Theatre
112-114 N. Mill Street,
Beloit,
KS
67420
112-114 N. Mill Street,
Beloit,
KS
67420
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Since we don’t have a later map, I was thinking there could have been alterations to the building at some point after 1917. Partial reconstruction was not rare for successful early theaters.
The Grand Theatre is mentioned in the November 10, 1917 issue of The Moving Picture Weekly, and there is a family web site claiming that a Mr. William S. Gabel built the Grand in 1913, and it opened in 1914. The Gabel family owned the building until 1929, when it was sold to Dickinson Theatres. But if there are no other theaters in Beloit (aside from the Opera House, which we know to be older) on the 1917 Sanborn, this must be the Grand, however poor the sight lines must have been.
You could definitely have fit 700 people in here, although I don’t know how anyone would have seen the screen with the building only being 15 feet tall. There’s a 1927(?) map, but it’s not online.
The November 8, 1916 Moving Picture World mentions a house called the Grant Theatre in Beloit, run by an E. T. Burgan. By 1926, the only theater listed at Beloit in the FDY was a 700-seat house called the Grand, still listed in 1929. Grant/Grand makes me stroke my chin whiskers. Hmmm.