THE CITY’S 1913-vintage movie house was still the Fayette Theater when this photo was taken in the early 1950s. It was re-named the Grand Theater in 1960 when a used marquee was purchased from a movie theater in Moberly.

The following is the first of a series of articles remembering Fayette’s historic movie house. Fayette native Mike Mueller, now a resident of Morgantown, W. Va., has been a frequent contributor to the Fayette newspapers. The series is adapted from an earlier series Mike wrote in 1992. Photos from readers for use in future stories will be appreciated.

JHS

The old Grand Theater meant a lot to a lot of people in Fayette and Howard County, and in neighboring towns and counties; people who went to Central College; people who grew up in the area and moved away.

This series is a salute to the old Grand Theater. It is also a thank-you to Johnnie Griggs for saving what he could of Fayette’s old movie house, to make the new Grand Theater on the square when the original structure was demolished for bank expansion about 15 years ago. (EDITOR’S NOTE: The “new” Grand Theater did not survive.)

During the winter of 1951, before I was born, I went to the old Grand Theater on a regular basis. My mother, Betty Mueller, worked there. She sold tickets. My father, Don Mueller, would take her to work on the motorcycle. He says that she complained about how cold it was in the ticket booth. I’m just thankful that my old man didn’t hit too many potholes.

In the 1960s, I went to work at the Grand as a concessionist, and later helped run the projectors. Also, I collected all the monthly show bills for the theater between December 1961 and December 1966 - and still have the collection. Did you know that the original “Cape Fear” played September 23-25,1962? The remake played at the new Grand on April 26, 1992.

But my memories don’t go back far enough to do justice to the old theater. That’s why - when I was in Fayette visiting my family for two weeks in 1992 - I looked through a selection of local newspapers dating back to 1917 and talked with a range of people, some over 90 years old.

The Grand Theater was called the Alamo when it opened nearly 80 years ago. The original announcement of the opening gives a date of Oct. 16, 1913, with no information on the pictures.

Admission prices on opening night were $1.00 for adults and 50-cents for children. The announcement declared, “We have our own heating and lighting plant and our chairs are regular opera chairs.” It is believed that J.W. Givens was the first operator of the Alamo.

It wasn’t long before the Alamo worked its way into the life of the community. This wasn’t difficult. America was fascinated with moving pictures. To small towns across the nation, movies brought entertainment and news and information about the rest of the country and the world. What a creation - pictures that moved.

Moving picture cameras also recorded history. In the April 18, 1917, Fayette Advertiser, the Alamo ran the following announcement: “The Alamo Theatre has arranged to have a moving picture camera in Fayette on Monday and Tuesday, and moving pictures will be taken of all the big doin’s. Get in early, stay all day and be in the movies. The pictures taken will be shown the week following on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Don’t you miss it! Don’t you do it!”

The Fayette pictures were shown at the Monday matinee and evening show with “The Deserter” (in five reels) and a three-reel (Fatty Arbuckle and Mable Normand) Keystone Comedy.

The following month, on the evening of May 17, some 20 high school seniors performed “She Stoops to Conquer” at the Alamo, with “special music” between the acts. For July 16, 1917, the theater advertised “30-Pretty Fayette Women in Gorgeous Alpine Scenery. Good Reel Also. Auspices Ladies Aid Society Christian Church. Admission 25-cents.”

The Alamo was built to be more than a movie house, though the orchestra pit was boarded up long ago. However, the old dressing rooms are still there beneath the stage (in 1992).
In September of 1917, The Swiss Bell Ringers performed in addition to the regular show, “The Victoria Cross.” “The Common Law” was presented in “eight big acts” and seats for the evening shows were reserved. “The Spreading Dawn” was shown on Thanksgiving Day. Admission prices were $1.00 and $2.00 in 1917, plus war tax. There were matinees everyday at 2:30 during Christmas week.

