As near as I can figure, this theater was part of the Frobisher Bay Air Base, which was established in 1942. The theater was operated by the U.S. military until the mid-1950s, at which time the house was taken over by Bryan Pearson, who would much later (1996) open the Astro Theatre. I haven’t been able to establish a closing date, but it appears to have been prior to 1975. The air base was converted into a civilian commercial airport in 1963.
The April 17, 1909 issue of Show World revealed that the Miles Theatre had opened un 1908 as a Sullivan & Considine vaudeville house, with four shows a day. Owner C. H. Miles announced a change in policy effective April 19, 1909 when the house would be booked by Wm. Morris and prices would be advanced to a fifty cent top for evening performances (Sullivan Considine’s seven-act shows typically had a top price of thirty cents.) There would be only two shows a day, as at the rival Orpheum across the street.
One thing in the article contradicts our current theater description above. It says that the Miles had only about 1,100 seats, not the 2,000 our description claims. The larger Orpheum seated about 1,800.
The April 17, 1909 issue of Show World said that the new Glamour Theatre in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood had opened “last Saturday.” As the 17th itself was a Saturday, the opening would have taken place on the 10th. The 298-seat house cost $14,000 and opened with two acts of vaudeville, an illustrated song, and motion pictures. The policy of the new house was three changes of program per week, with admission ten cents for evenings and five cents for matinees.
The PDF I linked to in my previous comment does confirm that the Bijou and the Rivoli were the same theater. The reopening of the former Bijou Theatre as the Rivoli took place on August 30, 1920, according to the September 2 issue of The Monroe County Mail that year.
An 1885 Sanborn map of Fairport shows Shaw’s Hall on the south side of West Avenue, just east of a point midway between Main Street and Perrin Street. The entire area has been redeveloped, but the site of the Rivoli was across the street and a bit east of a modern business called the Moonlight Creamery, which is at 36 West Avenue, so the Rivoli must have been at about 33-35 West Avenue. (I can’t read the address on the Sanborn map, as my computer fails to get it in focus.)
The Academy Theatre is listed at Ironton in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. It was also mentioned on March 18, 1912 in the Journal of the House of Representatives section of The Congressional Record.
The Grand Theatre operated well past the 1950s. A survey made in 1988 said that the Grand was then the oldest known operating theater in Missouri built expressly for the exhibition of motion pictures. The adjacent bank, which had owned the lot the theater was on since 1975, announced the building’s impending demolition in 1991, but the actual demolition took place in the summer of 1992. I haven’t been able to discover the date the house closed, but it could have been only shortly before the building was demolished.
The original Grand Theatre was demolished in 1991, and had been in operation at least a late as 1988. The new Grand was opened by the old theater’s last lessee, a resident of Boonville named Johnny Griggs. According to a survey of Fayette’s historic buildings, the new Grand was installed in its historic commercial building in the spring of 1992.
The historic marker for the Rollamo Theatre mentions the Lyric Theatre on Pine Street, which showed silent movies. The 400-seat Lyric first appears in the FDY in 1928, suggesting a 1927 opening, but the 1926 and 1927 editions both list a 400-seat Rolla Theatre, the only house in town. After that only the Lyric appears, except in 1930 when only the Rollo is listed again. It goes back to Lyric in 1931. This suggests that there might have simply been a name change in 1927, and the Lyric was not a new house. Neither name appears in the 1932 edition, which lists only the new Rolla-Mo Theatre.
The earliest mention of the Rivoli I’ve found in the trade publications is in the December 25, 1925 Exhibitors Herald, at which time it was being run by a Mr. H. A. Shelling. A brief note in the July 19, 1933 issue of Film Daily says “Fairport, N. Y. — Don R. Stevenson has closed the Rivoli.”
Early on, the Bijou had been called the Bijou Dream, which occupied a 19th century community building called Shaw’s Hall. The building began as a church in 1844. When the congregation outgrew the building and built a new church the building was moved to West Avenue and converted into Shaw’s Hall. This had been done by 1873. The 1889 Jeffrey guide lists Shaw’s Hall as a 549 seat house, but provides no structural details. Other sources indicate that the Hall was upstairs.
The Bijou Dream opened in May, 1907, though movies had actually been screened at least once the previous year when it was still called Shaw’s Hall. Originally a wood-framed building with some Classical detailing, sometime after 1913 it received a new brick veneer exterior with some Renaissance details. The building was razed in 1975 as part of an urban redevelopment project, though a couple of sources say it had suffered a fire before its demolition.
