This is not the only theater in Dubuque to have had the name Orpheum. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists a house called the Orpheum at 336 Main Street.
According to the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory the Lyric had an afterlife. It was listed in that publication at 904 Main Street. The Lyric also presented some vaudeville during its earlier incarnation, as an act (the name of which is unfortunately unreadable) was listed as appearing there in the October 16, 1909 issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror. The Lyric had also been mentioned, with an even more garbled text, in the January 5, 1908 issue of Show World.
We have a discrepancy in opening dates. The October 30, 1908 issue of Moving Picture World said: “A new moving picture theater opened its doors for business at the corner of Fourteenth and Clay streets. Jake Rosenthal is manager of the new enterprise.”
Generally if there’s discrepancy between a Sanborn map and a trade journal item I’m inclined to trust the map, but would MPW publish a notice of an event three or more months before it happened? Is the February 1909 date on the map itself, or just on the web page serving it? I can imagine the LOC misdating a map, as I’ve seen
mistakes on that site before. It seems more likely than either Sanborn or MPW making this particular error.
The September 12, 1913 issue of Variety had this item mentioning the Airdome:
“OUT OF AIRDOME.
“Dubuque, Ia., Sept. 11. After a season of eighteen weeks, the James S. Garside stock company closes at the Airdome next Saturday night. The company goes from here to Paducah, Ky., for a winter stay. The Airdome business was the biggest recorded in five years.”
Dubuque’s Airdome is mentioned in other national theatrical publications as well as Variety (New York Clipper and The New York
Dramatic Mirror.) So far I’ve found it only in issues published from 1909 to 1913. It might be that it stopped booking the national acts that these publications followed, or it might have closed, or perhaps converted mostly to movies, though if the latter it didn’t get listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. If it closed down permanently after the 1913 season, which seems likely, at least it went out on a high note.
The theater at 128 E. Front is gone from the May, 1916 Sanborn, but the Reaper is shown. If the Gem (quite a few historical sources call it the Little Gem) was in fact the second permanent movie theater in Michigan it had to have opened long before 1911. J. H. Reaper arrived in Monroe in 1903, and the Gem could have opened not long after that. Movie theaters had become commonplace in Michigan by the end of 1905, so the Gem must have been in operation by then.
The 1957 Boxoffice article about the closure and demolition of the Avon obviously got the year of its construction wrong. As they were writing about an event almost half a century after it happened, that’s a bit surprising. Boxoffice usually got stuff wrong much sooner.
As for the Princess being on Court Street, the exact wording of the 1909 MPW item datelined Dubuque, Ia. was “M. H. Cooley, of Herscher, has bought a part interest in the Princess Theater, on Court Street.” It is a bit ambiguous, now that I see it again. Although datelined Dubuque, the item could have been referring to a Princess Theatre in a place called Herscher. The problem with that is that there is no place in Iowa called Herscher. There is one in Illinois, but it’s nowhere near Dubuque, and is quite tiny, and also lacks a Court Street.
I then thought it might be about East Dubuque, Illinois, but alas, again there is a paucity of streets called Court. I tried searching for Mr. M. H. Cooley, but as far as Google can determine, this was his only appearance in a theater industry trade journal. With so many dead ends, and so much evidence against its existence, I think we can safely declare Dubuque’s Court Street Princess Theatre of 1908 a phantom.
I now suspect Mr. Cooley of having been perpetrating some sort of con, planting a fake story about buying a part interest in a non-existent theater, then leaving a trail of depleted purses across Iowa as he sold shares of his share at bargain prices due to some fake personal emergency. Shame on you, Mr. Cooley! Who did you think you were, Harold Hill?
This item from Moving Picture World of January 22, 1916 came up faster at Google than I’d expected: “J. E. Boyle, owner of Dreamland theater in Dubuque, has taken a lease on a building at Fifth and Main streets which will be remodeled into a modern photoplay house.” That must have been the building at 506 into which the Dreamland moved. Unfortunately nothing revealing the exact date of the move comes up, but unless MPW was very late publishing the news about the lease, or Mr. Boyle suffered substantial delays in developing his project, the deed must have been done pretty early in 1916.
