Palace Theatre

dallasmovietheaters on March 8, 2025 at 6:35 pm

This venue was known as Hayes' Opera House when Ella M. “Momma” Hayes built the facility and operated it under that name from 1909 to 1919. “Mother” Morgan operated the adjoining candy shop which served as the venue’s de facto concession stand. The theatre mixed in short films and live acts. In 1914, Hayes became the town’s first female movie theater operator changing the venue over to full-time film operation with Hayes training two other female employees to help her run the operation.

Hayes retired from her Hayes' Opera House at an event on May 9, 1919, likely at the end of a 10-year leasing period, selling it to Lewen Pizor. Pizor renamed the venue beginning on May 12, 1919 as the Palace Theatre beginning with D.W. Griffith’s “The Greatest Thing in Life.” Competition from the new Apollo Theatre that opened the next year combined with unruly patrons - perhaps encouraged by the Apollo Theatre management - seems to have unseated the Palace Theatre which closed early in 1922.

The Opera House (this entry’s title) / Gloucester Opera House operated at 6th Street and Water Street . It was part of the Gloucester City horse racing days of the early 1890s, a foreshadowing to the similarly-themed Havre de Grace racing area that would rise up in Maryland. Gloucester City’s version included an Opera House at the center of an entertainment area situated by the Delaware Riverfront featuring Gloucester’s Track, taverns, the Thompson Hotel, the Beachfront Hotel, and McGlade’s Hotel. Getting folks to come over from Pennsylvania and, particularly, nearby Philadelphia worked as Pennsylvania prohibited gambling on the ponies back in 1820.

The track scratched just four years in to its operation due to local ordinances aimed at reducing gambling and the concept failed. The flight of some 700 people along with the $1.4 million in revenues in 1893 dollars all but destroyed the entertainment district and forever changed the trajectory of Gloucester City along with its fledgling Opera House.

Sadly, the project was just about 15 years ahead of its time as the infamous Hart–Agnew anti-gambling law in New York State led to a bonanza in gambling activity across state lines after its passage in 1908 that the city might have welcomed. Unfortunately, the Gloucester City waterfront area - cheaply built - was already in decay by that time. The land was offered up during World War I to the government by its owner, J.H. McNally in 1917. That plan didn’t fully solidify and the Opera House there was vacant until its demolition in January of 1929. A different approach took place for the riverfront moving solidly away from its entertainment and tourist past to becoming home for the Delaware River Dredging Company.

This entry, by the way, should be the Palace Theatre - also known as Hayes' Opera House. The former Hayes'/Palace building continued to be a vibrant gathering area serving as a long-standing home to a fraternal lodge for the local VFW into the 2020s. I hope that answers some questions, contributor TC.