Dixie Theatre

Joe Vogel on August 30, 2022 at 10:38 pm

The Dixie operated in two different locations in the 1910s. The opening of the second Dixie was noted in this item from a June, 1914 issue of Moving Picture World:

“The Dixie Theater Company, of Russellville, Ky., according to Manager George B. Edwards, will be ready to open on June 25. This house is a great deal larger than the old Dixie theater and has about double the seating capacity. The first pictures to be shown in the new house will be Paul Rainey’s ‘African Pictures.’”

A later issue of the same journal had more to say about the new house:

“Arthur Mitchell, the popular manager of the Dixie theater, of Russellville, Ky., is striving hard to give his patrons the best to be had in the moving picture line. He recently ran the ‘Adventures of Kathleen’ in his new house. This house has been fitted up with electrical fans and made commodious in every way. The last installment was a seven-piece orchestra which furnishes music on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights. The orchestra has become very popular and the house has been packed on the musical nights- It is more than probable that its use will be continued.”

Arthur Mitchell continued to operate the Dixie for more than a decade, contributing capsule movie reviews to MPW and its successors through the 1920s and at least as late as 1930. By 1941, there was an R. T. Mitchell operating the Dixie, Perhaps Arthur’s son, who was mentioned in the July 9 issue of Film Daily as a witness in an anti-trust case, testifying about attempts by the Crescent Amusement Company, beginning in 1935, to take control of the Dixie, the chain threatening to build a competing house in Russellville if Mitchell didn’t sell to them.

I’ve been unable to find the addresses of either location of the Dixie, but an item posted on the web site of The Logan Journal on November 29, 2015, mentions the second Dixie in passing and says that it was located on E. 4th Street.