Businesses Past...
by Richard D. L. Fulton
Gettysburg’s Photoplay Theater
Gettysburg’s Photoplay Theater was established in 1912, with the first theater advertisements appearing on January 15, 1912.
According to the March 28, 1917, issue of The Gettysburgian, the Photoplay Theater, at that time, was located across Baltimore Street from the courthouse. Cinema Treasures’ website (cinematreasures.org) states that the theater was located at 100 Baltimore Street.
Harry J. Troxell served as the theater’s manager during the “life” of the Photoplay and continued to manage the theater that replaced it.
The theater opened on January 25, 1912, with a showing of three silent movies, which were A Sad Satisfaction, Reunited at the Gallows, and Catherine Duchess of Guisa. An advertisement placed in July had noted, “Electric fans have now been installed in our theater, making it cool and comfortable.” As an aside, many silent films were generally around 15 minutes in length.
Almost nothing appeared in the 1913 newspapers in the way of advertisements. However, it might be assumed that something may have been amiss, which triggered a state inspection. In the April 11, 1913, edition of the Adams County News, it was reported that “the exits (at the Photoplay Theater) were examined, and everything was found to conform with the requirements of the law.”
Also in 1913, the cost for admission to the theater was posted in the advertisements as being five cents, and the theater was generally running triple features, as had been the practice since the initial opening.
During May 1917, the theater retained five cents as its rate for admission for children, but increased the admission fee for adults to ten cents, raising each by an additional one cent by the end of 1917; although, it was not noted in the theater’s advertisements until January 1918, that this was the result of a ten percent “war tax” (War Revenue Act of 1917) imposed on theaters (and other forms of entertainment) by the federal government to help pay for the “Great War” in Europe.
For unstated reasons, The Gettysburg Times had reported on November 2, 1918, that the Photoplay Theater “has been thoroughly fumigated and will be open next Tuesday” … very likely an effort to control the spread of the 1918 “Spanish Flu” influenza pandemic.
On Labor Day, September 1, 1919, the Photoplay Theater admitted soldiers in uniform for free, according to an article published on September 2 in The Gettysburg Times, as the town and Adams County “welcomed” the mass return of military service personnel in the wake of the end of World War I.
On December 27, 1919, the Photoplay Theater offered free admission to children. According to The Gettysburg Times, an estimated 400 to 500 children, between eight and 15 years of age, attended the event.
Beginning in January 1920, the theater management made the theater available for the use of Gettysburg College’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) in order for the trainees to view some training films. The first training films shown for the trainees “were five reels of pictures… on the Browning automatic rifle,” according to the January 29, 1920, edition of The Gettysburg Times.
In January 1922, the Photoplay Theater celebrated its tenth anniversary. An advertisement placed in the December 24, 1921, edition of The Gettysburg Times had stated, “All next week Photoplay’s 10th Anniversary Week,” celebrating “ten years of successful business in Gettysburg,” and would be commemorated by showing major film productions during the week, with free children’s matinees mid-week.
Three years later, the Photoplay Theater’s name would be retired when Manager Troxell announced that the theater would undergo major improvements and would reopen at the former location of the Photoplay, and with a new name.
In an article published in the August 14, 1925, edition of The Gettysburg Times, Troxell stated that within two to three weeks of the publication of the article, those improvements being made included renovating the entire interior, and that “the name of his show house will be changed to The Strand.”
