Cozy Theatre
407 W. Main Street,
Stroud,
OK
74079
407 W. Main Street,
Stroud,
OK
74079
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The link below is a 1920’s snapshot of a nickelodeon that was located in Stroud, Oklahoma. The Cozy Theatre was opened by 1914 and was still open in 1957.
Contributed by
J.D. Chapman
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The Stroud Nickelodeon was known as the Cozy. It was built about 1920 and shortly thereafter my grandmother, Mrs. Dolly Barton, bought it. She quit her job as a school teacher in Stroud and my grandfather continued to be active in local education and politics.
Eventually they acquired and built many more theaters in Oklahoma and during WWII they relocated to Oklahoma City.
The Cozy was the first theater in the Barton Theater chain.
The Cozy Theatre was at 407 W. Main Street. It has been demolished, and a small park now occupies the site. This Facebook post has a photo of the Cozy, probably from 1957, but two comments in the thread indicate that the house was later called the Time Theatre. One commenter recalls seeing “Jaws” at the house, so it must have been open at least until 1975.
One interesting bit of information from the February 17, 1940 issue of Boxoffice suggests that the Cozy had to be rebuilt twice in less than a year.: “STROUD, OKLA.—Mayor Louis Barton will rebuild the Cozy, destroyed by fire a few days ago. The house was built about four months ago.” I haven’t found any references to this fire, or an earlier rebuilding, anywhere else.
The Cozy is listed in the 1931 FDY as closed, and with 200 seats. It doesn’t reappear until the 1936 edition, when it is listed with 500 seats. In 1937 and 1938, the Cozy is listed, but with 300 seats. The Ritz is listed, with 500 seats, in all the editions from 1931 though 1938. I don’t have access to a 1939 Year Book, but the 1940 edition lists the Cozy as closed, and the 1941 edition lists it with 400 seats. The Ritz continues to have 500.
To add a bit of complication, this item from the July 2, 1938 issue of Motion Picture Herald might be about the Cozy, but there’s no evidence that it isn’t about the Ritz. “…R. L. Barton, who is mayor of Stroud, Okla., has signed a five year lease on an air-conditioned theatre being built by the Disney Lumber Company.” It’s also possible that this project wasn’t even in Stroud, since Mr. Barton expanded his theater holdings during this period. Given the name of the construction company, the house might have been in the town of Disney.
This 1939 item is explicitly about the Cozy, in Boxoffice of July 1: “Hurricane Paris is rebuilding Lewis Barton’s Cozy Theatre at Stroud, Okla., and is contemplating producing a color newsreel of Disney, Okla.” This must have been the iteration of the Cozy that burned in February, 1940, after having been open only about four months.
A “Picture Theater” is shown at the Cozy’s location on both the 1916 and 1925 Sanborn maps. It is the only movie theater shown on either map, but both show the Stroud Opera House, an upstairs theater of 600 seats built in 1902 at the northwest corner of Main (then called 3rd) Street and 2nd Avenue. The 1910 map shows the Opera House, and also a “Cheap Theater” on the north side of Main in the second storefront east of 4th Avenue, but the Cozy’s site was then a vacant lot.
Incidentally, a small photo of the entrance to this theater when it was called the Time can be found on this Facebook post. Unfortunately, the five comments on the post are all about how scary “The Exorcist” was, with no more information about the theater.