When most people think about watching movies during the silent era, they conjure up visions of grand movie palaces with names like the Roxy, the Palace, or the Paradise, where the décor was at once imaginative, exotic, and gaudy. In these palaces, talented organists sat behind huge pipe organs and added live music and sound effects to enhance the thrilling images on the big screen. Patrons sat in padded, red velveteen chairs in neatly laid out rows. But, in small towns and rural areas across America, this wasn’t the experience of early fans of the flickers. In farming communities, tiny villages, and unincorporated hamlets, movies were shown in back rooms, spare out-buildings, empty stores, and even tents on the edges of town.

The old building above used to be a general store in rural Wilbur, West Virginia, which also housed the post office and a barber shop. Back in the 1910s and 1920s, movies were shown in either the back room or the barber shop. I remember my grandmother, Garnet Seckman Stubbs, telling me that she saw Charlie Chaplin movies there before she was married. She was married in the mid to late 1920s, so I am guessing she was talking about the late 1910s and early 1920s. There was no fancy pipe organ or player piano, no padded seats, no snacks, and no lobby to buy them in. There wasn’t even a screen. Just a projector, an empty wall, and some spare chairs. Wilbur was located way back in the hills of Tyler County – still is – and when my grandmother was going to those movies, folks walked or rode on horseback to get there. Yet, Chaplin was no less funny to the handful of local country folk in this general store than he was to the people in the big city who frequented the movie palaces or the residents of a small town who patronized their burg’s only movie theater.

My grandmother’s story prompted me to research and investigate how residents of tiny hamlets and rural communities saw movies back in the day. I have been collecting articles and books on the subject for several years, and I thought I might share some of the information, which comes alive when considered in conjunction with real people from real towns.

INSIDE THE NICKELODEON IN PITTSBURGH, THE FIRST SPACE CONSTRUCTED WITH THE INTENT TO SHOW MOVIES.

Nickelodeons were the first movie exhibition spaces, and many credit The Nickelodeon in Pittsburgh, which was owned by John and Harry Davis, as the first space built or reconstructed with the intention of showing movies. It opened in 1905. Prior to that, movies were shown in the backs of stores or in empty buildings in the big cities and sizable towns, unless patrons were lucky enough to see flickers at vaudeville shows, amusement parks, magic shows, or other popular venues as part of the evening’s entertainment. Sometimes movies were shown as part of the bill, or sometimes, films were shown exclusively two or three nights per week. In tiny towns or rural hamlets, traveling exhibitors set up tents on the edge of town or took over an empty building or club hall to show the flickers, sometimes with a player piano. The locals could tell a flicker tent from a regular carnival tent because those designed to show movies were painted black on top to keep out any daylight filtering through the canvas. These enterprising souls, who charged between 10 and 30 cents per show, created a public taste for the movies outside the major cities and on a national scale. I particularly admire the adventurous spirit of Harry and Herbert Miles, who traveled with their camera and projector to the wilds of Juneau, Alaska, where they showed movies to miners in the gold camps, circa 1902. They shot original footage of the region to show to residents, and they also exhibited movies they purchased from companies like Thomas Edison’s.

Around the turn of the century, a passion for the flickers among the general public ignited rapidly, no doubt fueled by the efforts of the traveling tent exhibitors, many who are lost to the history books. In 1904-1905, storefront exhibition spaces in America numbered around 25; by 1909, there were close to 8,000. History books focus on the revolution created in the entertainment industry by the rapid proliferation of nickelodeons, but it’s not like the back-room projectors and traveling exhibition tents went away, as evidenced by my grandmother’s memories. In sparsely populated areas or in tiny villages, especially in the Midwest and the South, many traveling exhibitors still made a decent living well into the first decade of the 20^th century, shooting images of a small town and then amusing the locals with the processed footage in addition to showing newsreel-like clips of the day. And, many an old storefront showed silent movies under primitive conditions well into the 1920s.

