I had occasion to travel along this stretch of Fair Oaks Avenue a number of times over the years, and I recall the Park Theatre building still standing in the early 1960s. I don’t recall what, if anything, occupied the building at that time. There has been some speculation that the theater was in the building now occupied by the Berry & Sweeney Pharmacy, but the Historic Aerials web site shows the building immediately south of the pharmacy, still standing in 1972 but gone in 1977, with what appears to be a small stage house at the rear. I’m pretty sure that’s where the Park Theatre was. It was somewhat larger than the pharmacy building, which looks too small to have housed a theater with 760 seats. The commercial building now on what I believe was the theater’s site appears in the aerial from 1980.
The old Mason City Opera House, long vacant, was demolished in the 1970s. It’s site is now part of a small public park and playground at the southeast corner of Main Street and Crawford Street.
An article on the Albion Recorder of May 19, 1997 says that this house actually opened in 1908 as the Temple Theatre, after the Temple’s original location was lost to a flood:
“Another theater, the Temple, moved to the north side of the Opera House building (223 S. Superior St.) after the Flood of 1908. In 1914 it was purchased by building owner Hadley H. Sheldon, and renamed the Censor Theatre. George A. Bohm purchased the Censor from Sheldon in late 1916, thereby closing his W. Porter St. operation. He then took over operating the Censor.”
This is from the May 10, 1947 issue of Motion Picture Herald: “M. C. Kennedy, Port Hueneme, Calif., was to open his new 400-seat quonset theatre May 1.”
The original Bishop Theatre, also known as Holland’s Opera House, was a large, wood framed building that was destroyed by a fire on January 6, 1924. The present Bishop Theatre was the replacement for that house. In 1947, Harry Holland had the theater remodeled, as noted in the May 10 issue of Motion Picture Herald. Unfortunately, the impressive Streamline Modern front the house got at that time has since been covered by a false front featuring two upper floors of fake windows for rooms that don’t exist. Bishop is apparently one of those towns that destroys its real history and replaces it with an “olde timey” look that only the hopelessly naïve would mistake for actual historic design. Other buildings along Main Street appear to have suffered similar sad transformations.
Here is an item about Harry Holland from the April 14, 1945 issue of Boxoffice:
“WESTERN 20-YEAR SHOWMEN
“Traveling as a ventriloquist with a medicine show wagon in Texas, was Harry Holland’s initial appearance in the theatrical world. In 1911 he joined a troupe engaged for a week at the Bishop Opera House, Bishop, Calif., and at the end of his engagement decided to stay there. Going into business for himself, Holland opened his first house, the Gem, converted from a vacant shoe shop. It featured three single-reel subjects and two illustrated songs. Admission was ten cents. Later he built the present Bishop Theatre. He has two sons in the service.”
The March 1, 1924 issue of Motion Picture News listed Lone Pine Hall as one of the Southern California locations at which new Simplex projection equipment had recently been installed. Both Lone Pine Hall and the New Lone Pine Theatre were mentioned in the December 6, 1930 issue of the Big Pine Citizen. The October 3, 1932 issue of the Citizen said that the mystery thriller Dr. X would play at the Lone Pine Hall Theatre on October 4th, 5th, and 6th.
A July 23, 1932 Citizen article noted that Ray Pierson had leased the Lone Pine Hall in 1930. He was still operating the house in 1932. Mentions of Pierson (sometimes with the variant spelling Pearson) as operator of the Lone Pine Theatre appear in trade journals through the 1930s and 1940s, one in the May 29, 1948 issue of Motion Picture Herald, not long after the same publication noted that Western Amusement Company was building the new house that would open later that year as the Whitney Theatre. I haven’t been able to discover if the Lone Pine continued in operation after the Whitney opened.
Exhibitors Herald of October 18, 1930 reported that the New Lone Pine Theatre was one of 220 houses in which RCA Photophone equipment had been installed during August and September.