What else did come up at Google was several issues of MPW from 1910 that mentioned the Dreamland, starting with the issue of October 8, in which the Dreamland’s Peerless electric piano was offered for sale at $150.00. Later, ads for mirror screens in the December 3 and 10 issues listed the Dreamland among the house at which the devices had been installed.
The first Dreamland was listed at 530 Main Street in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The second Dreamland was mentioned in the trade journals frequently, and both houses had been owned by J. E. Boyle, according to his obituary from the April 7, 1923 issue of Exhibitors Herald:
“J. E. Boyle, Exhibitor At Dubuque, Iowa, Dies
“(Special to Exhibitors Herald)
“DUBUQUE, IA., March 27.—J. E. Boyle, owner and manager of the Dreamland and Liberty theatres in this city, died at his home following a prolonged illness.
“Mr. Boyle came to Dubuque in 1909 and opened the Dreamland. He has been prominent in the activities of the city and was a member of a number of lodges.”
Boxoffice of January 24, 1948, had an item about the reopening of the Gem Theatre, slated for February 1. Bryan Burns “…was a showman in Snyder many years ago….” and was reopening the house, the item said. The Gem had been listed in the 1945 FDY, but not in the 1940 or 1942 editions. I haven’t checked other editions.
Monroe’s original Family Theatre launched a bit earlier than 1917. A Family Theatre is listed on Monroe Street in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but an item in the March 3, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World reveals an even earlier origin for the house. The item concerns the plans of J. R. Denniston to open a new, 1000-seat theater in Monroe by September. Mr. Denniston’s background in Monroe is described thusly:
“J. R. Denniston is proprietor of the Family theater in Monroe. Six years ago he took it over after it had undergone a series of financial failures made by six proprietors in two years. It only goes to prove that the right man can always succeed.”
If this item’s account is accurate, the Family must have been opened by 1909. After this the story gets a bit garbled. Both Cinema Treasures and Water Winter Wonderland say there were two Monroe houses called the Family, but if one was built in 1929 I think there would have to have been three: The first (opened by 1909) and the third (opened in 1929) on Monroe Street, and the second, which would have operated from 1917 until (probably) 1929 on Front Street.
However, there is good evidence that there were indeed only two Family Theatres, both were on Monroe Street, and no new house was built in 1929. The only references I can find to the Family Theatre in 1929 are about the installation of sound, and an item from the June 3, 1959 issue of Motion Picture Exhibitor says that “Joe Deniston [sic], now in his 80’s, made proud the citizens of this city when he opened the doors of the plush $75,000 Family in 1917. Last week he closed it and passersby stare at the closed doors, letterless and lightless marquee.” This was the location across the street from the Monroe Theatre, as is made clear later in the article.
As for the exact location of the first Family Theatre, I’ve been unable to discover if it was on the site of the second house and demolished to make way for it, or at another location on Monroe Street. If it was at another location I don’t know if it was closed when the new Family opened or continued to operate under a different name. All we can be sure of at this point is that the first Family Theatre was on Monroe Street, was opened by 1909, and was either closed or its name changed in 1917, and the second Family Theatre, at 115 Monroe Street South, opened in 1917 and closed in 1959. There was never a Family Theatre on Front Street.
As for the 225-seat house owned by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bissonette, it was called the Monroe Theatre and was located at First and Monroe Streets, according to the item about its opening in the April 15, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World. It can’t have had anything to do with the Family Theatre. I have no idea what became of it. A 244-seat house called the Eagle Theatre was listed in the 1926 FDY with no location specified, and that might have been the Bissonette’s house, but I’m not at all sure.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists the Gem Theatre on Front Street, plus a house on Monroe Street called the Family Theatre, and the Armory Opera House, for which no location was given, but no Reaper Theatre. Still, plans for the Reaper were underway by 1913. Here is a relevant item from the July 5, 1913 issue of Moving Picture World: “Monroe, Mich.—J. H. Reaper, 52 Humphrey Avenue, has plans under way for a two-story theater with a seating capacity for 700.”
The April 12, 1913 issue of The American Contractor had also mentioned the project, describing it as a two story and basement theater building, 40x82, for which plans were being drawn by local architect J. H. Gilmore. Finding no mentions of the Reaper in trade journals of the period, I don’t know if the completion of the house was delayed until after the AMPD went to press in 1914, or if the Directory simply overlooked it.