THE INSIDE OF THE GENERAL STORE IN WILBUR, WHERE MY GRANDMOTHER SAW CHAPLIN MOVIES. THIS IS THE OWNER, KERSEY DOAK, c. 1950s, LONG AFTER THOSE DAYS WERE OVER.

I am not sure when the general store in Wilbur, West Virginia, first began to show flickers in the back, but in another part of Tyler County, the movies followed on the heels of a unique economic boom to the area. Sistersville, located on the west side of the county along the Ohio River, was yanked into the modern-day world because of an oil and gas boom in the 1890s. Thousands of people from all over the country flocked to this river town to take advantage of the prosperity of the boom, which was monopolized by Standard Oil. Along with crime, diseases, poor sanitation from the too-rapid growth, and other miseries of the modern age, many advantages came to Sistersville, including a variety of culture and the theaters to showcase it. During the Gay Nineties, there were three big theaters in Sistersville: the Auditorium, which went up in 1896; the Bijou Opera House, which was constructed in 1894, and the Columbia, a vaudeville house. In addition, there was a burlesque or music hall, where Ben Turpin – later a silent-film comedian for Essanay and Keystone  – once played. It is likely the Columbia and the music hall were among the first venues to show flickers.

ONE OF EDISON'S PROJECTORS, WHICH THE NICKELODEION OWNER PAID FOR AND THEN PAID AN ADDITIONAL LICENSING FEE.

I don’t know when the first nickelodeon opened in Sistersville, but there was one called The Show on Clark Street by 1909. I discovered this a few years back when the Tyler County Star News, the intrepid little newspaper that services the entire county, published a photo of a Motion Picture Patents Company License issued to the owner of The Show in 1909. I had never seen a photo of an MPPC license before, and I was bowled over by this important piece of cinema history in tiny little Tyler County. In 1908, the major movie-making companies (Edison, Biograph, Vitagraph, Essanay, Lubin, Kalem, Pathe, American Star, the distributor Kleine, and Eastman Kodak) banded together in a trust to stabilize the burgeoning film industry and to exercise control over it in order to maximize profits. The trust, which is a nice-sounding word for monopoly, was the result of Thomas Edison’s heavy-handed tactics in trying to control the industry. Since the 1890s, he had owned many of the patents related to the manufacture of cameras and projectors in America. He also owned a movie-making company, which churned out movies for exhibitors to show on projectors they would purchase from Edison. He tried to prevent other companies from making films by refusing to license equipment to them. In addition, distributors and exhibitors using Edison machines and movies not only had to pay for the equipment, they had to pay a licensing fee for the privilege of doing so; if they tried to use foreign-made equipment, Edison attempted to sue them for supporting filmmaking that infringed on his patents. Tired of the constant court battles, the major companies decided to join together by pooling patents and making licensing agreements for the good of the industry. However, the trust kept out smaller companies from making films (or tried to), and they still forced nickelodeon owners to pay ridiculous fees.

For example, the license I saw for The Show in Sistersville states that owner O.F. Langworthy’s projectors must show only motion pictures made or imported by a licensed company in the Motion Picture Patents Company. So, Mr. Langworthy could not have rented a film from Laemmle Film Services, a distribution company owned by upstart Carl Laemmle (later founder of Universal Pictures) because he was not in the MPPC. Mr. Langworthy purchased his projectors from Edison’s manufacturing company, but in addition to paying for the actual machines, he also had to pay a weekly licensing fee for the privilege of using the projectors that he owned. The amount of the fee was “to be determined by the Motion Picture Patents Company.” And, representatives from the MPPC could check up on Mr. Langworthy, along with the thousands of other nickelodeon owners, to make sure this license was “prominently displayed in the place of the exhibition of the Licensee and together with machines . . . .” Failure to comply with any of these rules outlined on the license meant that the trust could sue poor old nickelodeon proprietor O.F. Langworthy. The date on the license was June 30, 1909, meaning the MPPC had been a trust for only about seven months when Mr. Langworthy received his license.

AN OLDER EDISON LATER POSES WITH ONE OF HIS MOVIE PROJECTORS.

