Rio Theatre

The Pope Theatre was formerly occupied by the Elks Club, and was know as the Shain building. The building itself is built with stone, brick, and cement, two stories in height, and 52x130 in dimensions with a dark grey face brick and light, dressed stone exterior. The first floor’s main entrance and lobby were 16x32 floored with hexagon tile. One side of the main entrance were the restrooms, and the other side has the box office. On either side of the main entrance fronting the street is the 18x32 store room, which has been used for rent to desirable tenants. The floor itself has rise by a short flight of stairs, to the entrance to the theatre proper, which is the rear of the parquet or dress circle. Leading to both left and right will be stairways leading to the balcony. Which as of 1912, contains a circular form with regulation inclined floor. Construction began on November 17, 1912 after its ground broke.

This old Theatre that was in McKinney, Texas was just down the street from my Grandparents home,and we use to go through it when we were kids because it was closed down and left open for anybody to enter we went through it and it was a very nice place at one time and I think they had live acts there and also movies later on. Their was a ticket booth out front in the early 50’s and what was told to us kids is that a woman was stabbed to death in the ticket boot and after that the theater was shut down I think it was some time in the late 40’s. One could look it up the library in the Newspaper archives but the story is true and as far as it having had a fire, when we were in there I didn’t see any signs of a fire anywhere just a lot of boxes and an old safe in the front office on the right side looking at the front of the theater. The stage was huge and under it was a well in the far right corner of the building under the stage about 20 feet deep and about 30 inches in diameter , It was spooky to say the least. In the front of the building was an office on the right with a safe ion the wall with the door removed and canceled old checks that had been punched and they said Pope Theatre on them, The safe door was removed at some time for safety reasons or some one tried to break in? .Upstairs was the projection room and some old stuff lying around all this was seen by my cousin and I in 1954 during the summer. I hated to see this old theater Razed and now it’s just a parking lot and they also razed my grandparents home too in the early. 70’s.