Valerie Theatre

The Valerie Theatre was opened by Charles Molrine on December 30, 1910, in a building previously occupied by a restaurant. As reported by the local newspaper in November, 1910, Molrine, who had been operating storefront theatres in Ferndale for over a year, had a thorough remodeling job done on the restaurant structure, giving the auditorium floor a slope of four feet from front to back, a novelty in the town.

Mr. Molrine sold the Valerie Theatre to W. E. Legg in November, 1911. Mr. Legg made improvements in the house, including an indirect lighting system for the auditorium. Legg operated the house until December, 1914, when he sold it to an experienced theatre operator, Richard Pollock, of nearby Scotia. Mr. and Mrs. Pollock moved into a flat above the Valerie Theatre. Pollock expanded his interests, and by July, 1918, was operating movie houses in Fortuna, Loleta, and Rohnerville as well as the Valerie Theatre.

In 1920, Pollock was planning to expand the Valerie Theatre by 100 seats, but another opportunity arose and instead he formed a partnership with Walter Boyd and together they bought the theatres of Bayard & Bayard, which included the Minor Theatre at Arcata and houses at Blue Lake, Korbel and Bulwinkle. Pollock’s Trilma Theatre in Fortuna had closed so the partners were operating seven houses. Instead of expanding the Valerie Theatre, a deal was made with Miss Frances Hart to erect a new theatre on property she owned across the street and a few doors down from the Valerie Theatre. The new house opened as the Hart Theatre on November 30, 1920. The Valerie Theatre was closed, and the building returned to its previous use as a restaurant.

At some point, the Valerie Theatre building was either entirely or partly demolished. The current building has no second floor, and has a newer structure behind it that occupies part of the space the theatre’s auditorium once occupied. But it might be that the storefront in which Spencer’s Ferndale Vintage shop is located has at least part of the side walls of the old Valerie Theatre still intact.

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