I’ve been unable to find out more about the architect J. H. Gilmore either, but he was active in a few other projects in the early 1910s.
The Fine Arts originally opened in 1916. The arrival in Westport of Horace S. Wakeman, formerly of Los Angeles, who would manage the new house, was noted in the January 8 issue of Moving Picture World that year. It was clear from the wording of the item that the house was not yet complete, but the arrival of the future manager suggested that it must have been approaching completion.
Some nine months before the Earle Theatre opened, its financier and namesake George C. Earle presided over the ceremonial laying of the cornerstone for the new building, as reported in the July 7, 1923 Moving Picture World. The item said that the new theater was to be named the Elrae, which is Earle spelled backwards, in his honor. For some reason this plan was abandoned, and the house opened as the Earle Theatre, and two older Philadelphia neighborhood theaters were renamed Elrae instead.
Although those neighborhood houses, which last operated as the Ritz and the Hollywood, are long since closed, their buildings are both still standing, unlike the Earle, which was razed shortly before what would have been the thirtieth anniversary of that cornerstone ceremony.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only the Princess, the Empire and the Island Park theaters at Brattleboro. The Princess was the only house other than the Empire on Elliot Street. The location of the Island Park was in its name.
Island Park was an amusement park on a small island that existed in the Connecticut River until a major flood washed it entirely away in 1927. The Island Park Theatre was one of the park’s original attractions when it opened in 1911, and presented a wide array of entertainments, including movies, for the next several years, though the park was only open during the summer season.
As we know that Princess was an earlier name for the Capitol Theatre, which is accounted for, and we now know that the Island Park was not on Elliot Street, I’d say that that increases the likelihood that the house at 12 Elliot was the Empire.
This house is one of two listed as the Elrae Theatre in the 1926 Film Daily Year Book, the other being the former Apollo and future Ritz Theatre on Orthodox Street. The name Elrae is a reversed spelling of the name Earle, and it is possible that financier George C. Earle had something to do with these two houses.
In 1923 Earle financed the construction of the movie palace that opened in 1924 bearing his name. At least one early report about that project said that it was to be named the Elrae Theatre in his honor, but somehow that name ended up on these two lesser theaters instead. It’s a bit sad that though the buildings these two neighborhood houses occupied have survived all these decades, the splendid Earle was demolished less than thirty years after opening its doors.
The 1926 Film Daily Year Book lists two houses called the Elrae Theatre; this one, and the former Apollo and future Hollywood Theatre on 22nd Street. The 1932 FDY doesn’t list any houses called the Elrae, but the 480-seat New Ritz Theatre is listed on Orthodox Street.
The name Elrae is the reverse of the name Earle. A July 7, 1923 Moving Picture World item noted a recent ceremony at which George C. Earle participated in the laying of the cornerstone of the grand movie palace that would open in 1924 as the Earle Theatre. Earle had financed the project, and the item said that the new theater was to be named the Elrae in his honor. Apparently the plans were changed and the honor was made more direct, while the unusual reversed spelling of his name ended up being given to these two other theaters instead.
By 1914, fast-growing Fullerton had four movie theaters listed in the American Motion Picture Directory. As well as the Fullerton Theatre, Spadra Avenue boasted the Little Gem Theatre and the Novelty Theatre, while the Randall Theatre held forth at some unlisted mystery location.
This rather large PDF contains the official annual report for the Town of Newport for 1998, but it includes a large section devoted to the history of the Newport Fire Department. The story of the fire that destroyed the Newport House Hotel on Christmas Day, 1965, is on pages 47 and 48 (digital pages 49 and 50.) The lines relevant to the fate of the Latchis Theatre are: “The theater sustained little damage, and for the next decade or so, the movie theater continued operating. On a rainy night, patrons could still smell the fire.”
This page can be renamed Newport Cinema, and the redundant newer page deleted after any relevant information it provides (reopening date, etc.) is replicated here.
The Gem was the only theater listed at Berlin in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The Gem Theatre is shown on the 1920 Sanborn map of Berlin, but with the notation “Used as dance hall only.” I see no buildings labeled “Motion Pictures” on the 1920 Sanborn, but the Albert Theatre is prominent.