I’ve found another aka for the Gregg Theatre. The September 27, 1912 issue of the Caney News said that the new, 452-seat Hobson Theatre on 4th Avenue had opened the previous Monday (September 23.) The Hobson then advertised in the paper for several years. The house presented movies, vaudeville, frequent live theater productions, public meetings, and occasionally even wrestling matches, so it to have had a stage. In its early years, the Hobson’s competition was the Cozy Theatre, which appears to have been exclusively a movie house and which closed at the end of 1913. In 1917, ads for a new rival, the Strand Theatre, began to appear.
The last mention of the Hobson I’ve found is in the issue of September 27, 1918, six years after the house opened, and the article said that the Hobson was reopening that night under new management. The first mention of the Liberty Theatre I’ve found is from December 20, 1918, in an ad which includes the line “Formerly the Hobson.” Then the January 24, 1919 issue of the News had this item:
“H. R. Bisby, manager of the Liberty Theatre, has moved his pipe organ from the Strand Theatre to the big show house and will soon be in position to again give the patrons of his place the pipe organ music. He also plans to re-open the Strand about the second week in next month.”
It is likely that the original operators of the Hobson were either unwilling or unable to renew their lease and the house fell into the hands of their competitor, Mr. Bisby.
It seems quite likely that Tom’s Ice Cream is in the same building that housed the Eglin Theatre. Looking at Google’s satellite view, one can see that the building has a very peculiar roof shape. That peculiar shape is visible in an aerial view from 1946, when the theater was in operation. The front of the building in street view is a bit taller than the neighboring buildings, as it was when the theater was in operation. Had the old building been demolished and replaced, there would have been no reason to make the new building as tall as the old one, or to replicate that peculiar configuration of the roof. I suspect that it’s the same building, however much it may have been altered.
This 2015 article from the Crestview News Bulletin says that the Crestview Theatre and the Crestview Cinema 3 were different theaters. The Cinema 3 opened in the mid-1970s at Mariner Mall, while the single-screen Crestview Theatre, opened around 1932, was located on Main Street. There is a small, early photo of the old theater.
“Crestview, Fla. — The new Elgin [sic] theater is nearing completion and will be opened within a month. Neil Robinson and Tom Barrow are owners.”
This article about Crestview’s movie theaters from the Crestview News Bulletin says that the Eglin Theatre operated at 190 Main Street for two years before moving to the building at 269 Main.
My computer is acting up and won’t allow me to upload a photo, but the photo of the Golden Rule store’s building is the 29th in the slide show on this web page. The Bing Maps street view is at this link.
From the July 2, 1943 issue of Film Daily, news about the Prince Theatre:
“The Prince, Princeville, Ill., in the Peoria district, has been reopened by its new owner, Harold Bouton. House was damaged by fire several weeks ago and was later sold by Ernest Peltier to Bouton. It has been entirely repaired and redecorated.”
A piece about Princeville’s businesses says this:
“Variety stores-Golden Rule The Golden Rule Store was in business around in the 1920s-30s. It was located on the west side of Walnut where Cordis Law Office is now located. It was later converted into a movie theater.”
The current address of the law firm Cordis & Cordis is 129 N. Walnut Avenue. As tiny Princeville is unlikely to have had more than one movie theater during that period, this was most likely the location of the Prince. If it was, then the building appears to be still standing, but somewhat altered. I’ll upload a small photo of the Golden Rule store, which can be compared with a recent Bing Maps street view (Google doesn’t provide one.)
The August 5th, 1939 issue of Boxoffice said that “W. R. Shafer has opened the Gray Theatre, Grayson, Ky.” Variant spellings of Shafer’s name (Schafer, Shaffer) turn up in other Boxoffice items, including one from September 23 which noted that he also operated the Strand Theatre at Irvine, Kentucky and the Trail Theatre at Morehead, Kentucky.
Prior to the construction of the Citadel Theatre in late 1921, the only theaters I’ve found mentioned in The Bloomfield News are the Opera House and a house called the Colonial Theatre. The Colonial is mentioned as far back as 1911, though, so if this building did not exist in 1913 then perhaps the Colonial’s original location was the unidentified storefront theater on the ground floor of the Opera House.