When I was in grade school and we learned about Thomas Edison, he was always presented as an avuncular man with white hair who took cat naps during the day so he could work all night on his inventions. Isn’t that sweet? But, when I began to study film history, I discovered that this greedy capitalist would have licensed his own mother for the privilege of giving birth to him if he had been given a chance. The MPPC license from The Show confirmed that for me. (By the way, the MPPC was nailed to the wall for being a monopoly by the federal government during Woodrow Wilson’s administration, and it was disbanded. Edison escaped with his reputation relatively unscathed.)

The county seat of Tyler County is Middlebourne, which is too small to be called a small town but it wasn’t too small for its own nickelodeon. As a matter of fact, it had a nickelodeon before the town was completely wired for electricity. Information is a bit sketchy but apparently it was located on Main Street on the parcel of land where the volunteer fire department now stands. A few local residents recall that the nickelodeon was where the old magic lantern show was. I wish I could have found out more about the magic lantern show, but it predates most people’s memories; first-person information prior to the 1910s is difficult to come by.

By the 1910s, the space was called the Lyric Theatre. An ad in the Tyler County High School Yearbook of 1917 touted the Lyric as showing “up-to-date” and “clean, first-class” movies for the “old and young.” In small towns, many venues re-showed the same films over and over again to save money, or because they had purchased them outright before distribution was based on a rental system. In the ad, proprietor Chester A. Lyons wanted to ensure the public that his movies were new. Also, because there was no organized, universal film censorship until the early 1920s, some films that escaped the scissors of big-city censors were considered offensive to more conservative audiences in small towns and rural areas. For example, I have seen films from the early 1900s titled Fire in a Burlesque Theater or Troubles of a Burlesque Manager. Both feature minimal plots that are excuses for women to strip down to their underwear, though women’s underwear in 1905 covered their entire bodies. Still, I can imagine that the people of Tyler County might have been offended by such flickers. Knowing what I know about these films and the nature of film censorship at the time, the ad in the 1917 yearbook spoke volumes to me about Mr. Lyons’s careful selection of movies for the Lyric.

AN ANTIQUE DELCO LIGHT POWER PLANT, JUST TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA (YEAR UNKNOWN).

The Lyric was sold several times after World War I, including to Iva Feist in late October 1924, who rechristened it The New Grand. According to the hand-written deed in the county records office, the deal included the “firniture [sic], fixtures, moving picture machine, and all equipment thereto belonging, including Delco Light Systems, player piano, seats and all other property.” The “Delco Light Systems” was actually a so-called Delco “power plant,” or generator system, which supplied electricity for lights and machinery in individual buildings not wired by the town or community. The town of Middlebourne was not wired for electricity by the local power company until 1923, so the Lyric/New Grand was powered by a Delco unit that went with the building when it was sold to Feist. Interestingly, Feist sold The New Grand three months later to Homer and Zula Wigner for $1.00, who then sold it to Fred O’Brien a little more than eight months later for $1.00. I couldn’t figure out why these people were so generous, selling what seemed to be a valuable business for so little. Then I figured it out: The Wigners sold it for so little with the stipulation that the property could not be used as a movie theater, because they owned another theater across the street. It seems that the Wigners and O’Brien conspired to prevent competition. Businessmen in small towns are no less calculating and scheming than their big-city counterparts.

Across Main Street on lot #102, the Wigners opened a one-floor theater in 1923 with a seating capacity of 125. They called it the Nadene after their daughter. I found an ad for the theater in an old copy of the Tyler County Journal. In October 1923, they were showing The Victor starring Herbert Rawlinson as a European aristocrat who comes to America and marries the daughter of a wealthy businessman. They were also scheduled to show Don’t Tell Everything with Gloria Swanson in a sophisticated romantic comedy directed by Sam Wood and The Story of Camille starring Rudolph Valentino and Nazimova. Valentino and Nazimova in Middlebourne, West Virginia — somehow I just can’t picture it.

