Majestic Theatre
1324 19th Street,
Belleville,
KS
66935
1324 19th Street,
Belleville,
KS
66935
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Opened as the Electrodome. C.W. Bartlett (along with his son) opened the Majestic Theatre on February 17, 1919 with the world’s famous silent entertainer Charlie Chaplin in “A Dog’s Life”.
One of the proprietors who worked at the Majestic Theatre is S.H. Blair. The Majestic Theatre was still open in 1929, but had closed by 1931. It was converted into retail use. Today it is a funeral home.
Contributed by
50sSnipes
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Recent comments (view all 4 comments)
I am dubious of the later history. The 1933 map shows this divided into two stores. It had likely closed permanently by then. I added a view from the 1923 map.
The building does not appear on the 1911 map, and was likely built to be a theater. Sometime between 1911 and 1923 the street was renamed from Broadway to 19th.
The KS Historical Society claims this was called the Electrodome, and that the building (but perhaps not the theater?) was owned by G.A. Chapin. That may be one of the other two early theaters in town, one of which was next door.
The Electrodome (or whatever this house was first called) might have opened in 1916. The June 24 issue of Moving Picture World that year said that “July 1 is the date set for the opening of a new theater here. There is at present but one house in the city.”
But one house was listed at Belleville in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, and it was called the Rex.
In 1921, Belleville had a house called the Electric Theatre. The August 6 issue of MPW said that it had been destroyed by fire, but would probably be rebuilt.
One more theater name shows up in Belleville, noted in this item from the February 23, 1918 issue of MPW: “Belleville, Kan.—The White Way theater, of which Barton Davis has been manager for the past two years, has changed hands, and C. A. Chapin is now manager and proprietor.”