Palm Theatre

The Palm Theatre was a diminutive theatre in the shadow of the Rivoli Theatre. It was located in the existing Stone Block as a retail store conversion project. The theatre got off to an auspicious start at its September 5, 1924 opening. The show was stopped and all given refunds (except one child who got ill and went home) when a judge ruled that the theatre could not legally open. Hostetler Amusement Circuit was tied up in court over this theatre and its Auditorium Theatre in which another Judge said that it couldn’t operate as a movie theatre because city funding went into its creation.

The good news is that the Palm Theatre was allowed to reopen in September of 1925. But the Palm Theatre was undersized in a city that had much larger and better equipped theatre. The Palm Theatre flopped and closed in 1927. The Democrats used the facility in 1928 to stage a convention. A new five year lease agreement was reached to reopen in the Palm Theatre in 1929 but that doesn’t appear to have materialized. During that time, the Kerr Theatre and the Palm Theatre appear to end up in the Publix Circuit which was going through bankruptcy. That dealing at the end of the Palm Theatre’s lease effectively ended the operation even though it had not reopened or wired for sound.

The building was retrofitted for other retail purposes and the building is still in existence as of the 2020’s.

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