A follower of 40 South News, Dave Mell, recently shared four views of the Maplewood Theater — obviously from at least a couple decades — possibly from the 1950s and 1970s.
Editor’s note: At least three of these photos — shared on Facebook by Dave Mell last week — were gleaned from previous Doug Houser posts in 40 South News.
See also: Maplewood History: A Surprising Discovery About Our Long Forgotten Theater District
I’m sure looking forward to that new Esther Williams picture.
I’ll admit that it took me a bit by surprise to see this post of 4 views of the Maplewood Theater. I recognized three immediately and could take you to the originals. As a matter of fact, all four came from one post of mine. The link is below. The top two came from the Maplewood Public Library. Third from the top came from Wanda Kennedy Kuntz who was kind enough to let me copy it and who retains ownership of the original. The fourth view was from the collection of Matt Irwin who was also kind enough to let me copy it. It is now in the collection of the State Historical Society of Missouri. In all cases I did the legwork. I copied Wanda’s at her home. I copied Matt’s at my home after I visited his apartment and he was kind enough to let me take his collection to my house for a few days. Then I generally use Photoshop to improve the images according to whatever they might need.
These are some things that most folks don’t think about. I strongly believe that attribution is the least we can do to acknowledge these folks who share their personal images with us. And the Maplewood Public Library deserves much credit as well for being a repository and protector of these parts of our community history.
https://40southnews.com/maplewood-history-route-66-and-the-myth-worthy-maplewood-theater/
Over 60 years ago, I went to the Maplewood Theater to see Santa Claus for free.
Where was the theater located? This looks like the block across from Shop & Save, where Boogaloo and Las Palmas are located now. Am I even close?
7100 block of Manchester across from Yale.
The entrance is now the walkway between the Apostolic Church and the Elements of Design Studio
Spent many a Friday night there in the 50s. Last time I was there, wife and I went to see True Grit.