Tucker Theater

Joe Vogel on January 10, 2026 at 10:04 am

From the October 22, 1921 issue of Moving Picture World: “Henry Tucker opened the new Tucker Theatre at Liberal, Kans., September 28. His new house seats 900. The policy of the theatre will be to play tab shows and feature pictures. It is said that the Tucker is one of the nicest film houses in this territory.”

But it turns out that the Tucker may not have been an entirely new theater. Here is what the October 8 issue of the same journal had said: “Henry Tucker, of the Photoplay Theatre at Liberal, Kas., in re-modeling the house and will re-name it the Tucker.”

CinemaTour’s page for the Photoplay says it was demolished to make way for the Tucker, and it must have been pretty close to it, as the 1921 Cahn guide lists The Photoplay with only 300 seats, and the Tucker had over three times the capacity. If anything remained of the old theater it was probably no more than a wall.

SethG on January 9, 2026 at 2:59 pm

Still listed as open in the 1956 Yearbook, with 854 seats. From the photos, looks like it made it to 1971, with that ghastly slipcover being part of a horrible remodel.