Gem Theatre
W. Howard Street,
Nashville,
AR
71852
W. Howard Street,
Nashville,
AR
71852
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Additional Info
Previously operated by: K. Lee Williams Theaters Inc.
Functions: Bank
Nearby Theaters
No theaters found within 30 miles
Planters Bank & Trust Co. was built in 1923 at 103 N. Main Street. At the rear of the bank on W. Howard Street was built the Gem Theatre. In March 1939 it was taken over by the K. Lee Williams Theaters Inc. circuit and they closed it to be remodeled and having air conditioning installed. It had closed by 1941.
The building still stands today having been taken over as part of the bank.
Contributed by
Ken Roe
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Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
According to a walking tour of Nashville’s historic district (PDF here,) the bank at 103 N. Main Street was built in 1923, and a 1930 Sanborn map shows the theater behind it. However, the theater operation predates the bank, as an “air dome cinema” opened on the site toward the end of May, 1919. It seems likely that the indoor theater would have been built at the same time as the bank building.
The caption of This photo of the Howard Theatre uploaded by dallasmovietheatres says that the Howard, 118 N. Main St., was formerly the Gem. The walking tour I cited in my previous comment also lists the buildings at 114-122 Main and says that by 1919 there was a movie theater in one of them. An item in the July 1, 1922 issue of The Film Daily says that the Liberty Theatre in Nashville had just opened, which was close to the 1923 opening date for the bank at 103 N. Main. Could it be that the theater behind the bank was the Liberty? dallasamovietheatres doesn’t cite the source for the claim that the Gem was the house at 118 Main, but given that their contributions are typically well researched and accurate, it does seem possible that it was.
Also perhaps pertinent, an April 4, 1939 Film Daily article about recent expansion by the K. Lee Williams theater circuit of Oklahoma had this paragraph mentioning theaters in Nashville:
An April 28 Daily item mentioned air conditioning being installed in Williams' Gem and Liberty Theatres at Nashville. I’m also wondering if the “New theatre” mentioned in the article could have been the Elberta? Most Internet sources say that the Elberta opened around 1943, but given the severe wartime limits on new construction imposed by the Federal government in early 1942, it seems likely the house was built earlier. Perhaps the New Theatre was renamed Elberta in 1943.Locals I have talked to say the Elberta opened 1946-1948. The Gem was located behind the bank. The Liberty Theater was on the east side of the middle block (I have a photo of it). I don’t think the photo caption you mentioned is correct, as the Howard is where the current chamber of commerce office is now located. Another person I interviewed said he remembered the Gem in 1939 or 1940. He was a relief projectionist for the Liberty and for the Howard later on. I’m with the local historical society and have been working to document everything.
rebeldj: 1946-48 would make more sense for the Elberta’s construction date than the 1943 I’ve seen cited in several places on the Internet. Permission to build new theaters during the war was often granted to builders in towns that had large military bases or war-related manufacturing facilities nearby, but I haven’t found references to any such facilities near Nashville. It seems very unlikely that permission to build a large, new theater in Nashville would have been given in 1942 or 1943, especially since it already had two (possibly three) functioning movie houses.
Our new description for the Gem puzzles me though. The Film Daily item I cited says that the Gem and Liberty had been operated by R. B. Hardy and that the New had been operated under lease from owner R. V. McGinnis by H. H. Baker. Unless the Daily had gotten the information terribly garbled (which is always a possibility) I don’t see how New Theatre could have been only an aka for the remodeled Gem. In the article it sounds like all three were already in operation when K. Lee Williams took them over around the beginning of April, 1939.
I just had a belated thought. It seems quite possible that the New Theatre that H. H. Baker had been leasing for an unspecified period of time before April, 1939 (perhaps for only a few months) was the house that K. Lee Williams began operating in 1939 as the Howard. It actually was a new theater at that time.
I agree with your later statement Joe, that is my opinion anyways. It was new! I think it’s probably the Howard. We could probably take that sentence out of the description.