Cosy Theater
Main Street,
Pendleton,
OR
97801
Main Street,
Pendleton,
OR
97801
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It ran from 1906 to 1919, said to be the first movie picture house in Umatilla County.
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Two Pendleton movie houses bore the name Cosy Theatre between 1906 and 1919. A house in the 200 block of S. Main Street, opened in 1908 as the Orpheum Theatre, was renamed the Cosy on April 23, 1916. The first Cosy had been taken over by a new owner in 1915, remodeled and expanded, and renamed the Temple Theatre, which opened on September 27 that year. The first Cosy/Temple was at approximately 348 S. Main Street.
The Temple Theatre operated until mid-April, 1917, then reopened after a few days as the Arcade Theatre, which was still listed in the FDY in 1926 (with 350 seats) but was gone in 1927. The building is still standing, though much remodeled, the theater space being occupied by part of a large hardware store.
The original Cosy Theatre was opened by E.L. Cooper in December of 1910 with films and 200 chairs in the Temple Building. According to the local newspaper, Dr. I.U. Temple created the space for the theater in the building by taking an existing one-story, single-purpose building and adding a floor to make it a multipurpose building in 1910; the 1906 opening date above is in error. Cooper took the south half of the building to create the nickelodeon. His neighbor was the Walsh Grocery. Cooper had other nickelodeons in Oregon including Portland and Woodburn.
Downey and Rhodes took on the Cosy and expanded its footprint to contain an uncozy 600 seats, changing the front and changing the venue’s name to the Temple Theatre on September 23, 1915. Cooper then took on the Orpheum un-retiring the Cosy nameplate in April of 1916 by renaming it as the Cosy on April 21, 1916.
Guy G. Matlock got a monopoly in local theaters by taking over the Cosy and having the Pastime, Alta, and the Temple which became the Arcade on April 21, 1917. The Cosy closed briefly during the influenza pandemic of 1918 along with all theaters locally. The Cosy then closed permanently on March 6, 1919 with Olive Thomas in “Indiscreet Corinne.” The theater’s contents went to a theater in Athena and the building was converted for retail. Greulich & Matlock’s Pendleton Amusements would open the Rivoli two years later ending the remaining late-era nickelodeon venues in town.
And the first film theater in town was the Frazer Theater (aka Frazer’s Theater) which was a live house that put on its first film show on October 31, 1905 before converting to a full-time picture show in 1906. The existing Star Theatre moved from live acts to film with fewer live acts in 1907. The first full-time movie theater that hadn’t converted from a live stage was the Dime Theater opening on October 15, 1907 followed by the longer-lasting Matlock’s Pastime Theater launching March 22, 1908.