Historic Jacksonville Theatre Palaces Drive Ins And Movie Houses

Jacksonville's theatre and performance history is rich with flair and drama. The theatres, drive-ins and movie houses that brought entertainment to its citizens have their own exciting stories. Some have passed into memory. The Dixie Theatre, originally part of Dixieland Park, began to fade in 1909. The Palace Theatre, home to vaudeville acts, was torn down in the '50s. The Alhambra has been everyone's favorite dinner theatre since 1967's debut of Come Blow Your Horn. Local author Dorothy K. Fletcher revives the history of Jacksonville's theatres. Lights, camera, action!

Jacksonville's theatre and performance history is rich with flair and drama. The theatres, drive-ins and movie houses that brought entertainment to its citizens have their own exciting stories. Some have passed into memory. The Dixie Theatre, originally part of Dixieland Park, began to fade in 1909. The Palace Theatre, home to vaudeville acts, was torn down in the '50s. The Alhambra has been everyone's favorite dinner theatre since 1967's debut of Come Blow Your Horn. Local author Dorothy K. Fletcher revives the history of Jacksonville's theatres. Lights, camera, action!

The enduring achievement and legacy of a rock movement Florida Book Awards, Bronze Medal for Florida Nonfiction The Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd helped usher in a new kind of southern music from Jacksonville, Florida. Together, they and fellow bands like Blackfoot, 38 Special, and Molly Hatchet would reset the course of seventies rock. Yet Jacksonville seemed an unlikely hotbed for a new musical movement. Michael FitzGerald blends eyewitness detail with in-depth history to tell the story of how the River City bred this generation of legendary musicians. As he profiles essential bands alongside forerunners like Gram Parsons and Cowboy, FitzGerald reveals how the powerful local AM radio station worked with newspapers and television stations to nurture talent. Media attention in turn created a public hungry for live performances by area bands. What became the southern rock elite welded relentless determination to a ferocious work ethic, honing their gifts on a testing ground that brooked no weakness and took no prisoners. FitzGerald looks at the music as the diverse soundtrack to a neo-southern lifestyle that reconciled different segments of society in Jacksonville, and across the nation, in the late sixties and early seventies. A vivid journey into a crucible of American music, Jacksonville and the Roots of Southern Rock shines a light on the artists and songs that powered a phenomenon.

From converted saloons and warehouses to movie palaces and multiplexes, for more than one hundred years, Columbia's movie theaters have reflected the changes around them. In 1928, the Hall Theatre showed its first talkie, the third debut of talkies in Missouri. America fell in love with cars, and Columbia's three drive-ins featured pony rides, monkeys and playgrounds. In response to segregation, which forced Black patrons to sit in the balcony, in 1949 two Black entrepreneurs built the Tiger Theatre, a double-duty movie theater and nightclub. Today, Columbia features a cinema in a repurposed soda bottling plant and holds the international documentary festival True/False Film Fest. Author Dianna Borsi O'Brien recounts the history of all twenty-eight of Columbia's movie theaters.

Over the course of the 20th century, West Virginia contained an impressive diversity of movie theatres--ranging from multipurpose auditoriums in company towns to early nickelodeons and from ornate, urban picture palaces to neighborhood movie houses and suburban drive-ins. In the state's working-class areas, as well as in upscale districts where industry barons lived, residents came together to find amusement and relaxation in these invaluable venues. Many of these theatres have since disappeared from the landscape, while others sit vacant or have been converted for other uses. Some, however, have been reopened or restored. They proudly provide their communities with entertainment today, whether showing films or hosting the performing arts. They serve as catalysts for local revitalization and as success stories showcasing the value of historic preservation.