Gustine Theatre
328 5th Street,
Gustine,
CA
95322
328 5th Street,
Gustine,
CA
95322
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Additional Info
Previous Names: Gustine Opera House
Nearby Theaters
Moving Pictures are listed on Sanborn Maps 1920 on 5th Street, between 3rd Avenue and 4th Avenue.
The Gustine Opera House was opened in May 1912. It was screening movies and presenting vaudeville from its opening. It became the Gustine Theatre on December 14, 1919, under the management of E.J. Goldenberger and J.R. Silva. The opening movies were Dorothy Gish in “Battling Jane” and Fatty Arbuckle in “The Cook”.
The Gustine Standard reported: “The Gustine Theatre, under the management of E.J. Goldenberger and J.R. Silva, will open next Sunday night with Dorothy Gish and Fatty Arbuckle as the features. Jack and Goldie need no introduction and, in their effort, to give the people of Gustine a really good show we feel sure they will have the hearty support of all the people. The pictures are of the Famous Player Laskey Paramount Pictures known as the best produced but as the boys say, none too good for Gustine. The shows will be kept right up to the standard, and we believe will be well patronized”.
On March 7, 1920 it was destroyed by a fire which had begun in the projection box. By 1926 the Gustine Theatre had been replaced by the Victoria Theatre as the main movie theatre in town.
Today’s location would be next to the post office.
Contributed by
Ron Pierce
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Recent comments (view all 2 comments)
This house might have opened earlier than 1919, or perhaps there was an earlier theater of the same name. This item is from Moving Picture World of November 17, 1917: “GUSTINE, CALIF.—Gustine theater has opened under the management of Fred Muller.” Gustine had a movie theater at least as early as 1916, when the April1 MPW had this item: “Gustine, Cal.—P. J. Bladt has taken over a theater here and has installed a Power’s Cameragraph No. 6A and a Fort Wayne Compensarc.”
The Gustine Theatre suffered a fire in 1920, as reported in the April 3 Exhibitors Herald: “NEWMAN. CAL.— The Gustine theatre was destroyed recently by fire which originated in the projection room.”
After reexamining a history of the Gustine area by Patricia Carson Snoke I am convinced that the Gustine Theatre was the former Gustine Opera House, which Ms. Snoke says opened in May, 1912. It was equipped to show movies from the beginning, but also presented vaudeville and a variety of local events. In 1915 it was sold to Peter Bladt, who remodeled it, giving it a sloped floor for the first time.
On March 7, 1920 a projection booth fire broke out during the show. A capacity audience escaped unscathed, though a bucket brigade using water from a nearby horse trough failed to save the building or two neighboring structures. There were presumed casualties, however. Several goldfish who had been kept in the trough by a local were missing following the conflagration, and were assumed to have perished in the flames, or perhaps under the feet of the bucket brigade.