I found a web page with a long list of historic fires in New Hampshire and it included this: “Sep 28, 1960 - Berlin - NH - Gorham Theater (where Welch’s Restaurant later stood), destroyed by fire.” This actually looks like it’s an orphaned page from a vanished Geocities web site (last updated in 2005), so I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but it does look to have been reasonably well researched.
Also two things: Androscoggin Street is a residential side street, with commerce only at the end adjacent to Main Street, so if the theater was (as the local Historical Society said) on Androscoggin Street it must have been right at the corner of Main.
And the house was last called the Gorham Theatre, renamed following a remodeling in 1956. Our photo shows that name on the sign, so must have been taken between 1956 and 1960.
I hate to link to the awful web site Yumpu, but it’s the only place I can find this information. An item headlined “Bikos Co. Will Construct $125,000 Gary Theatre” on page 59 of the April 30, 1949 issue of Boxoffice is about this theater. The project’s architect, L. Harry Warriner, estimated that it would take from ten months to a year to complete, depending on the availability of materials, so it probably didn’t open until 1950 at the earliest. No theater is listed at this address in the 1951 FDY, so it might not have opened until after that year’s edition went to press, or it might just have been the usual FDY slackness at work.
I don’t have access to any FDY’s later than 1951, so I don’t know if it was listed in 1952, or what its name was, but a page that probably duplicates this one was just added to Cinema Treasures under the name Varsity Theatre. It has no description of the theater at all, but gives the address range of 2218-46 Broadway, so must be the same house.
The opening of the Strand was noted in the July 17, 1934 Film Daily: “Vicksburg, Miss. — J. E. Adams and R. L. Long have opened up a new house, the Strand, with Photophone High Fidelity sound. Guy Adams will manage the new theater.”
The July 17, 1934 issue of Film Daily had this item about the Colonial: “Newport, R. I.—The Colonial, M & P.-Publix house, has reopened with pictures and vaudeville. The manager is John Connolly. Elmer Taylor is assisting.” As Gerald A. DeLuca’s comment from 2011 notes the connection between the Colonial and Paramount, it appears that this house was operated as part of the Paramount-Publix chain for much of its history,
The October 19, 1940 issue of Motion Picture Herald had this news about the Sunset Theatre: “W. E. Drumbar has added 150 seats to his Sunset theatre in Knoxville, Tenn.”
An historic timeline of Newport (PDF here), based on items drawn from the local newspapers, says that the building that eventually became the Empire Theatre was built in 1842 as the County jail, but the NRHP registration form for the Downtown Newport Historic District says that the theater’s portion of the building was a later addition, probably from 1850. The timeline cites an April 17, 1913 article saying that “Dr. Cain is remodeling the old jail into a hall where it is intended to have moving pictures.” The timeline’s first use of the name Empire is from November 3, 1916 and refers to the theater’s temporary closure due to the influenza pandemic.
The timeline also notes that the owners of the Empire, Sam D. Lewis and Arthur C. Chadwick, bought the Coniston Theatre in September, 1920. It does not mention the Empire again until February, 1925, when the paper noted that the house was being remodeled for use as a public meeting and recreation hall. This use continued until the entire former jail complex was converted for use as a department store in 1946.
Empire was not one of the two theater names listed at Newport in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. Those were the Newport Casino on Belknap Avenue and the Scenic Theatre, no location given. The timeline cites articles from September and October, 1912, saying that the town had rescinded a previous decision and voted to grant L. L. Ransom a license to show movies in a hall recently built for him on Belknap Avenue. That theater began operating in October, and was apparently the first in Newport. The October article refers to this house as a casino, but the name is not capitalized.
A February 12, 1916 Moving Picture World item datelined Newport, N. H. says that “[t]he armory building on Central street has been converted into a moving picture theater by H. Robinson.” The old armory (replaced by a new facility at another location in the 1930s) was destroyed by a fire in 1973, and a newspaper article from that year notes that it once housed a theater, but gives no name for it or any dates of operation. The article said that the armory house was the towns first theater, which might have been mistaken, though it is possible that it had operated as a live venue prior to 1916. The 1926 FDY lists a single 600-seat competitor to the 950-seat Coniston Theatre called the U-Kum, which might have been the armory house or the Casino under a new name. The timeline is silent on the U-Kum, and I can’t bring myself to blame it.
