American Theatre
98 Main Street,
Canton,
NY
13617
98 Main Street,
Canton,
NY
13617
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Three 1952 photos added. It was originally built, owned & managed by (Byron H.) Rogers & Southworth at a cost of $70,000, until Alex Papyanakos bought it in the early 1920’s. Additional history courtesy of Historian Town & Village Canton NY Facebook page.
winter, 1962: When a freshman at St. Lawrence University, I went down to the American one night to see a young scruffy folk singer singing solo with acoustic guitar. His name? Bobby Dylan! That was history!
The Address for the American Theater is not 96 Main St. it is 98 Main St.
The theatre has a great marquee but the inside is quite another story. If it weren’t for the original lighting fixtures (they’re kind of art deco and very unique) you’d never know you were in an old movie palace. Actually, there are also some visual traces of the molded plaster from the balcony’s front in the rear of two of the auditoriums. I suppose if Jeff hadn’t carved up the theatre into more screens someone would have built a multiplex just ouside of town resulting in the American being torn down. It certainly was the lesser evil
I own an old postcard (postmarked 1928) with a nice photo and a caption that reads: “AMERICAN – Seventy Thousand Dollar Moving Picture Theater Erected in 1921 by B. H. Rogers, Canton, N.Y.”