YESTERYEAR-FRANKLIN THEATER
When movie houses began to open in the early twentieth-century, most of them were modest in size and sprinkled around various neighborhoods, unlike the mega-sized theaters movie-goers are accustomed to today. One of the earliest in Evansville was the West End Electric Palace, which opened at 2113 W. Franklin Street ca. 1908. Soon renamed the Franklin Theater (seen here in 1964), the theater operated for decades, until it was razed in the 1990s.
FOOTNOTE: We want to thank Patricia Sides, Archivist of Willard Library for contributing this picture that shall increase people’s awareness and appreciation of Evansville’s rich history. If you have any historical pictures of Vanderburgh County or Evansville please contact please contact Patricia Sides, Archivist Willard Library at 812) 425-4309, ext. 114 or e-mail her at www.willard.lib.in.us.
How do we get the larger picture when we click on the thumbnail?? Same thing happened last Monday but thanks to Bandana, he posted a link to the larger image.
I remember the Old National Bank and Nut Club’s reaction when it became a porn theater. Not pretty.
Shhh !
You not supposed to notice such dark realities about Evanville.
You might affend someone !!
I think a guy who sometimes puts up very informative posts here, Michael Lockard, pretty much spearheaded the demise of that place after it was reduced to showing porn. He had an assist from Bob Pigman.
Scratch affend for offend.
Here’s a picture of the Franklin Theatre very much like the one in the article. This one was taken in 1954, the one above was taken in 1964.
http://s26.postimg.org/e7xqxlp15/Franklin_Theater_1954.jpg
Bandana:
Been trying “postimg.org” but still get highly pixellated images no matter what settings I use. Any tips on how it’s use??
That picture (the one I put up) is not in real sharp focus but it’s not pixellated, at least when I view it. Postimg.org is just a place where you can upload pictures for viewing (a picture server, it gives you a link when you upload). I have many of these old pictures of Evansville on file and will try to put them up on postimg.org when they appear here if they’re too small.
You might try a different browser but I’m not sure what the problem is if you can see the pixels. I use Firefox.
I was using FF also. Tried Chrome, IE and whatever the new on in Win10 is called and still pixellated. Hmm.
We use to call it the teacher’s lounge since we saw a lot of teachers from are its go there
We use to call it the teachers lounge since we saw a lot of teachers from Reitz go there.
&@@;/) autocorrect
If memory serves, when it was raided, most of the patrons were from east of Kentucky Avenue.
To the left of the theater, in between the buildings, their were stairs leading to a shoe shop in the basement of the adjacent building. That shoe shop had one of these x-ray machines:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope
Most all the customers, myself included, used it to make sure your new shoes were not compressing your feet in an abnormal fashion.
A lot of Saturdays in the 50’s was spent there by me and my friends. If memory serves me the matinee tickets were 12 cents. That was a movie, serial and several cartoons.
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