Gastonia Theatre

Joe Vogel on April 26, 2014 at 3:13 pm

The Wednesday, June 12, 1918, issue of The Gastonia Gazette said that the Gastonian Theatre would open on Friday.

I suspect that the Gastonian’s site was under the footprint of the modern Gaston County Administration Building. An old red brick building on the corner of Marietta Street, now the Carriage Company Lofts, uses the address 100 W. Main, but it is a double-width building that has two storefronts, so it might historically have been 100 and 102 W. Main. Next door to it is an old building with a pale brick front, vacant in the current street view and displaying no address. If that building is at 104 W. Main then 106 has been demolished. But 104 was the address of the Cozy Theatre, which the Gastonia apparently drove out of business. If the Cozy was in that building I guess it gets the last laugh.

However, if the addresses rise more rapidly, then the building with the pale brick front might be 106, and the Cozy might have been in the second storefront of the red brick building on the corner, and both theater buildings would still be standing. But in the absence of some source such as old photos or a Sanborn map there’s no way to tell.