Foss Theatre
100 E. 1st Street,
Julesburg,
CO
80737
100 E. 1st Street,
Julesburg,
CO
80737
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An article first published in the Julesburg Advocate in 1997 says that the two-story building at 204-206 Main housed the opera house upstairs (the “Hall 2nd” notation on the Sanborn.) This does make me wonder if the current 100 E. First was not the historic 102 E. First. But that would leave the puzzle of the “Foss Theatre” building that was remodeled for apartments in 1917. That building on the corner would have been a very odd shape for a theater, being almost square.
It’s possible the theater did move, but the numbers are a bit inconsistent. The building to the east now has an address of 106, and the theater seems to be using 100 Cedar, which would have belonged to the bank on the corner (I think that the old theater space has been incorporated into the building on the corner.). The old fire station would have had a lot more room to run a theater in. The fire department would have likely moved out when the new power plant was built. The 1921 map says that it contained city hall and the fire department as well, but it’s not quite clear where they would have fit. At any rate, by 1921 ‘102’ is labeled ‘Dead Auto Storage’.
Incidentally, the Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection provides and extensive assortment of Julesburg’s early newspapers, and many issues have items about the early theaters (I found more using the search terms “picture show” than using the names of the theaters themselves.) Unfortunately, I’ve also found the site’s search feature to be sometimes rather cranky, though otherwise the site is quite well designed and very useful.
The September 1, 1910 issue of the Julesburg Grit-Advocate ran this item:
The December 29, 1910 issue of the paper noted changes of program at the house every night. The Foss was being supplied with movies through the Swanson Film Exchange in Denver.Mr. Foss apparently gave up the theater less than two years later, as this item is found in the May 13, 1912 Dirt-Advocate:
At some point, the theater was moved next door from its original location, as a history of the Hippodrome in the April 24, 2019 Julesburg Advocate gives the address 102 for the Plezol as of February, 1913. Here is an item from the February 6, 1913 issue of the Grit-Advocate:The 2019 article about the Hippodrome said that that house opened in April, 1919, operated by the owner of the Hipp Theatre, who took the old name with him but only used it for one week. The start of remodeling of the Foss Theatre building for use as an apartment house was noted in the April 26, 1917 issue of the paper. As that was two years before The Hipp moved to its new location on Cedar Street, it indicates that the Foss and the Plezol/Hipp were not in the same building. I still haven’t been able to pin down the date of the first move to 102 First Street, but it was probably sometime in 1913, though it must have been after the Sanborn map was published. Neither have I been able to discover what name the original theater operated under before it became the Foss in September, 1910.