Princess Theatre
404 S. Main Street,
Cedartown,
GA
30125
404 S. Main Street,
Cedartown,
GA
30125
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Additional Info
Previously operated by: Lam Operating Company
Functions: Office Space
Nearby Theaters
Princess Theatre opened around the mid-1900’s. It was still operating into 1943. The building still exists today but has been converted into office space.
Contributed by
John Coursey
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Recent comments (view all 5 comments)
The Princess Theatre that was operating in the 1930s had opened by 1931,the first year it appears in the FDY, when it was listed with 500 seats, but there was an earlier Princess Theater in Cedartown, which might or might not have been in the same location.
The Thursday, March 14, 1912 issue of the Cedartown Standard reported that the new Princess Theater had been opened the previous Monday (March 11) by G. G. Adams and C. A. Knight in the building owned by Mrs. R. A. Adams. The Princess was not one of the two movie houses listed at Cedartown in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory (the Palace and the Elite) and the last mention of the Princess I can find in the available pages of the Standard is from March, 1914. Since we have a photo of the Princess with cars from the late 1930s on the street, it obviously was in operation later than 1914, but an August, 1915 Sanborn Map shows 404 S. Main occupied by a hardware store, and the only movie theater on the map was in the 500 block and was probably the Palace.
The August 24, 1916 Standard has an article about the opening the previous night of the new Colpet Theater in Mrs. R. A. Adams building. The Colpet, operated by a company of that name from Nashville, was still in operation in late 1917, but I’ve found no later references to it. The 1926 FDY lists only the Palace Theatre at Cedartown. I have not been able to confirm that the building at 404 S. Main was in fact the Mrs. R. A. Adams building, but if it was then it housed at least two theaters before the later Princess that was opened by 1931.
I came to the address my matching the archive photo with shots from Google Maps. The numbering is based on the current address listings.
The April 1, 1927 issue of Motion Picture News reported that a new house called the Grand Theatre had been formally opened in Cedartown, Georgia on March 14. The Grand and a house called the Capitol first appear in the FDY’s 1928 edition, and are also in the 1929 edition, with no details either time, then both vanish. As noted in my earlier comment, the Princess first appears in the 1931 FDY. I’m wondering if the Grand (or the Capitol) became the Princess? Reopening an existing house with a new name seems more likely than creating an entirely new theater, especially at the beginning of the depression.
I am also wondering if the Cedar might have also occupied the same space as the Princess since they were both located on S Main since the road isn’t that long.
The Cedar and Princess are both listed in the 1936 FDY, the Princess with 400 seats and the Cedar 578. Both were also listed that year as parts of the Lam Amusement Company. The Cedar had to have been the former Palace, which occupied a double lot at 513-515 Main Street. The Cedar was still listed, with 591 seats, in 1949.
Lam appears to have given up the Princess in 1941, when they opened the West. At least the Princess is no longer listed among the circuit’s houses, though it continues to be listed in the “theaters” section through at least 1943 (it is gone by 1949.) It might have operated independently for a few years, or FDY might simply have failed to update the listing.