Valley Girl Views: When Watsontown Had A Movie Theater

The Watson Theater, 131 Main Street, 1940- 2009.
In 1912, Mr Sanders converted his hardware store at 131 Main street into the Gem Theater. He later sold the theater to Warren Johnson, where it went by the names of The Peoples Theater, The Carlton, and finally, around 1929, it became the Lyceum Theater. In 1934, the Lyceum caught on fire. Six years later, The Watson Theater opened at that spot.

The Gem Theater 1912 - 1929

Also The Peoples Theater in 1928, & Carlton Theater, Then the Lyceum

In 1912, Mr Sanders converted his hardware store at 131 Main Street in Watsontown into the Gem Theater.

On the Right - Gem Theater Program from 1916

In 1918, Warren Johnson (son of Abel Johnson, from Union County) bought the Gem and modernized it. There were 450 floor seats and 75 balcony seats

Interior Of The Gem Theater

Johnson and his family lived above the theater. His wife Pauline helped with the ticket sales, and his son and daughter, James and Ida Mae were in charge of encouraging local farmers to come see the movies.

Johnson hired Alfred Ross to work the film projector, and Eddie Billman was hired to play the piano for silent films

Roth was still the projectionist in 1934

The Gem changed names a few times, becoming the Carlton, then The Peoples Theater, and finally the Lyceum

In 1925, Johnson leased the theater to the owner of the Milton theater.

In 1928, Johnson leased the theater to a new manager, who remodeled it and named it the Peoples Theater. A year later the stock market crashed, and Johnson was left with all of the bills.

The Lyceum Theater 1930 -1934

In addition to the theater, there was a grocery store and a dairy products store on the ground floor of the building. On the first floor, there were two apartments. In 1934 when the theater burned, there were 11 people living in those two apartments.

The Lyceum theater was destroyed by a fire in November of 1934.

Mrs George Johnson, wife of the manager of the theater, was trapped on the second floor and had to be rescued by ladder.

Four nearby buildings were damaged.

Interior of the Lyceum

NOTE - In the history of Watsontown Schools, there is another Lyceum mentioned. "In 1878, S.L. Sheep, a Watsontown Teacher, opened a select school in the Lyceum Theater, for a term of 11 weeks." This would have been long before the movie theaters existed.

The Watson Theater 1940-2009

Opened on May 30, 1940

Mr Thompson bought the property and built the Watson Theater, with a flashing marquis.The new theater had 500 seats and an indoor ticket booth. The theater’s interior featured a 30 foot silk damask wall,

The new Watson theater had an ice cream parlor and lunch counter called the Watson Dairy Lunch.

In 2000, the theater was owned by Rick and Deborah Whistler. They had purchased it from Roy and Miriam Diebler

When Mrs Whistler was interviewed for the 60th anniversary of the theaters opening, she said they had purchased the theater from Roy and Miriam Diebler, and that at the time it was that when they purchased the theater, it was a part time bargain theater with second run films.

In 2000, the theater had Cinema Scoops - an extension of the movie concessions, run by Deborah Whistlers mother.

The Watson Theater, unable to compete with the larger theaters at the mall, went out of business in September 2009, after a special screening of Marley and Me.

The Watson Theater Eatery 2019-