Ballou Park 4

The Park Theatre originally opened as a single-screen theater with a capacity of 637 seats (with installations of “Whistler’s Mother” rocking seats), 52x24ft curved screen, ultravision projection, and a stereophonic sound system, owned by Charles Abercrombie Sr. and was managed by his brother Charles Abercrombie Jr. The senior Abercrombie was also the owners of their own Abercrombie Oil Company, Durham, North Carolina’s Carolina Theatre, and his farming business near Milton, North Carolina. In his role, he selects what’s best for the Park to pick up and keeps the ratings appropriately enough for the audience (G, M and R).

Charles Sr., a native of Alabama who graduated from both Georgia Military Academy and had an attendance at the University of Alabama, the senior Abercrombie during his university years would later began managing theaters in the Triangle (both Greensboro and Winston-Salem) until moving to Danville in 1935 and soon thereafter married Rosalind Lea.

Charles Jr., at the time of the Park Theatre opening is a 26-year-old man who previously served as the 1st Lieutenant for the U.S. Army and was later employed at Burlington Mills as a textile supervisor in Raeford, North Carolina. At one time, he worked at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company for only a year. He also owns and pilots three airplanes but was currently concentrating his energies on raising cattle on a farm in Milton. At the time of the theater’s opening, he worked as manager for his father’s Abercrombie Oil Company.

Grand opening ad: Park Theatre opening 14 May 1969, Wed The Bee (Danville, Virginia) Newspapers.com

The Park was next to the Ballou Park Shopping Center, though not actually attached to it. I think most patrons just entered through the shopping center entrance and turned between two blocks of building into the theater’s adjacent lot, rather than use the theater’s actual entrance.

As a result, a lot of Danvillians tended to call it the “Ballou Park” rather than the “Park”.

It was definitely a twin by the ‘80s, but I don’t think it became a quad until the mid-'90s. The last film I recall seeing there was “Silence of the Lambs,” and I’m pretty sure that it was still only a twin at that point.

By this point, they actually had a video rental club set up in the lobby of the theater, indicative of the hard times theaters were facing in town after the onslaught of VCRs and cable.

Wait a minute….MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN was rated M?
I thought it was a family film so the MPAA rating on this was G for General Audiences. It was a kids movie.

M was for Mature Audiences-Parental Guidance Suggested
OR Parental Discretion is Strongly Advised

I saw “MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN”.A great film for a kid.Would have thought they might have booked something rated “M”.Thanks Michael.

This article about the theater’s use as a church has a picture of one of the auditoriums; apparently the church plans to use at least some of the screens and keep the box office: View link