Crystal Theater, Arbo Theater, Rex Theater, 118 N. Cedar St, Nevada, Missouri.
One of the many fascinating stories at 118 N. Cedar on the East side of the Square in Nevada, Missouri extends from 1928-1958, 30 years that saw the transformation from silent pictures and lyceum house performers and lecturers to the talking pictures or movies we know today.
In March, 1928 Creth and Lillian Biles of Appleton City opened the Crystal silent movie theater in Nevada, Missouri at 118 N. Cedar. Success appears to have been instant, but the small town of Nevada was located on the newly extended Highway 71, and that brought a wave of automobile fueled crime from highway traveling criminals. A slew of hold ups on the Nevada Square occurred from the late 1920s-1930s, many pursued and caught on the new highways, but most evaded the law by leaving town and even the state with faster cars than Nevada's early police possessed. In May, 1928 Crystal Theater co-manager Mrs. Lillian Biles was held up by three gunmen as she drove from the theater. Within weeks of the robbery, Mr. and Mrs. Biles were open to selling their movie showing rights.
Arthur "Art" Bowman subsequently purchased the film showing rights from Mr. and Mrs. Biles in July, 1928. He renamed it the Arbo, taking from his initials, and also obtained from MGM of NYC the management of Nevada's other main theater, the Star Theatre (the still operational and very active Fox Theater, now featuring live performances), one block over on Main Street. MGM management forced him to divest of dual management in the mid 1930s. He opted to keep the Arbo.
By 1930 the Arbo moved to talking pictures. One artifact found during this building's ongoing renovations was an original Western Electric Victrola sound driver (over the past few months it has been restored and is now producing its crisp and amplified sound again, but that is another story). That Western Electric sound driver improvement was a central technological improvement that helped launch the movie going experience, enabling the addition of voices other than or in addition to live or recorded orchestral music into movie houses everywhere.
In the late 1940s Guy Bloom began working with Art Bowman. By 1951 they negotiated a change in film showing rights. Bloom posted a renaming contest in the local Nevada Daily Mail newspaper and a younger writer suggested the Rex Theater. That entry won and stuck. From the 1930s to the 1940s, the Arbo had flourished showing mostly Westerns featuring Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. The Rex kept showing these on weekends, but it gradually changed its prime time schedule to more avant-garde films, including many foreign films and subsequently struggled. A new drive-in just outside of town also put a significant dent in ticket sales. Many younger film goers of the 1950s preferred viewing movies from the privacy and comfort of their automobiles over sitting in a cramped building. In the 1950s the lower level of this building was no more than 2400 square feet, but boasted of seating 400-500 people.
While the Rex Theater closed by 1958, the Star Theater adapted and was renamed the Fox Theater. It focused on showing more popular movies. Today the Fox is a live theater house, still in operation on Main Street while the one time Arbo on Cedar Street transformed from a popular movie house into a highly successful shoe store chain spanning from the 1960s into the early 2000s and men's high end clothing store (1970s-1980s). Fortuitously for historically minded enthusiasts, the businesses that followed built out their stores, but most simply lowered their ceilings and remodeled in more efficient heating and cooling, leaving many original movie theater history artifacts undisturbed, 14 feet above the main floor.
Today, renovations are underway to present the history of this building from its earliest known use as an 1880s bakery to its book & newspaper offices 1916-1920 to the film, shoe and clothing commercial history visited above.