This two-page PDF from the local historical society has a bit of the theater’s history and a good photo of the building after the brick front was installed.
Here is an item datelined Eldora from the May 18, 1918 Moving Picture World: “M. W. Moir, proprietor Diamond theater, has taken over the Grand.” Having gained control of the Grand (which he would sell to its long-time owner L. F. Walcott in 1924) it seems likely that Mr. Moir would have closed the Diamond soon, if not immediately.
Escott O. Norton: The web site of an organization called AltonWorks covers all the public rehabilitation and renovation projects currently underway in Alton, including the Grand Theatre. Plans to give the Grand project priority were put on hold by the pandemic, but the site’s Project Updates page says that the building is being stabilized for future construction.
Rats! I thought two of the theaters lately added were on Edgington Street, but I see that three were on Washington and the one added on Edgington was probably the Diamond. That means the Princess might have been in either this building or the one at 1217 Washington. So we still have no likely location for the Bijou, which an early reference in Moving Picture World (from January, 1911) indicates could have been Eldora’s first successful movie house.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists four movie houses at Eldora: The Diamond and the Bijou, both on Marion (now Edgington) Avenue, and a generically listed M. P. Theatre and a house called the Princess Theater, neither of which were listed with a location. I suspect that the generic M. P. Theatre was actually the Grand, which appears to have opened that year. It was on Marion Avenue, so the likely occupant of this building on Washington Street was the Princess.
As this house occupied space formerly housing a store that sold implements, I wonder if it could have been this project noted in the October 2, 1920 issue of Exhibitors Herald:
“New Theatre for Eldora
“ELDORA, IA.— Frank P. Doane and Ellis McDonald will open a motion picture show about October 1 in the building formerly occupied by the Janssen Implement House. They are remodeling the place preparatory to its reopening.”
The rather ambiguous and awkward wording (“…preparatory to its reopening>” suggests that the theater might have operated earlier at a different location. If so, it could have been either the Bijou or the Princess, both of which were listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the Bijou on Marion (now Edgington) Avenue and the Princess at an unlisted location. Whatever the name of this house, only the Grand was listed at Eldora in the FDY by 1926. Despite no other theaters listed in FDYs from the late 1920s, I did find one reference to a house in Eldora called the Family Theatre in a 1928 issue of Motion Picture News. There is no clue to its location, though.
The Diamond is one of four theaters listed at Eldora in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. Of the others a house called the Bijou was also located on Marion Avenue (the former name of Edgington Avenue.) No locations were given for a house called the Princess Theatre and a generically listed M. P. Theatre.
The name Grand was not among the four theater names listed at Eldora in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but there was a generic listing for a M. P. Theater, which could have been the Grand. It’s possible the house didn’t open until late in the year and had not yet been named at the time the directory went to press.
The March 20, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World mentioned a Princess Theatre at Henderson which had opened “…over a year ago….” A house called the Princess was listed at Henderson in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, unfortunately without an address. An article in the February 21, 1943 Louisville
Courier-Journal noted the recent destruction by fire of the Kimmel Theater at Henderson.
It looks like we’ve got the theater’s names out of sequence. The house opened as the Princess by early 1914 and became the Kimmel much later. This must have been in 1941, as the Princess is last listed (though as closed) in that year’s FDY, and the Kimmel first appears in the 1942 edition. Both were listed with 523 seats.
The February 6, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World reported that the Grand Opera House at Anderson, Indiana, was being remodeled and had been leased to J. B. Dennison, who would operate it as a movie theater.
The March 20, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World said that C. H. Bleich was operating a movie house called the Anderson at Anderson, South Carolina. The theater had been formally opened on February 18.
Visiting cadets from Clemson University were among the guests at the opening, as noted in the March 31 issue of The Tiger, a university publication. One item noted a dance for the cadets hosted by Mr. Bleich and held in “…the hall over the theater.”
A 2016 article in the local Independent Mail said that the house became the Garden Theatre in 1924 and formally opened as the Criterion on May 21, 1931. The opening feature was “Dracula,” which also closed the house in the fall of 1961. After sitting dark for several years, the Criterion was dismantled beginning on July 14, 1967, and demolition began on August 7.
It’s at the University of Kentucky’s web site: 1928 Sanborn. I think it might be up by mistake, as their map collection front page says they have only pre-1928 Sanborns online (publications with 1927 copyrights just entered the public domain on January 1 this year.)
A page about Bushnell on the Sumpter County web site says: “Bushnell had it’s own opera house. It was located on the corner of Main Street and McCollum Avenue. Local plays and occasional road shows were performed there. With the coming of motion pictures, patrons gathered to watch the early movie stars such as Charlie Chaplain and Mary Pickford.”
