The Oliver Theatre

126 N. Main Street · opened late summer 1909 · 760 seats · closed 1953 · demolished

The opera house's successor on its own ground, on the theatre record's account, was the Oliver Theatre, one of the smaller downtown houses: 760 seats, opened in the late summer of 1909. It was taken over by the Orpheum Theatres circuit in 1924 — the same circuit that ran the Orpheum up Michigan Street — and at its closing it was operated by Affiliated Theatres, the regional chain that appears at the end of half the small houses in this record. It closed in 1953 and was later demolished; a parking lot stands where it stood. The trade press of its middle years carries the house at work: The Film Daily of February 28, 1924, records the Oliver Theatre under J. Henry Handesman Jr., with The Hunchback of Notre Dame having broken all house records established at the Oliver over the previous fifteen years — a run that reaches back to the house's 1909 opening and confirms it a first-run picture room of standing in the silent years. Where this account and the Building South Bend narrative of the opera house diverge — whether the 1909 house was new work or the old room carried on — is stated at the opera house entry above and left as the record leaves it.

Sources

1. Cinema Treasures, Oliver Theatre — opened late summer 1909, 760 seats; Orpheum circuit takeover 1924; Affiliated Theatres at closing; closed 1953; demolished.
2. The Film Daily, February 28, 1924 — the house under J. Henry Handesman Jr.; The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the fifteen-year house record.