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Palestine’s Texas Theaterby
Bob Bowman | |
While
visiting Palestine a few
months back, I learned that the Texas Theater, one of the grand old movie houses
of East Texas, has been restored and is now a setting for community stage productions.
The
Texas is not only a landmark for Palestine,
but for me.
It was where I saw my very first movie, a Gene
Autry western, “Mexicali Rose,” sometime in the l930s.
One Saturday
night, my father, a sawmill mechanic at the Neches River logging camp of Fastrill,
loaded our family in his old Ford and drove to Palestine
to see Gene, Noah Berry and Luana Walters perform on The Texas’ silver screen.
For days after, I rode stick horses and fired wooden pistols with Gene as we chased
all the bad men out of Fastrill. Today, Fastrill is a ghost town and I suspect
it is because the law-abiding ways Gene and I brought to Fastrill bored everyone
to death.
Even today, I can still hear Gene’s singing in the corners of
my mind.
The Texas Theater, which strands proudly in downtown Palestine,
was built in 1928 by W. Scott Dunne, who designed numerous theaters in Texas.
The old Spanish colonial style building was created to have the look and feel
of an open courtyard under a dusky sky.
The theater had several reincarnations
during its lifetime. |
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Texas
Theater in Palestine
Old photo courtesy Billy Smith |
It was only open
briefly when it burned in 1929, but rose from the ashes in the late l930s, only
to burn again in 1939. In the 1940s, it was up and running again, this time as
a more modern movie house.
In 1956, the Texas opened its lower seats, both
orchestra and mezzanine, for the first time to African-American patrons. Louis
Collier, now in his sixties, recalled attending that night’s showing of the “The
Ten Commandments.” He recalled: “Every black kid in town was probably there.”
In the l970s, the Texas closed again and soon fell into shambles, but in 1983,
Palestine’s people joined together and renovated the theater as a live playhouse.
But roofing and plumbing problems led to another closure in 1997. This time, inmates
from the state’s Gurney prison unit came to the rescue and made repairs, enabling
the theater to open again in March of 2005.
Today, live productions like
“The Music Man” and “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” have taken cowboy Gene
Autry’s place at the Texas. |
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