Rex Theatre

Joe Vogel on September 15, 2009 at 4:53 am

The photo Seymour linked to is the Shubert/New Joplin Theatre. It was not the same theater as the Rex. The New Joplin opened as the Shubert in 1908. None of the pictures of it at the University web site give the address, but the description pages say that it was demolished in 1940, that it was replaced by businesses catering to traffic along Route 66 (which ran along 7th Street) and that its site is now a parking lot for the Memorial Auditorium.

The description page of a photo for the New Club Theatre at 4th and Joplin describes the Shubert as having been down the street. Given the location of parking lots for the auditorium, and the various other bits of information, the Shubert must have been on Joplin Avenue at the southwest corner of 7th Street. I don’t know if the New Joplin ever ran movies on a regular basis, but it did present Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” in 1915.

The Rex was at 15th and Main, but I’ve been unable to discover which corner. There were three other theaters within a few doors of that corner, these being the Electric, the Glen, and the Wasson, which the list of known Boller Brothers theaters says was built in 1906. I’ve been unable to find out anything else about the Wasson, and have wondered if it might have become the Rex. There was also a Royal Theatre at 14th and Main.

kencmcintyre on January 28, 2009 at 1:32 am

This is from Boxoffice magazine in May 1960:

JOPLIN-Razing of the Rex Theater in South Joplin will eliminate a landmark. The Rex was built in 1916 by Louis F. Peters as a vauedeville house and afterwards became a motion picture showcase. Until two years ago it had been in continuous operation.

The present owner, C.K. Peters, offered the theater for sale after it closed, but no buyer appeared and the building deteriorated to the point that led to city condemnation. Peters plans to lease the leveled land as a parking lot or will sell it as a business site.

kencmcintyre on September 9, 2007 at 1:09 am

Here is a 1949 ad from the Joplin Globe:
http://tinyurl.com/3c39xj