Rodgers Theatre: Historic Poplar Bluff icon turns 70

The corner of Pine and Broadway streets has been the entertainment destination for Poplar Bluff over much of the last 70 years.

When it opened, it was proclaimed as the most modern movie palace between St. Louis and Memphis. Now, 20 years after its film projectors fell silent, the Rodgers Theater is a venue for live entertainment and community events.

“I believe in the future of Poplar Bluff,” said owner Walter Rodgers in an interview with the Daily American Republic before it opened in 1949.

“I always wanted Poplar Bluff to have one of the finest motion picture theaters in the land. And when the Rodgers opens the first of June my plans and ambitions will have finally been fully realized.”

Rodgers came to Poplar Bluff 35 years earlier to run the Criterion Theatre a block to the east on Pine and Main streets.

When the Rodgers opened the town had four movie theaters — the Criterion, Jewel Theater on the 200 block of North Main and the Strand on Vine Street — but it was by far the largest.

“It was nice,” said Mazie Fowler who recalled going the year it opened.

“That was our entertainment.”

Before television took hold of the public’s attention, the movie theatre was the gathering place for in post-war America.

It was a place for first dates or a night out with friends, getting a break from a hot summer afternoon or a frigid winter night. It was a babysitter for baby boomers.

“Mom and dad, that’s just how they got rid of us,” said Kenny Clanahan who recalled seeing “The Living Desert” in 1953 as one of his favorites along with the westerns and serial films.

After purchasing tickets for 50 cents from the booth under the marquee, patrons entered through two solid walnut doors into a building that featured 1,160 plush red seats where they could watch all the latest Hollywood productions in comfort.

The circular lobby features a domed ceiling with a curved concession stand on one side and a lounge area between the restrooms on the opposite side. A large mural depicting an English hunting scene was featured on the wall opposite the original concession stand. Curving hallways with deep red carpets on either side of the concession stand led into the auditorium. The screen hung over a stage and was draped with blue and gold curtain.

“I remember it was really nice, clean and beautiful in there,” Fowler said. “The drug store was next door, we’d go in there and have a Coke.”

The Rodgers was also ahead of its time as a mixed-use building. The Rodgers Drug Store had an entrance under the marquee while four locations for other businesses took up the west side of the building.

When the movie palaces of the 1950s gave way to the multiplexs in the 1970s, the Rodgers was transformed into a two-screen cinema.

At first segregated (with people of color sitting in the balcony), the theater was separated with a wall in 1981. The balcony with illuminated glass blocks inlaid in the steps became one theatre with the slopping seats leading to the stage another.

Atop the balcony steps was a “cry room” for “mothers with small children to attend the show,” according to a special edition of the Daily American Republic prior to the theater’s opening.

“Red Canyon” was the first movie shown. It was based on a novel by Zane Grey and starred Ann Blyth, Howard Duff and George Brent. It also featured Chill Wills and a young Lloyd Bridges.

When the final film was projected May 14, 1998 — the same day Frank Sinatra died — it’s marquee was long-since damaged by a semitrailer and was showing second-run movies for $2. It was replaced by a modern multiplex with eight screens at the site of an old drive-in theatre.

“It was not a bad place to show a movie, but the new theater is much better,” Kerasotes General Manager John Miller said of the Rodgers at the time it closed. “It’s time to bring a better quality of presentation to Poplar Bluff.”

Donated to Butler County the following year, the theatre found new life hosting live entertainment.

“Great acoustics and beautiful,” said Wally Duncan, president of Rodgers Theater, Inc., which oversees the renovation and operation of the building.

“It’s worked out very well.”

__MR. RODGERS__

Rodgers, the man, was born April 3, 1875 near Mattoon, Illinois. His father died when he was 16 and his mother two years later, leaving behind Walter and his two younger sisters.

Rodgers said he was born with show business in his blood. When he turned 18 in 1893, Rodgers bought a phonograph and with a partner started exhibiting the new invention in lodge halls, schools and churches. He later invested in another new invention of the day, an X-ray machine.

In 1896 when the motion picture was introduced, Rodgers bought out his partner and sold his X-ray machine to purchase a projector, opening a show in a store in New Orleans and later moving to Chattanooga, Tennessee.

During those early days of motion pictures, movies were only 50 feet long and mostly just street scenes that had to be purchased. Instead of purchasing more films and staying in one location like other operators of “Nickelodeons,” Rodgers set out on a tour of the south showcasing the films he purchased. When the projector and films wore out, Rodgers decided to settle down with another career.

He married Grace Sawyer of Clarksville, Tennessee in 1906 and the two later moved to Jonesboro, Arkansas when Rodgers purchased a theater. It was there that he heard about Poplar Bluff, made the trip north and attempted to purchase the Criterion Theatre, which was built in 1910. The owner, William N. Barron, declined to lease the building to Rodgers until after a fire in 1914 he wired Rodgers that he was ready to lease the show if he was still interested.

The Rodgers arrived in Poplar Bluff in March 1914 with their 7-year-old son Carson and repaired the Criterion. At the time, there were two other movie houses in Poplar Bluff, the Princess and the Lyceum, which was two businesses south of the Criterion, located on the corner of Pine and Main streets. After the Princess closed, the Jewel Theatre was built at 218 North Main St. by Charles Miller and rented to Rodgers two years later. Rodgers also purchased the Lyceum but closed it because it was too expensive to repair.