The Gem went back to at least as early as 1911, when a storefront labeled “Moving Pictures” appeared at 22 W. Court Square on the Sanborn fire insurance map. At that time, the theater occupied only half the width it would later occupy. At some point, it was expanded to the building’s central stairway. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists three movie houses at Newnan, those being the Halcyon, the Palace, and the Lyric. Only the Palace is listed with an address, and that address was 22 Court Square.
So we have an early name for this theater, the Palace, and the later name from the 1930s, the Gem, but what was it in between? Ads in The Newnan Herald in late 1916 tout the December 9 opening of the Alamo Theatre. Local sources claim that the current Alamo, at 19 West Court Square, opened there in 1928 in a building converted from retail space.
But there is an ad for the Hamrick & Couch grocery store which ran in The Newnan Herald of September 24, 1920. The ad gives the store’s location as 21 Court Square, “Next Door to Alamo Theatre.” 21 Court Square is not next door to today’s Alamo Theatre, at 19 Court Square. It is next door to the site of the Gem Theatre, at 22 Court Square. A July 2, 1920 ad for The Book Store soda fountain also tags itself as next door to the Alamo, and the Book Store’s address is 23 Court Square, which would be the other side of the theater from the grocery store. Those two ads confirm that the Alamo Theatre was at 22 West Court Square in 1920, which means it was almost certainly at that address from 1916 to 1928.
Palace Theatre and Alamo Theatre are both aka’s for the Gem.
I’ve come across an ad for the Hamrick & Couch grocery store which ran in The Newnan Herald of September 24, 1920. The ad gives the store’s location as 21 Court Square, “Next Door to Alamo Theatre.” The interesting thing is that 21 Court Square is not next door to today’s Alamo Theatre, at 19 Court Square, but next door to the site of the Gem Theatre, at 22 Court Square.
As local sources claim that the building at 19 Court Square was converted from retail purposes to a theater (the Alamo) in 1928, and movies were being shown at 22 W. Court by 1911 but it didn’t become the Gem until 1934, it seems possible that the Alamo was originally in the building at 22 W. Court, operating from 1916 until 1928, when the building at 19 W. Court was converted for its use.
As near as I can figure, this theater was part of the Frobisher Bay Air Base, which was established in 1942. The theater was operated by the U.S. military until the mid-1950s, at which time the house was taken over by Bryan Pearson, who would much later (1996) open the Astro Theatre. I haven’t been able to establish a closing date, but it appears to have been prior to 1975. The air base was converted into a civilian commercial airport in 1963.
The April 17, 1909 issue of Show World revealed that the Miles Theatre had opened un 1908 as a Sullivan & Considine vaudeville house, with four shows a day. Owner C. H. Miles announced a change in policy effective April 19, 1909 when the house would be booked by Wm. Morris and prices would be advanced to a fifty cent top for evening performances (Sullivan Considine’s seven-act shows typically had a top price of thirty cents.) There would be only two shows a day, as at the rival Orpheum across the street.
One thing in the article contradicts our current theater description above. It says that the Miles had only about 1,100 seats, not the 2,000 our description claims. The larger Orpheum seated about 1,800.
The April 17, 1909 issue of Show World said that the new Glamour Theatre in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood had opened “last Saturday.” As the 17th itself was a Saturday, the opening would have taken place on the 10th. The 298-seat house cost $14,000 and opened with two acts of vaudeville, an illustrated song, and motion pictures. The policy of the new house was three changes of program per week, with admission ten cents for evenings and five cents for matinees.
The PDF I linked to in my previous comment does confirm that the Bijou and the Rivoli were the same theater. The reopening of the former Bijou Theatre as the Rivoli took place on August 30, 1920, according to the September 2 issue of The Monroe County Mail that year.
An 1885 Sanborn map of Fairport shows Shaw’s Hall on the south side of West Avenue, just east of a point midway between Main Street and Perrin Street. The entire area has been redeveloped, but the site of the Rivoli was across the street and a bit east of a modern business called the Moonlight Creamery, which is at 36 West Avenue, so the Rivoli must have been at about 33-35 West Avenue. (I can’t read the address on the Sanborn map, as my computer fails to get it in focus.)
The Academy Theatre is listed at Ironton in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. It was also mentioned on March 18, 1912 in the Journal of the House of Representatives section of The Congressional Record.
