Fountain Theatre
2469 Calle de Guadalupe,
Mesilla,
NM
88005
2469 Calle de Guadalupe,
Mesilla,
NM
88005
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Nice little theatre in Mesilla. Just watched the Manhattan Short Film Festival there. It operated by volunteers. Good to see the old still standing and in use today.
Boxoffice, Feb. 14, 1948: “Arthur J. Fountain is reopening the Fountain at Mesilla, N. M. While he was in the armed forces he left the house closed. He uses mainly Spanish and Mexican product.”
The Fountain Movie Theater, under the name Fountain of Pleasure, opened in April, 1912. The report that the theater opened in 1905 is incorrect — that is the year in which Albert J. Fountain Jr. purchased the property, which previously was a church. In June, 1927, Fountain sold the theater. In 1938, Fountain re-purchased the theater. It operated as a movie theater until 1951, when it closed. In 1977, the Fountain Theater resumed showing movies. Source: Screen With A Voice – A History of Moving Pictures in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Screen With A Voice – A History of Moving Pictures in Las Cruces New Mexico
The theater seems to be in constant peril. Every two years the lease expires and the newspaper runs stories of it being on the verge of being bought out by a neighboring boutique or winery. Luckily this hasn’t happened…yet.
Here is another photo:
http://tinyurl.com/jf6d3
The Fountain has 120 seats. The style is adobe, turn of the century (it was built in 1905) with hand-painted murals on the walls. It features 35mm, 16mm, and video projection with Dolby Digital sound on 35mm films. It was once the home of the Las Cruces Community Theater and the Desert Playwrights, interspersing live stage with motion pictures. The last few years (since 1995) have been strictly films with no live stage or music productions.
The history section of the Fountain’s web site says that it is the “…only continuously-operating movie theatre in the state” of New Mexico. (I wonder if they meant to say “oldest” rather than “only?”) If so, then, as this theatre has been operating since 1905, it would almost certainly be the oldest continuously operating movie theatre in the United States.