So the Empire was not Newport’s sole theater of the period, and unless it was missed altogether by the AMPD, Scenic Theatre was probably its opening name, and it opened in early 1913, as the town’s second movie house, and it closed sometime after 1920, when its operators bought the larger Coniston Theatre, but certainly by 1925.
This is not the only theater in Dubuque to have had the name Orpheum. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists a house called the Orpheum at 336 Main Street.
According to the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory the Lyric had an afterlife. It was listed in that publication at 904 Main Street. The Lyric also presented some vaudeville during its earlier incarnation, as an act (the name of which is unfortunately unreadable) was listed as appearing there in the October 16, 1909 issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror. The Lyric had also been mentioned, with an even more garbled text, in the January 5, 1908 issue of Show World.
We have a discrepancy in opening dates. The October 30, 1908 issue of Moving Picture World said: “A new moving picture theater opened its doors for business at the corner of Fourteenth and Clay streets. Jake Rosenthal is manager of the new enterprise.”
Generally if there’s discrepancy between a Sanborn map and a trade journal item I’m inclined to trust the map, but would MPW publish a notice of an event three or more months before it happened? Is the February 1909 date on the map itself, or just on the web page serving it? I can imagine the LOC misdating a map, as I’ve seen mistakes on that site before. It seems more likely than either Sanborn or MPW making this particular error.
The September 12, 1913 issue of Variety had this item mentioning the Airdome:
Dubuque’s Airdome is mentioned in other national theatrical publications as well as Variety (New York Clipper and The New York Dramatic Mirror.) So far I’ve found it only in issues published from 1909 to 1913. It might be that it stopped booking the national acts that these publications followed, or it might have closed, or perhaps converted mostly to movies, though if the latter it didn’t get listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. If it closed down permanently after the 1913 season, which seems likely, at least it went out on a high note.The theater at 128 E. Front is gone from the May, 1916 Sanborn, but the Reaper is shown. If the Gem (quite a few historical sources call it the Little Gem) was in fact the second permanent movie theater in Michigan it had to have opened long before 1911. J. H. Reaper arrived in Monroe in 1903, and the Gem could have opened not long after that. Movie theaters had become commonplace in Michigan by the end of 1905, so the Gem must have been in operation by then.
The 1957 Boxoffice article about the closure and demolition of the Avon obviously got the year of its construction wrong. As they were writing about an event almost half a century after it happened, that’s a bit surprising. Boxoffice usually got stuff wrong much sooner.
As for the Princess being on Court Street, the exact wording of the 1909 MPW item datelined Dubuque, Ia. was “M. H. Cooley, of Herscher, has bought a part interest in the Princess Theater, on Court Street.” It is a bit ambiguous, now that I see it again. Although datelined Dubuque, the item could have been referring to a Princess Theatre in a place called Herscher. The problem with that is that there is no place in Iowa called Herscher. There is one in Illinois, but it’s nowhere near Dubuque, and is quite tiny, and also lacks a Court Street.
I then thought it might be about East Dubuque, Illinois, but alas, again there is a paucity of streets called Court. I tried searching for Mr. M. H. Cooley, but as far as Google can determine, this was his only appearance in a theater industry trade journal. With so many dead ends, and so much evidence against its existence, I think we can safely declare Dubuque’s Court Street Princess Theatre of 1908 a phantom.
I now suspect Mr. Cooley of having been perpetrating some sort of con, planting a fake story about buying a part interest in a non-existent theater, then leaving a trail of depleted purses across Iowa as he sold shares of his share at bargain prices due to some fake personal emergency. Shame on you, Mr. Cooley! Who did you think you were, Harold Hill?
This item from Moving Picture World of January 22, 1916 came up faster at Google than I’d expected: “J. E. Boyle, owner of Dreamland theater in Dubuque, has taken a lease on a building at Fifth and Main streets which will be remodeled into a modern photoplay house.” That must have been the building at 506 into which the Dreamland moved. Unfortunately nothing revealing the exact date of the move comes up, but unless MPW was very late publishing the news about the lease, or Mr. Boyle suffered substantial delays in developing his project, the deed must have been done pretty early in 1916.
