Booth Theatre

I lived in Wolfe City as a child. The Booth family, owners of this theater, were well-known in town, and they lived just across and down the same street from where we did. Before television, everyone who lived in the area, came to town on Friday and Saturday nights, and going to the Booth was standard for many, if not most, of them (along with shopping in the stores that kept late hours only on those evenings making it impossible for working people and farmers to shop at other times). My father gave me a quarter every Saturday. I would pay 10 cents to get into the Booth to see the film and would buy a cola for 5 cents and a bag of popcorn for 5 cents. At the time, I was totally unaware of the side door and the balcony (the latter of which I probably saw from below but without a view or knowledge of who was up there). It was a segregated theater. The side door was a second entrance which was labeled “Coloreds” and opened to a staircase that led up to the balcony where African Americans could sit and watch the same films. By the time my family left Wolfe City in 1956, times had changed. Everyone had cars and could drive where they wanted to shop and see films (mostly to Greenville); stores, therefore, no longer stayed open late on Fridays and Saturdays; and there were televisions in most homes. The Booth Theater had closed sometime around 1953 or 1954. I seem to recall that it was opened again sometime after we left in 1956 for a brief period of time, but I may have dreamed that since my dreams often dwell on topics of particular interest to me which include cinema and films.