The correct address of the old State Theatre building is 119 N. Main Street. Currently vacant, the building was recently offered for sale at $64,500.
The Grand Theatre operated well past the 1950s. A survey made in 1988 said that the Grand was then the oldest known operating theater in Missouri built expressly for the exhibition of motion pictures. The adjacent bank, which had owned the lot the theater was on since 1975, announced the building’s impending demolition in 1991, but the actual demolition took place in the summer of 1992. I haven’t been able to discover the date the house closed, but it could have been only shortly before the building was demolished.
The original Grand Theatre was demolished in 1991, and had been in operation at least a late as 1988. The new Grand was opened by the old theater’s last lessee, a resident of Boonville named Johnny Griggs. According to a survey of Fayette’s historic buildings, the new Grand was installed in its historic commercial building in the spring of 1992.
The historic marker for the Rollamo Theatre mentions the Lyric Theatre on Pine Street, which showed silent movies. The 400-seat Lyric first appears in the FDY in 1928, suggesting a 1927 opening, but the 1926 and 1927 editions both list a 400-seat Rolla Theatre, the only house in town. After that only the Lyric appears, except in 1930 when only the Rollo is listed again. It goes back to Lyric in 1931. This suggests that there might have simply been a name change in 1927, and the Lyric was not a new house. Neither name appears in the 1932 edition, which lists only the new Rolla-Mo Theatre.
The earliest mention of the Rivoli I’ve found in the trade publications is in the December 25, 1925 Exhibitors Herald, at which time it was being run by a Mr. H. A. Shelling. A brief note in the July 19, 1933 issue of Film Daily says “Fairport, N. Y. — Don R. Stevenson has closed the Rivoli.”
Early on, the Bijou had been called the Bijou Dream, which occupied a 19th century community building called Shaw’s Hall. The building began as a church in 1844. When the congregation outgrew the building and built a new church the building was moved to West Avenue and converted into Shaw’s Hall. This had been done by 1873. The 1889 Jeffrey guide lists Shaw’s Hall as a 549 seat house, but provides no structural details. Other sources indicate that the Hall was upstairs.
The Bijou Dream opened in May, 1907, though movies had actually been screened at least once the previous year when it was still called Shaw’s Hall. Originally a wood-framed building with some Classical detailing, sometime after 1913 it received a new brick veneer exterior with some Renaissance details. The building was razed in 1975 as part of an urban redevelopment project, though a couple of sources say it had suffered a fire before its demolition.
This two-page PDF from the local historical society has a bit of the theater’s history and a good photo of the building after the brick front was installed.
Here is an item datelined Eldora from the May 18, 1918 Moving Picture World: “M. W. Moir, proprietor Diamond theater, has taken over the Grand.” Having gained control of the Grand (which he would sell to its long-time owner L. F. Walcott in 1924) it seems likely that Mr. Moir would have closed the Diamond soon, if not immediately.
Escott O. Norton: The web site of an organization called AltonWorks covers all the public rehabilitation and renovation projects currently underway in Alton, including the Grand Theatre. Plans to give the Grand project priority were put on hold by the pandemic, but the site’s Project Updates page says that the building is being stabilized for future construction.
Rats! I thought two of the theaters lately added were on Edgington Street, but I see that three were on Washington and the one added on Edgington was probably the Diamond. That means the Princess might have been in either this building or the one at 1217 Washington. So we still have no likely location for the Bijou, which an early reference in Moving Picture World (from January, 1911) indicates could have been Eldora’s first successful movie house.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists four movie houses at Eldora: The Diamond and the Bijou, both on Marion (now Edgington) Avenue, and a generically listed M. P. Theatre and a house called the Princess Theater, neither of which were listed with a location. I suspect that the generic M. P. Theatre was actually the Grand, which appears to have opened that year. It was on Marion Avenue, so the likely occupant of this building on Washington Street was the Princess.
As this house occupied space formerly housing a store that sold implements, I wonder if it could have been this project noted in the October 2, 1920 issue of Exhibitors Herald:
The rather ambiguous and awkward wording (“…preparatory to its reopening>” suggests that the theater might have operated earlier at a different location. If so, it could have been either the Bijou or the Princess, both of which were listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the Bijou on Marion (now Edgington) Avenue and the Princess at an unlisted location. Whatever the name of this house, only the Grand was listed at Eldora in the FDY by 1926. Despite no other theaters listed in FDYs from the late 1920s, I did find one reference to a house in Eldora called the Family Theatre in a 1928 issue of Motion Picture News. There is no clue to its location, though.The Diamond is one of four theaters listed at Eldora in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. Of the others a house called the Bijou was also located on Marion Avenue (the former name of Edgington Avenue.) No locations were given for a house called the Princess Theatre and a generically listed M. P. Theatre.
