It is amazing anyone had a photo of the little theater to post on the Internet. What a wonderful memory.
The Acorn Theater belonged to our next door neighbor. It was on Ventura Blvd which was later renamed Thousand Oaks Blvd. Highway 101 was built several years before I was born. It did not transition to a freeway until the 1960s. The turn off at Moorpark Rd had a sign pointing up Ventura Blvd pointing to Thousand Oaks which was centered in the area where the Acorn Theater and Oakdale Market were located. I believe it is possible to find a picture of that sign at the corner of Moorpark Road and Ventura Blvd with the road sign beside it. Possibly something by Ed Lawrence.
Ventura Blvd had small food stands and other businesses that eventually failed because of the change created by the 101 Hwy and later freeway.
The address looks correct. Angelo’s Texaco station was located across the street and a maybe 150' west at 3050 Ventura Blvd.
Acorn Theater was the only place in town with air conditioning. The market had a swamp cooler that was not real effective in the moist coastal air.
Home air conditioning did not exist for most if any people. In the summer Mr Goshet (I believe it was spelled that way. Pronounced Go shay) had all day matinees in the and when the heat was so high that children could not stay inside houses we were sometimes invited to spend the entire afternoon watching various cartoons and cliff hanger to-be-continued shorts so that we could stay cool and be safe.
The newer official press people came to the area after the push was on to try for cityhood in Thousand Oaks. Many came after it became a city and none report history as it happened. They revise it to pump up the reality they want it to be.
Prior to that we were a mostly ignored tiny town in Eastern Ventura County with potholes in Ventura Blvd that you had to drive around because the county did not feel it was worthwhile to spend money on a dead road in a dead area so far away from the government center.
When the Janss family decided to build the mall down at Moorpark Road and redefine where Thousand Oaks was in the early 1960s they put in the Fox Conejo Theater and the wonderful little Acorn Theater suffered. Mr Goshet took on a partner who claimed that the bowling alley business was the next big thing. They converted the Acorn Theater to the Acorn Bowl and not long after that the Janss family decided to build a bowling alley on the other side of town near the Janss Mall and applied more negative pressure to the original center of town. All of that was around the time that the town eventually incorporated into the City of Thousand Oaks and the name of the road was changed to Thousand Oaks Blvd.
I do not recall the Acorn Theater being a quonset hut but it closed when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old and the bowling alley took its place. I do not recall any major exterior construction for the Acorn Bowl either. My recollection was they remodeled the interior and it is hard to imagine a bowling alley in a quonset hut but people were quite creative back in those days.
The Park Oaks center where the Melody Theater was located came after the Janss Mall. It was way up Moorpark Road at Janss Road. Quonset Hut
It is amazing anyone had a photo of the little theater to post on the Internet. What a wonderful memory.
The Acorn Theater belonged to our next door neighbor. It was on Ventura Blvd which was later renamed Thousand Oaks Blvd. Highway 101 was built several years before I was born. It did not transition to a freeway until the 1960s. The turn off at Moorpark Rd had a sign pointing up Ventura Blvd pointing to Thousand Oaks which was centered in the area where the Acorn Theater and Oakdale Market were located. I believe it is possible to find a picture of that sign at the corner of Moorpark Road and Ventura Blvd with the road sign beside it. Possibly something by Ed Lawrence.
Ventura Blvd had small food stands and other businesses that eventually failed because of the change created by the 101 Hwy and later freeway.
The address looks correct. Angelo’s Texaco station was located across the street and a maybe 150' west at 3050 Ventura Blvd.
Acorn Theater was the only place in town with air conditioning. The market had a swamp cooler that was not real effective in the moist coastal air.
Home air conditioning did not exist for most if any people. In the summer Mr Goshet (I believe it was spelled that way. Pronounced Go shay) had all day matinees in the and when the heat was so high that children could not stay inside houses we were sometimes invited to spend the entire afternoon watching various cartoons and cliff hanger to-be-continued shorts so that we could stay cool and be safe.
The newer official press people came to the area after the push was on to try for cityhood in Thousand Oaks. Many came after it became a city and none report history as it happened. They revise it to pump up the reality they want it to be.
Prior to that we were a mostly ignored tiny town in Eastern Ventura County with potholes in Ventura Blvd that you had to drive around because the county did not feel it was worthwhile to spend money on a dead road in a dead area so far away from the government center.
When the Janss family decided to build the mall down at Moorpark Road and redefine where Thousand Oaks was in the early 1960s they put in the Fox Conejo Theater and the wonderful little Acorn Theater suffered. Mr Goshet took on a partner who claimed that the bowling alley business was the next big thing. They converted the Acorn Theater to the Acorn Bowl and not long after that the Janss family decided to build a bowling alley on the other side of town near the Janss Mall and applied more negative pressure to the original center of town. All of that was around the time that the town eventually incorporated into the City of Thousand Oaks and the name of the road was changed to Thousand Oaks Blvd.
I do not recall the Acorn Theater being a quonset hut but it closed when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old and the bowling alley took its place. I do not recall any major exterior construction for the Acorn Bowl either. My recollection was they remodeled the interior and it is hard to imagine a bowling alley in a quonset hut but people were quite creative back in those days.
The Park Oaks center where the Melody Theater was located came after the Janss Mall. It was way up Moorpark Road at Janss Road. Quonset Hut