Rohs Theatre
124 S. Walnut Street,
Cynthiana,
KY
41031
124 S. Walnut Street,
Cynthiana,
KY
41031
1 person
favorited this theater
Showing 6 comments
Jeweler and Opera House operator Hermann A. Rohs awarded the contract for the new Rohs Theatre around the corner from his 19th Century-built and functioning Roh’s Opera House. The New Rohs Theatre would be on the main floor of the facility and modern. It was on South Walnut Street just steps from Pike Street on which the Opera House had been (and still is) since the 1870s. At that time and for the next 20 years, the Roh’s Theatre would be the only one on the main floor as the Opera House was on the second level.
Terra cotta trimmings and a modern 800-seat auditorium greeted audiences on August 16, 1920 when Rohs Theatre launched with Anita Stewart “In Old Kentucky.” Opening night patrons saluted the architect C.C. Weber and Edward E. Weber of Newport, Kentucky, for their design as they were in attendance at the opening.
In 1929, Rohs added sound to remain viable. The Rohs received a shocking streamline moderne in 1935 and added air conditioning 1937 and It added two new Motiograph projectors in 1939. Around the corner, the New Rohs Opera House plans were unveiled on November 16, 1939 that moved the opera house from the upper floor to the main floor and a 750-seat auditorium. It launched in late 1940. The Rohs Theatre closed permanently on July 13, 1957 with a double-feature of “Joe Butterfly” and “Fun for a Coward.”
The Rohs Opera House, in response to the Rohs Theatre closure, changed its name on August 2, 1957 to Rohs Theatre under new operators J.E. Denton and Robert Dopes. The new Rohs Theatre opened with “Tarzan and the Lost Safari” and “The Kettles on Old MacDonald’s Farm.” The former Rohs Theatre was sold at an absolute auction in December of 1957. It is then sold at another absolute auction in 1970. In 2010, it was home to the Cynthiana-Harrison County Museum.
This item is from the September 11, 1920 issue of Exhibitors Herald:
Herman Rohs was not only a jeweler, though. Various issues of The Billboard in 1908 mention H. A. Rohs as the manager of the Rohs Opera House. The Rohs Opera House is listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, so that upstairs theater, opened in 1871 as Aeolian Hall, also ran movies for a while. In 1941 the Rohs family added a new ground floor theater to the back of the Opera House building, and it opened that year as the New Rohs Opera House.Other early Cynthiana theaters named in the trades were the Electric Theatre (1908,) the Cinema Theatre (1914 and 1916,) the Royal Theatre 1916 and 1922,) and the Montgomery Theatre (1923.) As the manager of the Royal in 1916 was named Alva Montgomery, the Montgomery Theatre might have been the Royal renamed.
I’ve been unable to discover when the Rohs Theatre closed, but the Rohs Opera House was still showing movies into the 21st century, and is still intact and equipped to show them, but does so only occasionally.
Correct address is 124 S. Walnut Street per the museum’s website. Active link below.
https://www.harricynmuseum.org/
The Rohs Theatre, in the photo above, now the home of The Cynthiana-Harrison County Museum, is at 134 S. Walnut Street. This is the museum’s web site.
Cynthiana is also the home of The Rohs Opera House, an entirely different theater located at 133 E. Pike Street. The two are conflated all over the Internet, and we don’t want to be adding to the confusion. According to various web sites, the Opera House dates back to 1871, but a movie theater was installed on the ground floor (the Opera House was upstairs) in 1941.
The Rohs Theatre is mentioned in the trade publications a few times, though the earliest I’ve found so far is from 1929, but there is also an item in the May 10, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World announcing the recent opening of the 400-seat “Prows Theater” in Cynthiana. It’s possible that a typesetter scanning hastily scribbled notes misread “Rohs” as Prows, but it’s also possible that there was a Prows Theater, as an Internet search brings up quite a few people with the surname Prows in that region of Kentucky. The latter seems less likely than the former to me, though. Plus, from its architectural style, the Rohs Theatre building looks quite likely to have been built in the early 1910s.
Unless I’m sorely mistaken, this theater was open in the 70s and 80s as I was there almost every week watching a new movie. I saw Star Wars there among others. I remember it was a one screen theater, quite fancy too. There was an upper balcony and lots of the older style fancy theater curtains you’d see in years past. I cannot say for absolute certain the last movie I saw there before I left Cynthiana, but I most definately saw Return of the Jedi there which was in 1983 and it’s the last movie I can remember seeing although I likely saw other less memorable movies after that. If I somehow managed to confuse this with the nearby opera theater, I apologize, but I do believe this was the one I was at all the time back then.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyum/3743857011/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyum/3744654256/
I’ll get back for more pics when I have more time.