Avalon Theatre
1307 Main Street,
Jeanerette,
LA
70544
1307 Main Street,
Jeanerette,
LA
70544
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The town of Jeanerette’s first venue for films was under the canvas of its Airdome launching in 1908. A success, four years later, the Bijou Theatre is under construction to give the city a more permanent structure that would combine film and vaudeville.
The Bijou makes the transition to talkies with Western Electric sound and drops live shows. In 1932, the Bijou suffers a fire all but gutting the facility. Seymour Construction from Texas redesigns and rebuilds the theatre within the same walls with an expanded mezzanine to increase seat count. The theatre is renamed the Avalon Theatre. It receives a sleek new front that gives the exterior a brand new deco-era look.
As the Avalon, the theatre installs widescreen to show CinemaScope films in 1953. In 1963, under its final owners Walter Hebert and William Conrad, the theatre received its final major interior updating and renovation which it had until its closure. Stripped of its sign tower, the building was repurposed.