The name Grand was not among the four theater names listed at Eldora in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but there was a generic listing for a M. P. Theater, which could have been the Grand. It’s possible the house didn’t open until late in the year and had not yet been named at the time the directory went to press.
The March 20, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World mentioned a Princess Theatre at Henderson which had opened “…over a year ago….” A house called the Princess was listed at Henderson in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, unfortunately without an address. An article in the February 21, 1943 Louisville Courier-Journal noted the recent destruction by fire of the Kimmel Theater at Henderson.
It looks like we’ve got the theater’s names out of sequence. The house opened as the Princess by early 1914 and became the Kimmel much later. This must have been in 1941, as the Princess is last listed (though as closed) in that year’s FDY, and the Kimmel first appears in the 1942 edition. Both were listed with 523 seats.
The February 6, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World reported that the Grand Opera House at Anderson, Indiana, was being remodeled and had been leased to J. B. Dennison, who would operate it as a movie theater.
The March 20, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World said that C. H. Bleich was operating a movie house called the Anderson at Anderson, South Carolina. The theater had been formally opened on February 18.
Visiting cadets from Clemson University were among the guests at the opening, as noted in the March 31 issue of The Tiger, a university publication. One item noted a dance for the cadets hosted by Mr. Bleich and held in “…the hall over the theater.”
A 2016 article in the local Independent Mail said that the house became the Garden Theatre in 1924 and formally opened as the Criterion on May 21, 1931. The opening feature was “Dracula,” which also closed the house in the fall of 1961. After sitting dark for several years, the Criterion was dismantled beginning on July 14, 1967, and demolition began on August 7.
It’s at the University of Kentucky’s web site: 1928 Sanborn. I think it might be up by mistake, as their map collection front page says they have only pre-1928 Sanborns online (publications with 1927 copyrights just entered the public domain on January 1 this year.)
Note architect as Otis E. Hancock.
A page about Bushnell on the Sumpter County web site says: “Bushnell had it’s own opera house. It was located on the corner of Main Street and McCollum Avenue. Local plays and occasional road shows were performed there. With the coming of motion pictures, patrons gathered to watch the early movie stars such as Charlie Chaplain and Mary Pickford.”
The Gem went back to at least as early as 1911, when a storefront labeled “Moving Pictures” appeared at 22 W. Court Square on the Sanborn fire insurance map. At that time, the theater occupied only half the width it would later occupy. At some point, it was expanded to the building’s central stairway. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists three movie houses at Newnan, those being the Halcyon, the Palace, and the Lyric. Only the Palace is listed with an address, and that address was 22 Court Square.
So we have an early name for this theater, the Palace, and the later name from the 1930s, the Gem, but what was it in between? Ads in The Newnan Herald in late 1916 tout the December 9 opening of the Alamo Theatre. Local sources claim that the current Alamo, at 19 West Court Square, opened there in 1928 in a building converted from retail space.
But there is an ad for the Hamrick & Couch grocery store which ran in The Newnan Herald of September 24, 1920. The ad gives the store’s location as 21 Court Square, “Next Door to Alamo Theatre.” 21 Court Square is not next door to today’s Alamo Theatre, at 19 Court Square. It is next door to the site of the Gem Theatre, at 22 Court Square. A July 2, 1920 ad for The Book Store soda fountain also tags itself as next door to the Alamo, and the Book Store’s address is 23 Court Square, which would be the other side of the theater from the grocery store. Those two ads confirm that the Alamo Theatre was at 22 West Court Square in 1920, which means it was almost certainly at that address from 1916 to 1928.
Palace Theatre and Alamo Theatre are both aka’s for the Gem.
I’ve come across an ad for the Hamrick & Couch grocery store which ran in The Newnan Herald of September 24, 1920. The ad gives the store’s location as 21 Court Square, “Next Door to Alamo Theatre.” The interesting thing is that 21 Court Square is not next door to today’s Alamo Theatre, at 19 Court Square, but next door to the site of the Gem Theatre, at 22 Court Square.
As local sources claim that the building at 19 Court Square was converted from retail purposes to a theater (the Alamo) in 1928, and movies were being shown at 22 W. Court by 1911 but it didn’t become the Gem until 1934, it seems possible that the Alamo was originally in the building at 22 W. Court, operating from 1916 until 1928, when the building at 19 W. Court was converted for its use.