Rodgers Theatre
1217 Solano Street,
Corning,
CA
96021
1217 Solano Street,
Corning,
CA
96021
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Additional Info
Styles: Streamline Moderne
Nearby Theaters
News About This Theater
- Sep 20, 2011 — Theater facade gets new look
Art Moderne doesn’t exactly describe this building. It’s a good sized, flat-fronted stucco building with an arched roof. The street level has an interesting green and beige tile design, and the marquee is very nice for a small town. It opened on August 30, 1935 with Kay Francis in “Stranded”.
The Rodgers Theatre was closed as a movie theater in 2006, and is currently being renovated to serve as a community center.
Contributed by
Seth Gaines
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Recent comments (view all 13 comments)
Nice looking marquee.
Here is another photo:
http://tinyurl.com/yzz6wa2
This theater is closed and has been for at least 2 years.
A 2011 photo can be seen here.
I’m reading several sites on the Rodgers. In 1990, I both lived in Corning and had a small department store right across the street from the Rodgers. At that time it was closed, but the city and someone had plans to reopen the theatre (I thought as a live stage theatre; and not a duplex). I moved away before it was reopened and not seen it since. I hope that what I just read is not true “closed”.
The Rodgers Theatre has been closed since 2006. The most recent article I can find about it is this one from the Corning Observer of January 31 this year. It says that the renovations are proceeding, and at that time new bathrooms were being built.
The Rodgers Theatre was donated to the City of Corning by Daniel and Wealthy Rodgers in 1991, along with an endowment of $50,000 toward its maintenance. The current renovations are being paid for by funds from various sources, including grants, municipal funds, and donations. The goal is to convert the building into a community center with a movie theater included.
The article says that the Rodgers Theatre was built in 1935. Unless information has been lost over the years and it was actually built earlier, that means the house would not be the 1928 project mentioned on the California Index card that I cited in my comment of September 26, 2008.
The Rodgers Theatre is presently in the process of renovation for the purpose of being turned into a community center. Assistance is apparently being provided by the City of Corning, the Corning Community Center and lots of volunteers.
September 16, 1950 photo added courtesy of Joel Windmiller.
The most recent news I can find about the Rodgers Theatre is on this page of the Rolling Hills Casino’s web site, and is dated January 11, 2016. The Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians and the Casino Foundation have pledged $100,000 for the theater’s renovation, to be disbursed over three years.
The Rodgers Theatre opened its doors on August 30, 1935 with Kay Francis in “Stranded” along with the Buddy Looney Tunes cartoon “Buddy The Dentist”, the Rainbow Parade cartoon “The Parrotville Fire Department” (listed as Porterville for some weird reason), and the serial “Miracle Riders”, featuring installations of Western Electric Wide Range sound with Clough-Brengle amplifiers.
Some information about the Rodgers as of 1935 goes as follows: Inside the auditorium contains footlights and border lights providing three color changes resembling the American flag (red, white, and blue), and the original stage contains a hand-painted gold and maroon felt front drop curtain for stage shows, then comes a blue silk “teaser” set of curtains on right and left. A third set of curtains is gold silk brocade title curtain and the fourth comes the screen, the same exact duplicate of the material used at the Cascade Theatre in Redding, which at the time had opened several weeks prior. Through a system of weights and levers, the sound screen can be swung backwards 6ft against the concrete wall at the rear of the building. This would provide plenty of space for stage presentations, which stage presentations and vaudeville are also presented alongside movies. Two projectors are in the projection room, one of which is a spotlight and the other being a stereoptican. Lastly, in case of a fire, metal covers fall over each slot and the concrete projection room is immediately isolated by means of a metal fire door from all parts of the theater. A system of buzzers allows the operator to signal either the front box office or the stage. The entire theater was constructed with a grand cost of $25,000.
Its original manager, F.W. Rodgers of Fayette, Iowa, and his wife were very notable in 1911 when Rodgers became the first ever person to take the very first train over the then-new railroad tracks at Sunnyside, then-owned by the Oregon–Washington Railroad and Navigation Company (now part of Union Pacific).