Movies matter, the Pope agrees; how about on the Harbor?
Published 1:30 am Saturday, November 22, 2025
Dear Reader:
Last week’s column about the restoration of Hoquiam’s historic 7th Street Theatre generated many emails, calls and coffee-shop conversations. Thanks for sharing your memories.
The same edition featured a story and photos on the demolition of Elma’s Graham Theater, sadly too far gone to consider saving after its roof collapsed in 2019. The 700-seat theater opened on Nov. 25, 1927, “the pride of its namesake and builder,” Frank W. Graham, who also owned and operated a theater in Shelton. Graham spent $80,000 — nearly $1.5 million today — to construct and equip Elma’s Spanish Revival-style theater during the Roaring Twenties building boom. That era ended with the thud heard around the world when the U.S. Stock Market crashed, ushering in the Great Depression.
In 1926-27, Aberdeen boasted six “motion picture theaters,” according to the Polk Directory: The Bijou, D&R, Dream, Liberty, Weir and Grand. The Grand, a landmark vaudeville venue at Market and East F, was managed at one time by round-faced Ed Benn, whose father, Sam, founded the city.
Hoquiam in those years had three movie houses — all on 8th Street: The Liberty, Arcade and Capitol, with the 7th Street under construction in late 1927. Warner Brothers’ Hoquiam Theater — later renamed the New Hoquiam — opened a few years later at 415 7th St.
The 1926-27 directory lists two theaters in Elma, the Auditorium and Armour, presumably the sister to the Armour at 319 S. Main in Montesano. Aloha, which boasted the Northwest’s largest shake mill, had a movie theater, too. And by 1940 Pacific Beach had a theater.
MY MOM loved the movies. In my grade-school years, it was just the two of us, living in a tiny apartment. Going to “the show” was our primary source of entertainment. In 1951, when I was 8, we had many theaters from which to choose: The D&R, where my honorary uncle, Marvin Frost, was the projectionist; the Aberdeen Theater (most recently a church) on West Wishkah next to Goldberg’s; the Roxy and New Bijou on East Heron, and the 7th Street and New Hoquiam.
The Graham was alive and well in Elma, together with the New Monte on Marcy Avenue at the county seat. Pretty soon, things got more exciting with the debut of the Harbor Drive-in at Central Park, with its iconic giant Paul Bunyan sign, a spectacular example of neon art. At intermission, cars equipped with spotlights — an essential accessory — tried to tag “spotty,” a pot-bellied cartoon imp who zoomed around the outdoor screen like a firefly.
The Jones Historical Collection, maintained by the Middleton Family as a priceless gift to the community, features no less than 198 photos of Harbor-area theaters. Go to www.jonesphotocollection.com, agree to the site’s terms and conditions, and type “theaters” into the search bar. My favorite photo depicts a full-size model airplane nose-dived into the marquee of Warner Brothers’ Aberdeen Theatre to promote “The Lost Squadron,” a “mighty epic of the air,” circa 1932. The runner-up, so to speak, captures the ski-jump ramp the D&R erected above its box office to promote “Sun Valley Serenade” in 1941.
Another Jones photo documents that one of my pet peeves is nothing new. A curtain-raising sign at an unidentified local theater in 1930 is an appeal for manners: “May we suggest that QUIET adds to the pleasure of many. TALKING during performance is annoying.” Little could they have imagined the 21st century annoyance of being surrounded by people using cellphones during a movie.
Another time-machine trip is “Industries of Aberdeen,” a Chamber of Commerce documentary filmed in the 1950s. It’s on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSoB8d4zr1I. Fascinating despite the lack of a sound track, the film opens with the local soda-pop bottling plant and an amazing parade of Newman’s Dairy milk-delivery trucks setting out on their morning routes. You’ll visit the newsroom of The Aberdeen Daily World, where my mentor Ed Van Syckle is presiding as managing editor. You’ll go next-door to the offices of KXRO, and stop for a scotch and soda at the Morck Hotel’s Highlander cocktail lounge, with its kilted waitresses. There’s a full house for the New Bijou’s big night — Wednesday, if I recall correctly — when a grocery-prize contest filled the seats. Finally, well-dressed Lutherans and Episcopalians smile for the camera as they depart Sunday services. Note that the movie-goers you see are dressed up as well. My Mom would never go downtown in slacks.
A WEEK AGO, when Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff, welcomed Spike Lee and other Hollywood notables to the Vatican, he celebrated cinema and its ability to inspire and unite. The celebrities applauded when he lamented that cinemas around the world are in decline. Neighborhood theaters, like the ones he grew up with in Chicago, had once been important community centers, the pontiff said. “I urge institutions not to give up,” he implored, “but to cooperate in affirming the social and cultural value” of movie theaters.
Structural safety issues with the roof and foundation prompted closure of most of the Shoppes at Riverside mall in South Aberdeen in 2021, including the partially impacted cinema wing. Some of its auditoriums are not part of the original mall. At this writing, I have been unable to reach the management of Coming Attractions Theaters, the mall’s former owner. The company ran a good show here in all respects, so I’m hoping to learn whether its management believes a major new investment here pencils out, or if there’s any chance of reopening the existing theaters.
It’s galling, as many of you have commented, that Aberdeen and Hoquiam must be the largest population cluster in the Northwest without a first-run movie theater. That said, a wonderful example of not giving up exists at Ocean Shores. In 2021, Stephen Buck, whose family operates Ace Hardware/Buck Electric, teamed up with an experienced theater manager, Pat Patton, to transform the three-screen Ocean Shores Cinema into a first-rate operation. Comfortable new seats, high-tech sound and projection gear, a terrific concession stand, and first-run films add up to everything you could ask for in a movie experience.
At Shelton, there’s another wonderful, small first-run movie theater. Its success — with the mall multiplex in Olympia just a few miles away — seems to prove that if you build it, and run it right, they’ll come.
The success of the 7th Street’s second-run “greatest hits” business model is a disincentive to becoming a first-run venue. The 7th Street uses Blu-ray projection gear. Going digital would require a major investment. Further, it has only one screen.
Which brings us to the D&R. Inquiring minds want to know if movies are in its future under Emmert International’s ownership. I’m asking. Stay tuned.
John C. Hughes was chief historian for the Office of the Secretary of State for 17 years after retiring as editor and publisher of The Daily World in 2008.