Construction was underway on the Citadel Theatre in the fall of 1921. The project was mentioned in the September 22 and October 20 issues of The Bloomfield News. I haven’t found the opening date, but the house was definitely in operation by January 26, 1922. John B. Flater was the owner of the Citadel, and his son Myers Flater was the first manager of the house.
Here is an item about the Lyric Theatre from the October 1, 1921 issue of Moving Picture World:
“The Lyric Theatre of Laurium has been entirely remodelled [sic] and will be opened after having been closed for three years. This town is in the upper peninsula but has harbored only one theatre because of the closing of the copper mines. The opening of the mines, however, is an indication of increased prosperity in many of the upper cities of Michigan.”
An article about three early St. Petersburg airdome theaters in the January 16, 2002 Tampa Bay Times gives four additional aka’s for the Patio: the Reno, the Ritz, Papa’s Dream, and the Golden Apple. The latter two sound like they might have been used during the theater’s years as an adult house. As of 2002, it was the home of a sports bar called the Extra Inning.
The Tampa Bay Times of January 16, 2002, had a brief history of three early airdome theaters in St. Petersburg. The article says that the Capitol opened by John Gillooly in June, 1925 as an airdome, but a mention of the house in the July 4, 1925 issue of Motion Picture News said that construction on John Gillooly’s airdome theatre was not quite complete and the opening was slated for August (rivest266 notes above that the first ad was dated September 23.) The Times said that a retractable roof was added in 1928. The house was later completely enclosed. The article also mentions that in 1965 it was briefly renamed the Family Theatre, which is noted in Nick DiMaggio’s comment above. However, the article didn’t mention the final name of 1st Street Theatre. It does say that the theater was demolished in 1968.
Here is an item from the “Chicago Letter” column of Moving Picture World, April 13, 1912:
“J. E. Becknell, manager of the Marion Theater, Iron Mountain, Mich., was a visitor at the office of the World last week. He will be remembered as the manager of the Merritt and Victoria theaters of Chicago. The Marion was opened January 1st. It has a capacity of 395, representing an investment of $5,000. It is owned by Mr. Becknell and Mrs. Marion Higgie.”
The item did not mention that for some years Mr. Becknell had been manager of the Bijou Theatre in Iron Mountain.
A rare mention of the Colonial in the trade journals appeared in the February 18, 1953 issue of The Exhibitor: “The Colonial, Iron Mountain, Mich., Thomas Circuit, reopened.”
A section of this PDF from the Dickinson County Genealogical Society says that the Braumart Theatre opened on April 21, 1925. A.E. Brauns was the owner of the theater and Thomas Martin the manager for the Colonial Theatre Group, which then also operated the Colonial and Bijou theaters in Iron Mountain and four theaters in Fond du Lac.
Studying the photos on the site robboehm mentioned I have concluded that the Ritz Theatre was on the northeast corner of Kaufman Street and San Jacinto Street, diagonally across the intersection from the square. It is now the location of a modern bank building with the address 201 E. Kaufman Street.
I had occasion to travel along this stretch of Fair Oaks Avenue a number of times over the years, and I recall the Park Theatre building still standing in the early 1960s. I don’t recall what, if anything, occupied the building at that time. There has been some speculation that the theater was in the building now occupied by the Berry & Sweeney Pharmacy, but the Historic Aerials web site shows the building immediately south of the pharmacy, still standing in 1972 but gone in 1977, with what appears to be a small stage house at the rear. I’m pretty sure that’s where the Park Theatre was. It was somewhat larger than the pharmacy building, which looks too small to have housed a theater with 760 seats. The commercial building now on what I believe was the theater’s site appears in the aerial from 1980.
The old Mason City Opera House, long vacant, was demolished in the 1970s. It’s site is now part of a small public park and playground at the southeast corner of Main Street and Crawford Street.
An article on the Albion Recorder of May 19, 1997 says that this house actually opened in 1908 as the Temple Theatre, after the Temple’s original location was lost to a flood:
This is from the May 10, 1947 issue of Motion Picture Herald: “M. C. Kennedy, Port Hueneme, Calif., was to open his new 400-seat quonset theatre May 1.”