Rodgers purchased a theater in Caruthersville in 1918 and one in Cairo, Illinois in 1921 when the family moved there and also purchased theaters in Anna and Carbondale, Illinois.

Rodgers was 74 and unable to be in Poplar Bluff when the theater opened in 1949 having undergone surgery following an illness the previous winter.

“The citizens of Poplar Bluff and vicinity have been good to me and my business and by erecting this new theater I believe I have in some small measure repaid them for their confidence in my, and in the type of entertainment I have given them since 1914,” Rodgers said at the time of the opening.

He died in 1958.

__GRAND OPENING__

Carson Rodgers was president and general manger of the chain of theaters his father and mother built when the Rodgers opened. He married a woman from Poplar Bluff, where he attended grade school and helped his parents around the theater after school.

W.M. Griffin, executive vice president of the company, supervised the building of the theater.

Hugo K. Graf was hired as architect for the project. He designed several significant buildings in his hometown of St. Louis, where he was considered one of the most prominent architects of the early 20th century.

Edgar Stephens & Sons of Cairo, Illinois supervised construction of the building with Roy J. Boyd serving as the general superintendent.

The walls of the Rodgers feature 215,625 common bricks and 55,057 yellow-faced bricks backed by 10,545 eight-inch cinder blocks, 1,500 six-inch blocks and 11,185 four-inch blocks.

Along with the 11,648 square foot theatre section, the building features five stores along Broadway Street, the largest being Rodgers Drug Store. It featured a 40-foot soda fountain. The other stores were all leased when the theater opened.

A grand opening was held June 1, 1949 with more than 1,800 people attending two showings of “Red Canyon.” The mayor, E.W. Robinson, purchased the first ticket while the Poplar Bluff Municipal Band entertained the crowd.

Over the next 15 years the Rodgers family owned and operated the theater.

Following his death of Carson Rodgers 1964, the I.W. Rodgers Theaters chain was sold to Kerasotes Theatres, another family-owned movie chain from Illinois.

__TWO SCREENS__

Kerasotes, which opened the Poplar Bluff Drive-In in 1951 south of town, eventually converted the Rodgers into a two-screen theater. This was common in other theaters around the country in the 1970s after the introduction of multiple-screen theaters, known as the multiplex.

The company also built the Mansion Mall Cinema, which featured two screens, in 1974.

The Rodgers debuted a second screen on January 30, 1981 showing both “Stir Crazy” and “Popeye.”

The renovations took about three months but the theatre remained opened. The concession stand was also upgraded and moved into the center of the lobby, under the dome.

“It’s kind of unique,” said theater manager Paul Jones, a Poplar Bluff native.

By building a wall in front of the balcony for a screen and adding another projection booth on the other side of the wall, the auditorium was split up. Instead of showing one movie at a time, the theatre could show two, one with 712 seats and the other with 345 seats.

The smaller balcony auditorium featured stadium-style seating well before it became a standard building practice in the industry.

“Now we are two!” proclaimed an advertisement the Daily American Republic. “Come visit smiling Paul and the whole Rodgers Theater crew.”

A photo printed in the DAR announcing the second screen featured Loren Lucas who was nearing his 60th year showing movies in Poplar Bluff dating back to the first talking movie in 1929.

When the new Showplace 8 opened at the site of the old Poplar Bluff Drive-In, Kerasotes closed the Rodgers on May 14, 1998. The last two movies, which cost $2 a ticket to see, were “Major League” and “Wild Things.”

Mansion Mall Cinema was also closed and demolished.

Kerasotes donated the Rodgers to Butler County in January 1999.

The auditorium was restored to its original size in 2008 in time for a performance by Lily Tomlin in September to benefit the Claudia Foundation.

The space that was used as a projection booth in the lower auditorium now serves as an area to produce light and sound for live performances.

__CHANGES OVER THE YEARS__

When it opened, the Rodgers featured a screen that measured 18 by 24 feet that was 168 feet from the projector, the longest of any theatre between St. Louis and Memphis the company boasted.

A new Simplex E-7 projector was used with a high-intensity arc lamp that used a generator that supplied 70 to 135 amps of electricity. The same projectors were used until the theatre closed but the method changed drastically.

In 1949, two projectors were needed to screen feature-length films with each taking turns every 20 minutes showing the film. One reel of film would be played on one projector until a series of dots in the upper corner of the frame indicated time to start the other projector. A second series of dots seconds later indicated when the switch would take place. A projectionist would then prepare another reel and lace the machine before the next switch. The films would then have to be rewound before the next showing. A movie of 90 minutes would require four or five reels, plus any additional news reels, cartoons or shorts prior to the feature film.

Until safety film was introduced, there was a chance the film would catch fire if the film stopped in the projector with the arc lamp still on. To ensure customer safety, the Rodgers featured a projection room that was fully fire proof with automatic fire doors controlled by low melting point fuses. It also featured a toilet so the projectionist was always nearby in case of an emergency.

Later, the reels were combined and placed on large spinning tables to continuously run film to the projector.

The sound equipment featured four speakers in the auditorium when the Rodgers opened, along with speakers in the cry room above the balcony and 20 outlets for hearing aids.

Air conditioning was already introduced to theaters in Poplar Bluff and a major attraction for customers on hot days. During the winter, along with warm air blown into the theatre from the ceiling, hot water was circulated through pipes in the floor at the front of the theater for radiant heat.

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