Phoenix Theater (3)

Joe Vogel on January 17, 2026 at 2:34 pm

This was the Phoenix Theatre, opened in 1911 by C. I. Rice following the dissolution of his partner ship with C. F. Bays, with whom he had operated the original Phoenix Theatre and an Airdome. This was the third location of the Phoenix, the first having been in the Williamson Block (which I have thus far been unable to identify) and the second being next door to the third Phoenix, at 216 S. Main Street, which Mr. Bays continued to operate as a theater called the Elite for some time before moving it to another location.

A book about Pratt and Pratt County first published in 1911 has brief sketches of local businesses and their owners, and the one about the third Phoenix and Mr. Rice can be seen at this link (though fair warning, the application the web site hosts the book on is one of the crankiest I’ve ever dealt with, and you might have to do a lot of fiddling about to make the image clean enough to see.)