The original Bishop Theatre, also known as Holland’s Opera House, was a large, wood framed building that was destroyed by a fire on January 6, 1924. The present Bishop Theatre was the replacement for that house. In 1947, Harry Holland had the theater remodeled, as noted in the May 10 issue of Motion Picture Herald. Unfortunately, the impressive Streamline Modern front the house got at that time has since been covered by a false front featuring two upper floors of fake windows for rooms that don’t exist. Bishop is apparently one of those towns that destroys its real history and replaces it with an “olde timey” look that only the hopelessly naïve would mistake for actual historic design. Other buildings along Main Street appear to have suffered similar sad transformations.
Here is an item about Harry Holland from the April 14, 1945 issue of Boxoffice:
The March 1, 1924 issue of Motion Picture News listed Lone Pine Hall as one of the Southern California locations at which new Simplex projection equipment had recently been installed. Both Lone Pine Hall and the New Lone Pine Theatre were mentioned in the December 6, 1930 issue of the Big Pine Citizen. The October 3, 1932 issue of the Citizen said that the mystery thriller Dr. X would play at the Lone Pine Hall Theatre on October 4th, 5th, and 6th.
A July 23, 1932 Citizen article noted that Ray Pierson had leased the Lone Pine Hall in 1930. He was still operating the house in 1932. Mentions of Pierson (sometimes with the variant spelling Pearson) as operator of the Lone Pine Theatre appear in trade journals through the 1930s and 1940s, one in the May 29, 1948 issue of Motion Picture Herald, not long after the same publication noted that Western Amusement Company was building the new house that would open later that year as the Whitney Theatre. I haven’t been able to discover if the Lone Pine continued in operation after the Whitney opened.
Exhibitors Herald of October 18, 1930 reported that the New Lone Pine Theatre was one of 220 houses in which RCA Photophone equipment had been installed during August and September.
I’ve found another aka for the Gregg Theatre. The September 27, 1912 issue of the Caney News said that the new, 452-seat Hobson Theatre on 4th Avenue had opened the previous Monday (September 23.) The Hobson then advertised in the paper for several years. The house presented movies, vaudeville, frequent live theater productions, public meetings, and occasionally even wrestling matches, so it to have had a stage. In its early years, the Hobson’s competition was the Cozy Theatre, which appears to have been exclusively a movie house and which closed at the end of 1913. In 1917, ads for a new rival, the Strand Theatre, began to appear.
The last mention of the Hobson I’ve found is in the issue of September 27, 1918, six years after the house opened, and the article said that the Hobson was reopening that night under new management. The first mention of the Liberty Theatre I’ve found is from December 20, 1918, in an ad which includes the line “Formerly the Hobson.” Then the January 24, 1919 issue of the News had this item:
It is likely that the original operators of the Hobson were either unwilling or unable to renew their lease and the house fell into the hands of their competitor, Mr. Bisby.It seems quite likely that Tom’s Ice Cream is in the same building that housed the Eglin Theatre. Looking at Google’s satellite view, one can see that the building has a very peculiar roof shape. That peculiar shape is visible in an aerial view from 1946, when the theater was in operation. The front of the building in street view is a bit taller than the neighboring buildings, as it was when the theater was in operation. Had the old building been demolished and replaced, there would have been no reason to make the new building as tall as the old one, or to replicate that peculiar configuration of the roof. I suspect that it’s the same building, however much it may have been altered.
269 Main Street is now the location of a restaurant, Tom’s Main Street Ice Cream.
This 2015 article from the Crestview News Bulletin says that the Crestview Theatre and the Crestview Cinema 3 were different theaters. The Cinema 3 opened in the mid-1970s at Mariner Mall, while the single-screen Crestview Theatre, opened around 1932, was located on Main Street. There is a small, early photo of the old theater.
