New Theatre
4085 Main Street,
Chincoteague,
VA
23336
4085 Main Street,
Chincoteague,
VA
23336
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A Facebook page called Chincoteague Family Heritage appears to be run by a descendant of the Powell family, and on this page there is a photo of Mabel Powell with a somewhat blurry and washed out view of the New Theatre in the background. The marquee looks quite similar to that of the Island Theatre, but close inspection shows that the New had a narrower entrance.
Multiple sources indicate that the New Theatre building has been demolished, and one suggests that it was perhaps demolished as the result of a flood the area suffered in 1962. The New is mentioned in documents from the Virginia Division of Motion Picture Censorship in 1958, so it must have still been in operation at that time.
The building in your photo was not Powell’s New Theater. This building in the 1940’s was Arthur Leonard’s Garage. Today it is the American Legion Post. Powell’s New Theater was about 100 or so feet south of the building in the photo. My father worked at the New Theater for several years. He was projectionist there when it closed around 1956 or 1957.
The modern address of the New Theatre should have four digits, as the Island Theatre’s address is 4074 Main Street and the address of the building that once housed Powell’s Theatre is 4098 Main Street, and all three theaters were close together.
In a 2006 interview of Anne Lumley Davis, which was part of the Chincoteague Island Library Oral History Project, Ms. Davis says this about the New Theatre:
Other sources indicate that the New Theatre was owned by the Powell family, and that they operated both it and Powell’s Theatre until both houses succumbed to competition from the Island Theatre in the 1950s.