Audubon Theater located in the 100 block of Letcher.
The Audubon Theater
By Martha Alma Martin Mitchell
On April 17, 1921, I married Edward Preston Mitchell, born September 23, 1894, a World War I veteran and a native of Paducah, Kentucky. He was a very handsome young man, several years my senior, and I was flattered to be courted by a person of his appearance, so we were married within a year of our first meeting at my eighteenth birthday picnic in Atkinson Park.
At that time Eddie, as he was called, was running a moving picture show in Audu-bon, then called the East End. The building was a non-descript sort of structure, located at 130 Letcher Street, but was a source of entertainment and recreation for both young and old during those times.
The interior had a good screen and seated around 150 people. The seats were handmade benches with comfortable backs to lean on, an inclined floor so that everyone could see the screen well, and a piano on which music to fit the moods of the pictures were played by a hired pianist.
The pictures shown in this theater were silent, with the words spoken by the actors appearing on the screen after they had been spoken. It was rather disconcerting to be sitting by someone who was sitting by someone who could not read, and one’s seatmate kept reading aloud the words one had already read.
Favorite actors and actresses were always chosen to be shown in their pictures by Eddie, the manager, and his centele did not hesitate to besiege him with requests for their particular idols. Such actors as Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, Harry Carey and Gene Autry and actresses such as Pearl White, Gloria swanson and Mae West were those who drew the largest crowds and the most applause.
After the show the younger set would ask for the advertising posters to add to their collection for adorning their bedroom walls.
When the talking pictures came, the old Audubon Theater lost its flavor and its prestege and the fans drove down town to see the latest. The building was bought and made into an apartment complex, but I wonder if the ghosts of these old movie stars still sometimes roam through the halls and reminisce on the times when they were in the limelight.
Reference:
History of Henderson County KY 1888 – 1978
