Ritz Theatre
West Rockwood Street and South Chamberlain Avenue,
Rockwood,
TN
37854
West Rockwood Street and South Chamberlain Avenue,
Rockwood,
TN
37854
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The local film archive in Knoxville has this home movie showing a snowball fight in Rockwood. The film shows both the Lyric and the Ritz in operation. The building on this page was the lyric, but the Ritz was across the street and a block south. Link
I suspect that the only original parts of the theater building still standing are the facade and the common wall shared with the narrow shop next door. Most of the wall along Chamberlain Street appears to be of concrete rather than the brick that would have been used in the original 1893 structure. That wall, and probably the back wall as well, must have been part of the 1970 post-fire rebuilding by J. C. Penney’s.
According to an article in the September 28, 2014, issue of Roane County News, the Lyric Theatre was the same house that was later known as the Ritz, which operated at least as late as 1953. An artist who goes by the single name Susanne has a few paintings of Rockwood posted online, and this street scene dated around 1940 shows the Lyric. Her painting of the Ritz is a close view that doesn’t show the details of the upper part of the building or its surroundings, but it’s the same red brick front. The house had a different marquee as the Ritz.
This item from the “Picture Theaters Projected” column of The Moving Picture World, May 20, 1916, is probably about the remodeling project that became the Lyric:
Colvin & Howard were mentioned as operators of the Lyric Theatre at Rockwood in the July 2, 1921, issue of Exhibitor’s Herald. Then, Motion Picture Herald of November 14, 1936, mentioned Mr. W. L. Howard, manager of “…the local theater….” in Rockwood. The Roan Theatre had apparently not yet been opened.