The Christmas pictures included “Nearly Married,” starring Madge Kennedy. James Weathers of Fayette remembers buying a Model-T in 1919 and driving up to Fayette from New Franklin that year to watch movies at the Alamo. He recalls that the theater was “usually pretty full of people.” He also went to the pictures in Fayette in the 1920s and later, and remembers that there were merchant advertisements on the stage curtain.

According to Mr. Weathers, “That was about the only place to go out to, was to the picture show. Only thing young people had to go do.” After the picture, they might go to Koester & Dameron’s for ice cream.

As I understand it, Koester & Dameron’s was where Ayres’ used to be, now Timeless Treasures.

Then, there’s the old story about the hanging on the square that ends with a reference to the theater. Apparently, someone killed the sheriff down by the depot, back in 1915 or so. A group of angry citizens decided to take justice into their own hands.

As the story goes, they forced their way into the jail and carried out the man under arrest for the murder of the sheriff. People leaving the theater that night were greeted with the sight of the hanged man on the square.

Kansas City had nothing on Fayette in the movie department. In 1924, the Alamo announced that it would show Harold Lloyd’s latest picture, “Hot Water,” and proudly proclaimed that it would play the movie “day and date with Frank L. Newman’s Royal Theatre of Kansas City, Missouri.” The Alamo outlasted the Royal.

In a 1925 issue of The Senioreveille, published by Fayette High School, the Alamo ran an advertisement for “The Thief of Baghdad,” starring Douglas Fairbanks. That was the silent version. The “talkies” didn’t arrive until later in the late 1920s.

In 1931, the theater was called the Dickinson and movie titles were listed in the bottom right corner of the front page of the Fayette newspaper. Regular advertisements continued to appear on the inside or back page of the paper. Movies shown at the Dickinson that year included “The Right to Love” starring Ruth Chatterton, “The Criminal Code” with Walter Huston and. “Abraham Lincoln,” a D.W. Griffith movie billed as “The Wonder Picture of the Century.”

Fayette filmgoers also could have seen these movies in 1931: “Monkey Business,” featuring the four Marx brothers, “Dracula” and Hoot Gibson in “Clearing the Range.” The advertisement for “Clearing the Range” showed Hoot on a horse and promised “a Big Star Cast.”

The theater was an important part of Junior McMillan’s life during the 1930s and 1940s. As he puts it, “I can remember going to the picture show as long as I can remember anything in my life.” Back then, ushers took you to your seat and you had to be quiet or you’d get thrown out of the theater - maybe barred from the movies for a week.

According to Junior, getting barred from the movies was the worst thing that could happen to a young person. That’s where you went with your friends. That’s where you went on dates. There just wasn’t a whole lot else for young people to do. After the movies, they might go to Golson’s for ice cream, where there was a jukebox upstairs. Imagine, all that–a movie date, ice cream and dancing for 75 cents.

Junior McMillan has other fond memories about the old theater. Back in those days, he worked at Pool & Creber’s Grocery, where Koester & Dameron’s used to be, as I understand it. His job included bagging groceries. As a courtesy, Pool & Creber kept an eye on bagged groceries so that shoppers could go to the movies. Junior remembers writing names on the bags. Sometimes, people wouldn’t come back until 11 p.m. or midnight.

Back then, there were pie-eating and watermelon-eating contests on the stage, and drawings. You had to take your hat off when you went inside the auditorium. There was a manager who used to “dress up like an undertaker.” That is, he wore a tuxedo or suit. As Junior pointed out, “It was a big deal to manage a theater.” Another manager tried to drive his car down the Central College steps, and got it stuck.

Once, Siamese twins came to the theatre and appeared on the stage between movies. Popcorn was 50 cents, Coke was 50 cents and you sat in the balcony on the right side if you wanted to smooch.

Helen Mounter, who is 80 (in 1992) and was married to my Uncle Joe most of her life, remembers that “the theater was packed and the balcony was full” when she saw the best movie in her life more than 50 years ago in Fayette. It was “Gone with the Wind.” To be continued

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