Shelby Theatre
505 State Street,
Bristol,
VA
24201
505 State Street,
Bristol,
VA
24201
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The Isis Theatre was opened on January 7, 1917 , and was located next door to another movie house, the Eagle Theatre, which later operated as the State Theatre. The Isis Theatre is not listed in the 1926 edition of Film Daily Yearbook, but is listed in the 1929 edition.
Contributed by
Joe Vogel
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Recent comments (view all 5 comments)
In the 1950’s it was called Shelby.
bsneed45: Are you sure it was the Isis, at 505 State Street, which became the Shelby Theatre, and not the State Theatre, which was next door at 503 State Street? A document from the Library of Virginia (online here) lists correspondence from the State Theatre in 1958, and from the Shelby Theatre in 1958-1962. That sounds as though there might have been a name change in 1958.
Opened On January 7, 1917, Closed In 1931.
This reopened as the State theatre on February 17th, 1938, and as Shelby on September 14th, 1949. Grand opening ads posted.
If the caption of a photo on page 79 of the book “Bristol,” by George Stone (Google Books preview) is correct, then rivest266’s comment immediately above actually applies to the theater that was next door to the Isis, at 503 State Street, which we have listed as the State Theatre, but which was earlier called the Eagle.
The NRHP registration form for the Bristol Commercial Historic District has a paragraph each for the buildings at 503 and 505 State Street, and does say that the State was at 503, and treats the two structures, both built in 1890, as two separate buildings. However, while the two have different facades, Google’s satellite view shows that they share a single roof, undivided by the common wall we would expect with two separate buildings. I suspect that the researchers for the historic district nomination might not have dug deeply enough into the building’s history, and I think we should consider the possibility that the State, with its eventual listed seating capacity of 750, actually occupied the sites of both the Eagle and the Isis, both of which were smaller.
In any case, while the Isis was not listed in the 1926 FDY it is listed in the 1929 edition, with a capacity of 650, and though the Eagle is also listed that year, the book gives no seating capacity for it. Both houses are named in the listing for the Goebel Theatres company (the others were the Columbia and Cameo) in the 1929 Bristol City Directory, but only the Columbia, Cameo and Isis get individual listings, and while the managers and projectionists of the Columbia, Isis and Cameo are listed at their home addresses, no such personnel are listed for the Eagle. From this I would surmise that the Isis was still in operation at 505 in 1929, but the Eagle, at 503, though still extant, was closed. Tellingly, the addresses in the 1929 directory for Goebel Theatres and the Isis were the same, 505 State Street.