What else did come up at Google was several issues of MPW from 1910 that mentioned the Dreamland, starting with the issue of October 8, in which the Dreamland’s Peerless electric piano was offered for sale at $150.00. Later, ads for mirror screens in the December 3 and 10 issues listed the Dreamland among the house at which the devices had been installed.
The first Dreamland was listed at 530 Main Street in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The second Dreamland was mentioned in the trade journals frequently, and both houses had been owned by J. E. Boyle, according to his obituary from the April 7, 1923 issue of Exhibitors Herald:
Boxoffice of January 24, 1948, had an item about the reopening of the Gem Theatre, slated for February 1. Bryan Burns “…was a showman in Snyder many years ago….” and was reopening the house, the item said. The Gem had been listed in the 1945 FDY, but not in the 1940 or 1942 editions. I haven’t checked other editions.
Monroe’s original Family Theatre launched a bit earlier than 1917. A Family Theatre is listed on Monroe Street in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but an item in the March 3, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World reveals an even earlier origin for the house. The item concerns the plans of J. R. Denniston to open a new, 1000-seat theater in Monroe by September. Mr. Denniston’s background in Monroe is described thusly:
If this item’s account is accurate, the Family must have been opened by 1909. After this the story gets a bit garbled. Both Cinema Treasures and Water Winter Wonderland say there were two Monroe houses called the Family, but if one was built in 1929 I think there would have to have been three: The first (opened by 1909) and the third (opened in 1929) on Monroe Street, and the second, which would have operated from 1917 until (probably) 1929 on Front Street.However, there is good evidence that there were indeed only two Family Theatres, both were on Monroe Street, and no new house was built in 1929. The only references I can find to the Family Theatre in 1929 are about the installation of sound, and an item from the June 3, 1959 issue of Motion Picture Exhibitor says that “Joe Deniston [sic], now in his 80’s, made proud the citizens of this city when he opened the doors of the plush $75,000 Family in 1917. Last week he closed it and passersby stare at the closed doors, letterless and lightless marquee.” This was the location across the street from the Monroe Theatre, as is made clear later in the article.
As for the exact location of the first Family Theatre, I’ve been unable to discover if it was on the site of the second house and demolished to make way for it, or at another location on Monroe Street. If it was at another location I don’t know if it was closed when the new Family opened or continued to operate under a different name. All we can be sure of at this point is that the first Family Theatre was on Monroe Street, was opened by 1909, and was either closed or its name changed in 1917, and the second Family Theatre, at 115 Monroe Street South, opened in 1917 and closed in 1959. There was never a Family Theatre on Front Street.
As for the 225-seat house owned by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bissonette, it was called the Monroe Theatre and was located at First and Monroe Streets, according to the item about its opening in the April 15, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World. It can’t have had anything to do with the Family Theatre. I have no idea what became of it. A 244-seat house called the Eagle Theatre was listed in the 1926 FDY with no location specified, and that might have been the Bissonette’s house, but I’m not at all sure.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists the Gem Theatre on Front Street, plus a house on Monroe Street called the Family Theatre, and the Armory Opera House, for which no location was given, but no Reaper Theatre. Still, plans for the Reaper were underway by 1913. Here is a relevant item from the July 5, 1913 issue of Moving Picture World: “Monroe, Mich.—J. H. Reaper, 52 Humphrey Avenue, has plans under way for a two-story theater with a seating capacity for 700.”
The April 12, 1913 issue of The American Contractor had also mentioned the project, describing it as a two story and basement theater building, 40x82, for which plans were being drawn by local architect J. H. Gilmore. Finding no mentions of the Reaper in trade journals of the period, I don’t know if the completion of the house was delayed until after the AMPD went to press in 1914, or if the Directory simply overlooked it.
I’ve been unable to find out more about the architect J. H. Gilmore either, but he was active in a few other projects in the early 1910s.
The Fine Arts originally opened in 1916. The arrival in Westport of Horace S. Wakeman, formerly of Los Angeles, who would manage the new house, was noted in the January 8 issue of Moving Picture World that year. It was clear from the wording of the item that the house was not yet complete, but the arrival of the future manager suggested that it must have been approaching completion.
