Tiger Theater
319 S. Main Street,
Carthage,
MO
64836
319 S. Main Street,
Carthage,
MO
64836
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Also opened with Charlie Chase in “Count Takes A Count” along with a Musical Fashions short and a “local” newsreel.
Exactly one year before the Tiger Theater opened, the entire interior of the building known as the Center Building was heavily destroyed in a large fire on the late night hours of February 4, 1936. Only the facade, exterior walls, and business signs survive the fire. Judging by the photo, I’m very sure the Tiger Theater was located at the former Motor Supply Company store that previously housed Wallace’s Drug Store (also formerly the Carthage L.H. & P. Company), which sits left to Milton’s Men’s Store and right next to Milton’s is the Leon’s Shoe Store.
Shortly after the fire, the Leon’s Shoe Store and Milton’s Men’s Store relocated, with Leon’s being relocated to the west side of the square and Milton’s being relocated to the Boyd building. The following year on March 1, 1937, Milton’s Men’s was purchased by Ross Rinehart, a Carthage resident and the department manager for the downtown 622 Main Street Sears in Joplin (which operated from June 22, 1929 until November 1956) who was also the former employee for a local Carthage clothing establishments company.
When another fire broke at the Center building on September 15, 1954, the Center Building suffered moderate damage, but the Tiger Theater was destroyed after a gas explosion blew out its rear doors and collapsed the roof, causing over $200,000 in damages to surrounding buildings.
The Tiger Theatre actually opened its doors on October 13, 1937 with Gary Cooper in “If I Had A Million” along with several shorts and a newsreel. What’s strange about its opening is that it opened with a movie that came out almost five years prior despite being a first-run theater throughout its entire life.
The September 15, 1954 fire happened in the morning hours which is on its last out of its four-day run of showing Spencer Tracy’s “Broken Lance” alongside the short “Day On A Jet Aircraft Carrier” both in CinemaScope. Fox Midwest Theatres was its last operator, and the fire cost an estimate $200,000 in damages.
I posted a photo from 1949.
From 2012 a photo of the Tiger Theater building in Carthage.
The Tiger Theatre’s entrance building is still standing. 319 S. Main is now occupied by a pizza parlor. The auditorium was probably on what is now a parking lot on Lyon Street.
This is excerpted from the Joplin Globe on 9/16/54:
CARTHAGE, Mo.. Sept. 15â€"Fire which is believed to have originated in a trash barrel this morning swept through the Center building, and a theater on the west side of the square causing damage estimated unofficially at $250.000. Destroyed was the 900-seat auditorium of the Tiger theater, 319 South Main street, where the blaze originated, the rear portion of Jaffe’s shoe store, 321 South Main street, and the Murray-Duncan drug store, 323 South Main street.
The fire erupted in an explosion at 2:55 o'clock this morning, which sent debris and flames flying from the rear of the Tiger theater across Lyon street. The explosion awakened Mrs. Jimmy Clubb, who lives in a second floor apartment over the Morton Sign Company, 340 Lyon street, about 300 yards from the rear of the theater.
The fire is now believed to have started in a trash barrel under the stage of the theater. It spread through the auditorium, causing complete destruction.
The theater was owned by Fox-Midwest corporation. Only recently new projection equipment and a CinemaScope screen were installed in the building at a cost in excess of $20,000. The fire spread from the theater to the rear roof of Jaffe’s and the Murray-Duncan drug store. Both roofs collapsed shortly after the theater roof fell in.