Revived marquees and movie theaters brighten life in Kansas towns

In towns across Kansas, once-dark neon lights again beckon.

Movie theaters once shuttered are being refurbished by community volunteers, their long-dim marquees flickering to life.

In Stafford, a town of nearly 1,000 people about 85 miles northwest of Wichita, the Ritz is the city’s symbol of hope. The theater had been vacant for at least a decade before a community group took it over in 1990.

“In our community, the bowling alley was bought by an individual and eventually closed. There is no roller skating rink,” said Deana Eisenhour, office clerk for the city of Stafford. “This is all we have to offer the community in terms of entertainment.”

Across Kansas, community-owned theaters are popping up – in Tribune, Larned, Marysville, St. Francis, Coldwater, Pretty Prairie and other places.

“Movie theaters are making a comeback,” said Marci Penner, director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation based near Inman.

“Sure, people can watch things on Netflix or HBO or whatever, but people – especially in rural areas – want to go out and be around other people.”

Penner estimates there are more than 30 theaters open in small towns across Kansas.

“In this area, if you want to watch a movie you’ve got to travel to Hutchinson, Great Bend, Wichita or even Dodge City,” said Eisenhour, the Stafford official.

So, on the first and fourth weekends of each month, Stafford’s community-owned theater opens, charging $5 for adults and $3 for children for first-run movies. Last year, the Stafford City Council voted to spend $45,000 on a digital system to keep the 250-seat theater open.

“In small communities, you have to make your own entertainment,” said Robert Grace of St. Francis. “Having a movie theater is the exception to the rule.”

Rebuilding audience

Rural towns have faced similar problems to industrial towns on the East Coast with depressed cores, declining property values and population loss, according to an article by Roy Christman, “Movie Theaters in the Maintenance of Rural Communities in Kansas,” published in 1998 by Great Plains Research. “Local businesses struggle with a limited customer base, and they go under as people drive fifty or sixty miles to the regional shopping centers or large discount stores,” the article said.

Single-screen movie theaters were vulnerable as other technologies – “television, cable, VCRs, home satellite dishes and the Internet,” Christman wrote – crept in. “The drive to keep theaters alive may be due in part to nostalgia,” Christman wrote. “People generally associate movies with good times.”

During the 1970s and ’80s, many of the small-town theaters in Kansas closed as multiplex theaters were built in larger surrounding communities. Many were demolished, while some survived as vacant buildings on Main Street.

Their closures left a void.

When the Larned State Theater was closed during the mid-1990s, town leaders decided something had to happen.

“Our kids didn’t have a lot to do,” said Jim White, president of the theater’s board of directors. “We started talking about how we could purchase the building and get it up to running shape.

“We thought if we could do that, it would be good for the whole community. And, if we could keep our kids in Larned, then we wouldn’t have them out driving the roads.”

Major fundraisers have financed new seats, digital sound systems, and heating and air-conditioning upgrades.

“We still have to hang the letters on our marquee, but that’s one of our pride and joys,” White said. “We believe our theater is one of the best kept secrets in Kansas.

“We have no debt, and we average 15,000 people annually buying tickets. The public support for our business is unbelievable.”

Residents in St. Francis in the far northwest corner of Kansas were faced with a similar dilemma when their movie theater building was up for sale years ago. One of the bidders wanted to turn it into a warehouse, said Robert Grace, the president of the board of volunteers for the Cheyenne Theater in St. Francis.

“That got people upset,” Grace said. “The belief was if the building became a warehouse, then the theater would be gone forever.”

So a group was formed. Fundraisers were held. Money was gathered.

“It took a lot of energy and volunteer labor fixing it up and getting it back in business, but we all believed everybody wants a theater in a small town,” Grace said. “It is one more thing on Main Street on the weekends when the lights are on.”

The closest theaters are 30 to 40 miles away toward Nebraska and Colorado. Goodland is a 30-mile drive from St. Francis.

“There is a social knowledge or awareness that movies are something people talk about,” he said. “With the newer movies, people get more hooked into coming back each time.”

Rebuilding structure

The Twilight Theater in Greensburg was destroyed by the massive tornado on May 4, 2007.

The tornado destroyed more than 90 percent of the town. But long before it struck, town residents were already discussing the possibilities of refurbishing and renovating the theater, which originally opened in 1923.

After the tornado, as essential services were rebuilt in the Kiowa County community, discussion about rebuilding the town’s only theater revived. This fall, the Twilight – newly built and state-of-the-art – is expected to open.

“It will have the largest screen between Wichita and Denver,” said Adam Wagner, the theater’s director. “We will also have a live-performance venue.”

The Greensburg school has partnered with the theater and plans to use the 400-seat theater for graduation events and school concerts. Wagner also has plans to create a community theater.

“The theater is an essential part to Greensburg because the biggest thing we can do is serve the outside,” Wagner said. “When tourism dollars come in, it helps everyone.”

Reshaping the mission

The Civic Theater in Pretty Prairie is now closed because of a storm that swept through the community in 2013.

But plans are to reopen the theater soon by cooperating with the school district and allowing local high school students a chance to learn entrepreneurial and business skills, said Darrell Albright, the theater director. He and his wife, Joyce, both in their 70s, will serve as advisers.

The theater needs a new roof and work done to stabilize the west wall.

The theater originally opened in June 1936 but was closed by 1955. In 1981, the Albrights reopened the theater with its original wood-backed seats and showed vintage movies such as Gary Cooper starring in “High Noon.”

For Albright – who grew up in a home that didn’t allow dancing, playing cards or going to the movies – running the old theater “answered a lifelong rebellion,” he joked.

But he is serious when he says he is hopeful about passing his affection for the town’s movie theater on to the next generation.

“You never know what you will awaken in a kid as far as an interest in life,” Albright said.

This story was originally published September 11, 2014 at 7:20 PM with the headline "Revived marquees and movie theaters brighten life in Kansas towns."