Bedford Theatre

Joe Vogel on July 21, 2024 at 10:44 am

The Bedford Theatre opened in 1920 as the Richelieu Theatre. The Richelieu is last listed in the FDY in 1929, with 500 seats. The Bedford was first listed in 1930, without a seating capacity, but in 1931 it was listed with 440 seats. The renaming must have taken place sometime in 1929.

The October 9, 1920 Moving Picture World said that the Richelieu had opened on September 27. It was owned by Charles Richelieu, who would sell the house to Harry R. Cromwell in 1923, as reported in the July 27 issue of the Bedford Gazette. In 1925 he would build the similar but somewhat larger Richelieu Theatre in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, which was later renamed the Plaza Theatre.

The Bellefonte house was designed by architect Anna Wagner Keichline, and the Bedford Richelieu is of similar style, so it might be that she designed it as well, but I haven’t been able to confirm this.

Harry Cromwell operated the Bedford and Pitt Theatres until his death in April, 1951. His widow, Grace Cromwell, then operated the houses until selling them in November that year to B. J. Redfoot, owner of the Arcadia Theatre in Windber. The Bedford had been operating only on weekends for some time, though the Pitt was open every day. All this was reported in the November 24, 1951 issue of Boxoffice, which said that Redfoot planned changes of policy for the houses, but had not yet revealed what the new policies would be.

kencmcintyre on September 1, 2009 at 5:52 pm

There is a photo of the drugstore on Cinematour.