New Star Theatre

928 10th Street,
Modesto, CA 95354

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Star Theatre, Modesto

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New Star Theatre

Archives of the Modesto Evening News show that the New Star Theatre opened on July 5, 1915, under the management of a Mr. Martin. Information is scarce but the Evening News praised it for its ventilation system. A local Modesto website, historicmodesto.com, says that the Star Theatre was previously located across the street at 927 10th Avenue. This previous Star Theatre can be traced back to at least 1896 in the Modesto Evening News.

The New Star Theatre closed sometime in 1921. On February 11, 1922, it was announced that the lease on the New Star Theatre had been transferred and the remodeling of the former theater into three stores would begin. In 2009 the building was still being used for commercial purposes.

Contributed by Ron Pierce

Recent comments (view all 1 comments)

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on March 20, 2022 at 1:39 am

An article about the Star Theatre appears in the September 11, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World. The owner, W. B. Martin, had been an exhibitor since 1906, and had been in Modesto for about three years. He had been manager of the Modesto Theatre at the time it was destroyed by fire in December, 1913, and then leased another theater in Modesto for a year and a half before opening the New Star.

The house he leased must have been the original Star, but it could not have been across the street from the New Star, as that was the location of the Modesto Theatre. Both houses were listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. Another period source indicates that the location of the Modesto was vacant land before that theater was built in 1913, so modern local sources saying that that was where the earlier Star was must be mistaken.

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