Ok, so I'm a little ticked.
Those who’ve read these weekly columns – faithfully presented here each week since my current editor was in grade school – will know I have more than a passing interest in local history.
In presenting stories of our community’s past, I guess I’m hoping to instill in others this love of our heritage here.
I’ve tried various ways to promote preservation of our community’s few remaining historical buildings. I served for a time as the chair of the Kerr County Historical Commission, I served as chair of our community’s recent sesquicentennial celebration.
And I’ve put my own money where my (often unquiet) mouth is – spending more than I should to build a collection of Kerr County historical items, from photographs and commemorative plates to one of the few surviving programs of the 1936 State Championship Football game, where the Tivy Antlers battled the Amarillo Sandies. I have a small Taylor guitar with the words “Kerrville Campfire Edition” written on the rosette. I have soda bottles from Pampell’s and the H. E. Butt Grocery Company (“Silver Valley Sparkling Beverages”). I have books written by Kerrville authors.
Many of the items in my collection were given to me, I’m glad to say. I couldn’t have afforded all of the items in my collection. I have doors from the rooms of the old Blue Bonnet Hotel, and the switchboard from that old hotel; I have old newspapers, and several thousand photographs.
Yeah, I kinda care about local history.
So the recent proposal to tear down most of the Arcadia theater concerns me. While I applaud the Cailloux Foundation for thinking “outside of the box” with their innovative proposal, and also for their generous contributions to our community, I think historic preservation is far more important than the idea of having an ‘open air’ theater in the downtown area. Their plan, while preserving the current façade and lobby area of the building, will completely destroy the rest of the building, replacing the auditorium of the theater with a high-dollar pole barn.
Besides, a reasonable plan already exists to restore and renovate the theater, a plan that will be funded by visitors to our community through allocation of the hotel/motel tax monies. And, in a series of future columns, I hope to share some ideas I’m hearing about the future of our downtown area.
Since the Arcadia will be in the news for the next few weeks, I thought it would be good to share an old column, first published in the late 90’s, telling the story of the theater:
On the warm Tuesday evening of June 29, 1926, a flock of folks crowded into a newly built hall to watch the comedy film “Irene,” starring Colleen Moore. They were greeted with “cooled” air and a saga about the life of a poor, beautiful Irish lass whose dire economic circumstances obscure her royal lineage. She worked as a shopkeeper’s assistant, selling dresses. A local grandee had obtained the job for her there as a model; the villainous shopkeeper had demoted her to lowly clerk. During a grand fashion show, the grandee notes the absence of his protégé, storms to the dimly lit store, costumes the girl and returns with her to triumph, and eventually love – discovered on a rusting fire escape, outside the fashion show.
The scenes of the fashion show were “registered in subdued tones of the Techni-color process, a new idea which has recently been discovered by those who invented the method of color photography.” This probably explains the choice of this movie, a First National release, as the film for that particular evening. The film was in color.
“Irene” was the first film shown in the newly built Arcadia Theater.
The citizens were very proud of their new theater. There was an older movie house, the Dixie, near the corner of Washington and Water streets, on the northern corner, where the Home Center is today. The Dixie is remembered for its wooden bleachers, where patrons tucked their feet up to avoid the rats that ran along the floor eating popcorn and nibbling on shoelaces. The Arcadia, by contrast, was a Movie Palace.
Built at a cost of $90,000, the new theater featured high-tech (for 1926) projection equipment (a pair of Powers projectors), a ‘Gardner Velvet Gold Fibre Screen,’ a Hillgren-Lane pipe organ, and seating capacity for 1,000. The building looked very different then: it featured a Spanish mission façade, and the 16x40 foot ‘arcade’ was accented with rough plaster and hand-hewn beams. In the ‘arcade’ were seven display cases.
Seating was also arranged differently than the seating many of us remember. In addition to the ‘orchestra’ and balcony seats, there were also eight loges with five chairs each. Smoking was allowed in the balcony seats only.
The small stage (8 x 15 feet) was furnished with scenery from Volland Scenic Company of St. Louis, and included a “beautiful mountain and river scene, typical of the country surrounding Kerrville. It is a remarkable reproduction of nature, done in oil.” There was also an orchestra pit measuring 7 ½ x 25 feet; this was the home of the pipe organ.
The neon sign we see frantically flashing in the night sky is not the original sign for the theater. The first was about 15 feet high and extended six feet above the building, with 16” letters. The lighting flashed on and off at intervals, but was not neon; the coloring of the letters was done by placing ‘glass color hoods’ over the lamps, and red and green and amber were the predominate colors. There was a twinkling torch and a ‘flowing’ border driven by an electric motor.
The Bart Moore Construction Company built the building. Mr. Moore was also the president of the Kerrville Amusement Company, which owned the Arcadia and Dixie Theaters, and he would serve as the Arcadia’s first general manager.
Admission prices for the first week of performances were 25 and 50 cents.
Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who spent many hours at the Arcadia Theater.
Comments