Rodgers Theatre

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).

September 16, 1950 photo added courtesy of Joel Windmiller‎.

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.

A 2011 photo can be seen here.

Here is another photo:
http://tinyurl.com/yzz6wa2

Here is a 1980 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/p825og

Here are puzzling tidbits from the L.A. Library’s California Index: Pacific Coast Architect, issue of July, 1928 reported that architect Frederick S. Harrison, of either Oakland or Sacramento (there are two cards, each giving a different location- maybe he had offices in both cities) was designing a $45,000 theater to be built in Corning for W.F. Rogers. Another card cites Motion Picture Herald, issue of June 8, 1935, as saying: “D. and F. Rogers have purchased a half interest in the Corning Theatre.” I have no idea if W.F. Rogers was related to D. and/or F. Rogers.

There’s not enough information there to determine if any or all of these cards refer to the Rodgers Theater, but Corning has always been a small town and it seems unlikely to have ever supported two theaters. Also, I don’t know if “Rogers” in both of those magazines was simply a misspelling of “Rodgers” though the current owners of the theatre might know. If somebody could check the Tehama County Assessor’s office, they could find the original construction date of this building. If it was 1928 or 1929, it’s almost certainly the one originally designed by Harrison.