Temple Theatre
54 S. Potomac Street,
Hagerstown,
MD
21740
54 S. Potomac Street,
Hagerstown,
MD
21740
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The July 1910 Sanborn shows a 5 cent theater in the ground floor of the Masonic Temple, a three-story brick building with an intricately carved stone facade, constructed in 1898. The 1904 map shows the post office here. This was almost certainly the Temple Theatre, which began advertising in December 1910.
This was likely a rather hasty conversion, and the theater was unable to compete with the lavish movie palaces soon built within a block or two of this location. The theater does not appear in the 1914-15 AMPD, and the 1918 map shows a piano store here.
The building is in excellent shape today, and contains a distillery and several other businesses.
Contributed by
Seth Gaines
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Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
Note that this historic address was 40, but this block had been renumbered by 1918.
There was an Temple theatre that opened or placed its first ad on December 1st, 1910 and closed. Could this be it?
The Temple name sounds like it must have been here, but the opening date is after the map date.
Theatre may have been opened before, but never bought any ads in the newspaper.
Good enough for me! If it turns out to be wrong, I can always fix it.
This may not be the same building but the Hose Opera House opened in 1883 with live entertainment. It was taken over on May 17, 1907 as the Family Theatre by August Ehmling on a year to year leasing basis showing movies. The Temple Theatre then took the place of the Family Theater on Nov. 19, 1910 under new operators George R. McClellan and E.R. Crowe with movies supported by The Great Hondon aka “The Man of Mystery.”
The venue continued under final operator Nellie B. South who ran into an unpaid ad lawsuit in January of 1916. She appears to have closed up shop. Schindler and Rorher took on the property for a hardware store tearing out the theater in May of 1916.