Film Dailyof July 2, 1943 had this item:
This article about Crestview’s movie theaters from the Crestview News Bulletin says that the Eglin Theatre operated at 190 Main Street for two years before moving to the building at 269 Main.My computer is acting up and won’t allow me to upload a photo, but the photo of the Golden Rule store’s building is the 29th in the slide show on this web page. The Bing Maps street view is at this link.
From the July 2, 1943 issue of Film Daily, news about the Prince Theatre:
A piece about Princeville’s businesses says this:The current address of the law firm Cordis & Cordis is 129 N. Walnut Avenue. As tiny Princeville is unlikely to have had more than one movie theater during that period, this was most likely the location of the Prince. If it was, then the building appears to be still standing, but somewhat altered. I’ll upload a small photo of the Golden Rule store, which can be compared with a recent Bing Maps street view (Google doesn’t provide one.)The July 2, 1942 issue of Film Daily noted that Midwest Theatre Supply had recently installed new carpet in the Clark Theatre at Grayson, Kentucky.
The August 5th, 1939 issue of Boxoffice said that “W. R. Shafer has opened the Gray Theatre, Grayson, Ky.” Variant spellings of Shafer’s name (Schafer, Shaffer) turn up in other Boxoffice items, including one from September 23 which noted that he also operated the Strand Theatre at Irvine, Kentucky and the Trail Theatre at Morehead, Kentucky.
Prior to the construction of the Citadel Theatre in late 1921, the only theaters I’ve found mentioned in The Bloomfield News are the Opera House and a house called the Colonial Theatre. The Colonial is mentioned as far back as 1911, though, so if this building did not exist in 1913 then perhaps the Colonial’s original location was the unidentified storefront theater on the ground floor of the Opera House.
Construction was underway on the Citadel Theatre in the fall of 1921. The project was mentioned in the September 22 and October 20 issues of The Bloomfield News. I haven’t found the opening date, but the house was definitely in operation by January 26, 1922. John B. Flater was the owner of the Citadel, and his son Myers Flater was the first manager of the house.
Here is an item about the Lyric Theatre from the October 1, 1921 issue of Moving Picture World:
An article about three early St. Petersburg airdome theaters in the January 16, 2002 Tampa Bay Times gives four additional aka’s for the Patio: the Reno, the Ritz, Papa’s Dream, and the Golden Apple. The latter two sound like they might have been used during the theater’s years as an adult house. As of 2002, it was the home of a sports bar called the Extra Inning.
The Tampa Bay Times of January 16, 2002, had a brief history of three early airdome theaters in St. Petersburg. The article says that the Capitol opened by John Gillooly in June, 1925 as an airdome, but a mention of the house in the July 4, 1925 issue of Motion Picture News said that construction on John Gillooly’s airdome theatre was not quite complete and the opening was slated for August (rivest266 notes above that the first ad was dated September 23.) The Times said that a retractable roof was added in 1928. The house was later completely enclosed. The article also mentions that in 1965 it was briefly renamed the Family Theatre, which is noted in Nick DiMaggio’s comment above. However, the article didn’t mention the final name of 1st Street Theatre. It does say that the theater was demolished in 1968.
Here is an item from the “Chicago Letter” column of Moving Picture World, April 13, 1912:
The item did not mention that for some years Mr. Becknell had been manager of the Bijou Theatre in Iron Mountain.A rare mention of the Colonial in the trade journals appeared in the February 18, 1953 issue of The Exhibitor: “The Colonial, Iron Mountain, Mich., Thomas Circuit, reopened.”
A section of this PDF from the Dickinson County Genealogical Society says that the Braumart Theatre opened on April 21, 1925. A.E. Brauns was the owner of the theater and Thomas Martin the manager for the Colonial Theatre Group, which then also operated the Colonial and Bijou theaters in Iron Mountain and four theaters in Fond du Lac.
Studying the photos on the site robboehm mentioned I have concluded that the Ritz Theatre was on the northeast corner of Kaufman Street and San Jacinto Street, diagonally across the intersection from the square. It is now the location of a modern bank building with the address 201 E. Kaufman Street.