seats. Looking at Google’s satellite view of Polson it seems to me that the building at 417 is too small to have held 600 (or even 541) seats, but the Showboat’s building at 418 would be quite adequate for a theater of that size.
What if we’ve somehow gotten the names and histories of the theaters reversed? I think there’s a pretty good chance that the 375 (or 350, according to the 1951 FDY) seat New Lake Theatre was the house at 417 Main, and that it was the 600 (or 541)-seat Park Theatre that was at 418 Main, and later became the Showboat Cinemas.
Our page for the Lake Theatre seems to be pretty accurate, except for the obviously wrong address on 2nd Street. (It’s also missing a major remodeling that took place in late 1936, with a December 5 reopening as the New Lake Theatre.) The page for the Park also seems accurate, except maybe the address and the closing date, if it did in fact, as I suspect, stay open through the 1950s and later become the Showboat. This page (for the Showboat) is the one that appears to have first conflated the histories of the two theaters.
When remodeled and reopened in late 1936, this house was called the New Lake Theatre, according to the December 3, 1936 issue of The Flathead Courier, which announced that the grand opening of the house was to take place on December 5.
Information in the description on this page conflicts with the description of the Lake Theatre on its page. One or the other has to be wrong.
This section of Pocatello was in independent city called Alameda at the time the Crest Theatre opened. It was consolidated with Pocatello in 1962. References to this theater from before that year will probably be found under the city name Alameda.