Colonial Theater
514 N. Main Street,
Tarboro,
NC
27886
514 N. Main Street,
Tarboro,
NC
27886
No one has favorited this theater yet
The Colonial Theater in Tarboro, North Carolina was built in 1919. It stopped being a movie theater in the late-1970’s or early-1980’s. The building was next used as a church. Today the building is empty and in need of repair, but funds are being raised to go toward a restoration.
Contributed by
Lost Memory
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater.
Recent comments (view all 10 comments)
Still no Weldon,but that’s okay.I believe you have access to the deepest dungeons of this website.Find my super-secret E-mail address and send me a mailing address for your person.I procured something for you that you’d really appreciate,theater-wise.The part of NC that includes the above theater is not well economy-wise,so theater saving isn’t a huge priority normally.
It’s great that you something is being done to save this little theatre. We’ve lost too many already of varying sizes.
Does anybody know if it ever had an organ? From the time it would likely have had at least a piano or a photoplayer or pit organ.
Here is a 9/17/08 article about a mural that is being painted on the theater:
http://tinyurl.com/3m4ttz
That paper has several articles about the theater in its recent archives, but I didn’t read them all.
Nealb1992 is correct about the closing date of the Colonial. It was replaced by the Parkhill Cinema 3 located at Parkhill Mall (now Riverside Plaza) in 1982. Progress is slowly but surely being made on the restoration of the Colonial Theatre. It now looks better than it did when it was a storefront church.
Good afternoon it;s nealb1992 again just letting you know that we just had our star light ball in efforts to rais funds to restor the old colonial theater it went very well. we have also made right at $49,000.00 off the marquee. what the marquee does if you donate $500.00 or more you get your name put on the marquee for two weeks the marquee has helped us out alot. we also just recieved a $8,000.00 donation of sound equiptment the whole nine yards, by the colonial theaters previous owner mr. marion boykin of wilson n.c so if anyone would like to help out by donating just let me know i will keep check on this page .
Well, Neal answers the question that I posed on the Tar Theater page on CT. However, I was never clear on the business connection between W.J.P.Earnhardt and Boykin. It seems that the Taylor may have booked films through Stewart-Everett and the SE bankruptcy ended that relationship—creating the need to form a new booking arrangement.
While I was working at the Taylor Mr. Earnhardt offered me a management job at a Tarboro theater but my salary bid of $100 per week killed the offer—I did not feel disappointed since I was going to college for a different goal.
here is another link to another pic don’t know if it is any more recent then the above or others but anyway though i would contribute http://www.flickr.com/photos/64900616@N04/6327864106/in/photostream/
ctwrenn: I posted three of the four photos posted here of the Colonial. I used my Android phone to take the pictures (the photos showing the facade without white paint). The morning photo was taken March 12,2012; the two evening shots (showing the neon lit up) were taken April 9, 2012. WSasser posted the photo of the Colonial with the white facade; it appears to have been taken in the mid-1980s after closing but before it became a church.