Amusu Theatre

Joe Vogel on August 27, 2017 at 6:08 pm

The May 26, 1917, issue of The Billboard listed the 350-seat Amusu Theatre at Jasonville, managed by George Passen, as an independent vaudeville house. A Mr. W. L. Passen was mentioned in the October 11, 1952, issue of The Motion Picture Herald as the seller of the 300-seat Amuzu Theatre in Jasonville. The buyer was named Clay Burnett.

The 1914-1915 edition of The American Motion Picture Directory listed two theaters at Jasonville, called the Aero and the Lyric.

The July, 1911, issue of Motography noted the sale of the Jasonville Theatre at Jasonville for $28,000,

The 1910 report of Indiana’s Department of Inspection listed only one theater at Jasonville, called the Star.

In August of 1918, three issues of The Moving Picture World list two theaters at Jasonville, those being the Crescent and the Empire. I don’t know if the Empire was a short-lived theater, or if perhaps it was a briefly-used aka for the Amusu, which was missing from those lists but mentioned in trade publications both before and after that year.

On the afternoon of July 24, 1914, Jasonville suffered a major fire that destroyed or damaged six blocks of businesses and two residential blocks. Some fifty stores were involved in the conflagration, and the total loss was estimated at $300,000. The fire is believed to have started in a movie house called the Family Theatre, located at 108 Main Street. Formerly called the Airdome, the once-outdoor theater had been given a makeshift wood and canvas roof, which allowed the fire to grow rapidly.

In addition to the Family Theatre, an adjacent building called the Opera House was destroyed, as was another nearby theater called Goldstein’s Opera House. However, newspaper reports from the following day indicate that Goldstein’s, which suffered a loss of $6,000, was also a moving picture theater.