Some nine months before the Earle Theatre opened, its financier and namesake George C. Earle presided over the ceremonial laying of the cornerstone for the new building, as reported in the July 7, 1923 Moving Picture World. The item said that the new theater was to be named the Elrae, which is Earle spelled backwards, in his honor. For some reason this plan was abandoned, and the house opened as the Earle Theatre, and two older Philadelphia neighborhood theaters were renamed Elrae instead.
Although those neighborhood houses, which last operated as the Ritz and the Hollywood, are long since closed, their buildings are both still standing, unlike the Earle, which was razed shortly before what would have been the thirtieth anniversary of that cornerstone ceremony.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only the Princess, the Empire and the Island Park theaters at Brattleboro. The Princess was the only house other than the Empire on Elliot Street. The location of the Island Park was in its name.
Island Park was an amusement park on a small island that existed in the Connecticut River until a major flood washed it entirely away in 1927. The Island Park Theatre was one of the park’s original attractions when it opened in 1911, and presented a wide array of entertainments, including movies, for the next several years, though the park was only open during the summer season.
As we know that Princess was an earlier name for the Capitol Theatre, which is accounted for, and we now know that the Island Park was not on Elliot Street, I’d say that that increases the likelihood that the house at 12 Elliot was the Empire.
This house is one of two listed as the Elrae Theatre in the 1926 Film Daily Year Book, the other being the former Apollo and future Ritz Theatre on Orthodox Street. The name Elrae is a reversed spelling of the name Earle, and it is possible that financier George C. Earle had something to do with these two houses.
In 1923 Earle financed the construction of the movie palace that opened in 1924 bearing his name. At least one early report about that project said that it was to be named the Elrae Theatre in his honor, but somehow that name ended up on these two lesser theaters instead. It’s a bit sad that though the buildings these two neighborhood houses occupied have survived all these decades, the splendid Earle was demolished less than thirty years after opening its doors.
The 1926 Film Daily Year Book lists two houses called the Elrae Theatre; this one, and the former Apollo and future Hollywood Theatre on 22nd Street. The 1932 FDY doesn’t list any houses called the Elrae, but the 480-seat New Ritz Theatre is listed on Orthodox Street.
The name Elrae is the reverse of the name Earle. A July 7, 1923 Moving Picture World item noted a recent ceremony at which George C. Earle participated in the laying of the cornerstone of the grand movie palace that would open in 1924 as the Earle Theatre. Earle had financed the project, and the item said that the new theater was to be named the Elrae in his honor. Apparently the plans were changed and the honor was made more direct, while the unusual reversed spelling of his name ended up being given to these two other theaters instead.
By 1914, fast-growing Fullerton had four movie theaters listed in the American Motion Picture Directory. As well as the Fullerton Theatre, Spadra Avenue boasted the Little Gem Theatre and the Novelty Theatre, while the Randall Theatre held forth at some unlisted mystery location.
This rather large PDF contains the official annual report for the Town of Newport for 1998, but it includes a large section devoted to the history of the Newport Fire Department. The story of the fire that destroyed the Newport House Hotel on Christmas Day, 1965, is on pages 47 and 48 (digital pages 49 and 50.) The lines relevant to the fate of the Latchis Theatre are: “The theater sustained little damage, and for the next decade or so, the movie theater continued operating. On a rainy night, patrons could still smell the fire.”
This page can be renamed Newport Cinema, and the redundant newer page deleted after any relevant information it provides (reopening date, etc.) is replicated here.
The Gem was the only theater listed at Berlin in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The Gem Theatre is shown on the 1920 Sanborn map of Berlin, but with the notation “Used as dance hall only.” I see no buildings labeled “Motion Pictures” on the 1920 Sanborn, but the Albert Theatre is prominent.
I found a web page with a long list of historic fires in New Hampshire and it included this: “Sep 28, 1960 - Berlin - NH - Gorham Theater (where Welch’s Restaurant later stood), destroyed by fire.” This actually looks like it’s an orphaned page from a vanished Geocities web site (last updated in 2005), so I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but it does look to have been reasonably well researched.
Also two things: Androscoggin Street is a residential side street, with commerce only at the end adjacent to Main Street, so if the theater was (as the local Historical Society said) on Androscoggin Street it must have been right at the corner of Main.
