Rex Theatre

dallasmovietheaters on July 16, 2021 at 3:53 am

Prior to 1912, moving pictures were sporadically brought into to the town of Jet by traveling companies that furnished a generator. But that changed when a new build facility by W.E. George launched as the Wonderland Electric Theatre showing movies for a dime with a grand opening on September 12, 1912.

New operators refreshed the venue renaming it the Savoy Theatre featuring movies and a boxing vaudevillian kangaroo named “Battling Bob” Fitzsimmons, The Champion Boxing Kangaroo of the World on October 1, 1916. C.A. Hinshaw sold the venue to Roy Azbill in 1920 who closed the Savoy to extend the building and provide a better stage for vaudeville which would be programmed twice a month. Azbill’s grand opening of the Rex Theatre took place on June 10, 1920 with J. Warren Kerrigan in “Number 99.” The Rex closed April 7, 1923 with “Sylvia of the Secret Service.” The facility was retrofitted as a retail store likely on a 15-year lease.

In 1939, Nelson Smith and John Jordan took over the retail spot and relaunched it with sound as the new Rex Theatre. After the War, the town’s population decreased to under 400 residents and the advent of television posed a threat to the future of the Rex. Under operators James and Bob Henigman, the theatre got new projection and a curved screen to show CinemaScope films beginning after a refresh with “Ivanhoe” on February 18, 1954. The theatre closed April 19, 1955. The Henigmans relaunched the venue one last timein August of 1957 with theater closing permanently before year’s end.

raybradley on March 2, 2011 at 5:37 pm

Searching street views on google maps, there are few buildings still remaining in the 400 block (business district) of N. Main St. Any one of them could have once housed a small cinema.
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/20805684