NAZIMOVA AND VALENTINO IN 'THE STORY OF CAMILLE'

The small theater changed hands six times between the years that the Wigners owned it and World War II, when Ralph Wilson purchased it and owned it till 1957. According to senior citizens I have spoken with over the years**, who are always a font of information about local lore and history, the theater continued to show silent films into the mid-1930s. The conversion to sound technology was a tumultuous event for the Hollywood film industry — not only the studios but theaters, which had to re-tool and wire for sound. Film history books often marvel that the conversion was done in just a little over four years (1927-1931) — a very short period of time considering the monumental changes involved. But, again the history books seldom take small towns and rural communities into consideration. A tiny theater like the Nadene located in a rural Appalachia would have found it difficult to convert to sound, especially during the Depression when they charged only a nickel for admission. Small wonder they held off for as long as possible. If movie-goers wanted a more glamorous, modern movie-going experience, they could take the streetcar to Sistersville to the Paramount Theater, which was more akin to the picture palaces of the big city. The Paramount, with its balcony and beautiful lobby, had been wired for sound by 1930, because I found an ad for the theater touting the musical Rio Rita with Bebe Daniels and John Boles. The movie was billed as “All Talking, All Singing,” with an additional description typed in a different font at the bottom of the ad: “One of the most pretentious, beautiful and pleasing films that has reached the screen since the introduction of sound.”  I am not sure describing Rio Rita as “pretentious” would garner more patrons, but the price was right — 20 cents and 40 cents for a matinee, and 25 cents and 50 cents for evening shows.

WHAT'S LEFT OF THE PARAMOUNT IN SISTERSVILLE. THE ENTRANCE WAS THE ONE ON THE LEFT.

By the 1940s, the Nadene in Middlebourne had been rechristened the Tyler Theater, and during World War II, the Tyler showed the films that were typical of the era. In 1943, Invisible Agent was a big hit in Middlebourne, with its anti-Nazi storyline. It seems the grandson of the Invisible Man uses the formula of his famous relative to fight Nazis for the war effort. Patrons were also treated to a Universal Newsreel, a soundie featuring swing musicians Kenny Stevens and His Rhythm Rascals, and a short titled The Aldrich Family in the Scrap.

After World War II, life in Tyler County changed with the times. Most of the population had automobiles, new blacktop roads made it easier to get to urban centers, and years of exposure to the world on the other side of the state line permanently changed the rural lifestyle. By the time Ralph Wilson sold the Tyler in 1957, residents preferred to see their films on bigger screens in more glamorous settings, or at the drive-ins, all of which spelled the end of this small-town theater. For a while the building was used as a hardware store, then it became a senior citizen center before it was relegated to storage. In 1999, the building was resurrected as Prunty’s Plus Hair Shop. I have had my hair cut several times in Prunty’s, and when I lie back in the washing bowl, I can look up and see the original tin-stamped ceiling from the time it was a theater. The building’s façade still retains the distinctive shape of a small-town theater.

THE OLD TYLER THEATER, NOW PRUNTY'S PLUS HAIR SHOP.

Everyone loves the movies, including the older generations of residents who lived in Tyler County in the early days of cinema history. While my grandmother and her twin sister, Gaye, walked miles from their rustic home located“over on Jefferson” (don’t ask; that’s just what her neck of the woods was called; and I do mean “the woods”) to watch Charlie Chaplin in dead silence in the back of the general store on a gravel road in Wilbur, others visited the Nadene on Main Street in Middlebourne, listening to Mrs. Elsie Montgomery accompany the movies on the piano. And, like their big-city counterparts, a good time was had by all.

[**Thanks to the seniors of Tyler County, West Virginia, some no longer with us, who were always willing to share their personal recollections with me, including Junior Farhat, Abigail Murphy, Bill Owens, and Hilda Wright.]

MacCann, Richard Dyer. The First Tycoons. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1987.

Margolies, John and Emily Gwathmey. Ticket to Paradise: American Movie Theaters and How We Had Fun. Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1991.

Waller, Gregory. Main Street Amusements: Movies & Commercial Entertainment In A Southern City, 1896-1930. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.