And the house was last called the Gorham Theatre, renamed following a remodeling in 1956. Our photo shows that name on the sign, so must have been taken between 1956 and 1960.
I hate to link to the awful web site Yumpu, but it’s the only place I can find this information. An item headlined “Bikos Co. Will Construct $125,000 Gary Theatre” on page 59 of the April 30, 1949 issue of Boxoffice is about this theater. The project’s architect, L. Harry Warriner, estimated that it would take from ten months to a year to complete, depending on the availability of materials, so it probably didn’t open until 1950 at the earliest. No theater is listed at this address in the 1951 FDY, so it might not have opened until after that year’s edition went to press, or it might just have been the usual FDY slackness at work.
I don’t have access to any FDY’s later than 1951, so I don’t know if it was listed in 1952, or what its name was, but a page that probably duplicates this one was just added to Cinema Treasures under the name Varsity Theatre. It has no description of the theater at all, but gives the address range of 2218-46 Broadway, so must be the same house.
The opening of the Strand was noted in the July 17, 1934 Film Daily: “Vicksburg, Miss. — J. E. Adams and R. L. Long have opened up a new house, the Strand, with Photophone High Fidelity sound. Guy Adams will manage the new theater.”
The July 17, 1934 issue of Film Daily had this item about the Colonial: “Newport, R. I.—The Colonial, M & P.-Publix house, has reopened with pictures and vaudeville. The manager is John Connolly. Elmer Taylor is assisting.” As Gerald A. DeLuca’s comment from 2011 notes the connection between the Colonial and Paramount, it appears that this house was operated as part of the Paramount-Publix chain for much of its history,
The October 19, 1940 issue of Motion Picture Herald had this news about the Sunset Theatre: “W. E. Drumbar has added 150 seats to his Sunset theatre in Knoxville, Tenn.”
The Coniston Theatre building was demolished in 1975.
An historic timeline of Newport (PDF here), based on items drawn from the local newspapers, says that the building that eventually became the Empire Theatre was built in 1842 as the County jail, but the NRHP registration form for the Downtown Newport Historic District says that the theater’s portion of the building was a later addition, probably from 1850. The timeline cites an April 17, 1913 article saying that “Dr. Cain is remodeling the old jail into a hall where it is intended to have moving pictures.” The timeline’s first use of the name Empire is from November 3, 1916 and refers to the theater’s temporary closure due to the influenza pandemic.
The timeline also notes that the owners of the Empire, Sam D. Lewis and Arthur C. Chadwick, bought the Coniston Theatre in September, 1920. It does not mention the Empire again until February, 1925, when the paper noted that the house was being remodeled for use as a public meeting and recreation hall. This use continued until the entire former jail complex was converted for use as a department store in 1946.
Empire was not one of the two theater names listed at Newport in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. Those were the Newport Casino on Belknap Avenue and the Scenic Theatre, no location given. The timeline cites articles from September and October, 1912, saying that the town had rescinded a previous decision and voted to grant L. L. Ransom a license to show movies in a hall recently built for him on Belknap Avenue. That theater began operating in October, and was apparently the first in Newport. The October article refers to this house as a casino, but the name is not capitalized.
A February 12, 1916 Moving Picture World item datelined Newport, N. H. says that “[t]he armory building on Central street has been converted into a moving picture theater by H. Robinson.” The old armory (replaced by a new facility at another location in the 1930s) was destroyed by a fire in 1973, and a newspaper article from that year notes that it once housed a theater, but gives no name for it or any dates of operation. The article said that the armory house was the towns first theater, which might have been mistaken, though it is possible that it had operated as a live venue prior to 1916. The 1926 FDY lists a single 600-seat competitor to the 950-seat Coniston Theatre called the U-Kum, which might have been the armory house or the Casino under a new name. The timeline is silent on the U-Kum, and I can’t bring myself to blame it.
So the Empire was not Newport’s sole theater of the period, and unless it was missed altogether by the AMPD, Scenic Theatre was probably its opening name, and it opened in early 1913, as the town’s second movie house, and it closed sometime after 1920, when its operators bought the larger Coniston Theatre, but certainly by 1925.