Ritz Theatre
508 N. Adams Street,
Sturgis,
KY
42459
508 N. Adams Street,
Sturgis,
KY
42459
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The Princess Theatre “#1” was a silent-era movie house run by veteran operator E.L. Rakes. Rakes first movie house was wiped out along with all but three buildings in downtown Sturgis on July 6, 1913. The downtown was rebuilt, with Rakes carrying on with the new-build Princess Theatre here.
The Princess appears to have scuffled at the outset of the Depression and in a conversion to sound. Edwin “Eddie” Johnson and Dr. William Earl Humphrey took on the venue, reopening it as the Ritz Theatre on November 5, 1932 on a ten-year leasing agreement. That included new RCA Photophone sound. Rakes would then take the Princess sign down and move it to the Simpson Building nearby resuming as the New Princess the next month also on a 10-year leasing agreement.
On February 15, 1942, Johnson and Humphrey removed the equipment from the Ritz, and moved it to the EMBA Building, which became the new Victory Theatre with increased seat count. The former Ritz Theatre remained empty with just a few events staged until war’s end. It became a radio repair and palm reader location after the war. The Post Office took on the venue as a long-running location. They moved to new digs and the old Princess/Ritz was gutted for use as a patio, with the facade demolished later.
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dallasmovietheaters
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Recent comments (view all 2 comments)
This theater appears on the Dec. 1912 Sanborn. This is the earliest map available, so no history on the building is available. The Princess was the southernmost of five storefronts in a large one story brick structure with a tin front. Rebuilt by May 1915 at the latest (it appears in the 1914-15 AMPD), it was now a two story brick building (possibly only one story at the rear). The theater remained a ground floor operation with a photo studio upstairs through at least 1925.
It appears at some point that the upper story was removed. The facade survived until sometime between 2014 and 2023. The interior had long been gutted, and the space used as a patio.
The American Contractor of September 13, 1913 had this item about a new theater being built in Sturgis. The timing suggests it was the replacement for the house lost to fire earlier in 1913, namely the Princess: “Sturgis, Ky.-Moving Picture Theater: 2 sty. 25x125. Sturgis. Archt. T. J. Nolan, 340 Courier-Journal bldg., Louisville. Owner E. H. Long, Sturgis. Plans in progress.”
This item is from the January 4, 1914 issue of Moving Picture World and is about the recent opening of the new theater in Sturgis, with a familiar name: “The Princess theater, recently opened in Sturgis, Ky., is one of the most up-to-date in Western Kentucky, with every possible precaution against fire, including a steel operating booth, four wide aisles and ample exits, the doors being provided with patent clasps which make opening easy in case of an alarm. The house is new throughout, having been built for the purpose of serving as a motion picture theater.”
It is tough to reconcile the description of the new Princess (“four wide aisles”) with the reality of a building only 25 feet wide, but I think we can write that off as characteristic sloppiness by MPW. Most likely the Princess had a single center aisle, as did most houses of its size during that period, but maybe it had four wide exit doors.