By James O. Dear

Mineola’s first motion picture theatre was “THE AIR DOME” which was located on North Johnson Street where the Select Theatre now stands. The Airdome, owned by Charlie and Ellie Reeves, was a roofless structure with dirt floors, walls of sheet metal or of wood and featured folding chairs.
 

Western movies and Pearl White serials were made even more thrilling by the use of mood music played on the piano by local piano players. The Airdome was opened in 1908 and continued operating throughout the year.
 

In 1912, G.S. Northcutt opened a movie house at 108 West Broad Street. Northcutt sold the theatre to R.T. Hooks, Sr. in 1914. Horace Hudson Epps, who was known as “Buck”, was hired as machine operator. Mr. Hooks moved the theatre to 107 North Johnson Street in 1915 and named it “THE STAR”. In 1918 he closed the Star and moved to a new building at 114 North Johnson Street.
 

The new building was designed and built especially for a theatre with a gradually sloping floor and an elevated stage wit the screen located near the back wall. The stage was equipped with back drops of beautiful scenery and curtains which could be elevated with ropes and pulleys into a stage loft so stage plays could be held. It also had dressing rooms on each side of the stage. The auditorium was cooled by several ceiling fans. There were box seats on each side of the auditorium located about halfway down toward the stage and these were cooled by large buzz fans.
This theatre also had a concession stand that sold ice cream, malts, carbonated drinks, candy, cigars, cigarettes, and of course, popcorn. Located across the lobby from the concession was an ice cream parlor with a buzzer button that could be pushed, and as a result, a waiter would come across the lobby, take the customer’s order and return to serve the order.
 

The parlor had round white tables with iron legs and twisted rod chairs with round bottoms. It also had some wooden chairs with round curved wooden backs and round bottoms. The concession and ice cream parlor were cooled by ceiling fans. I have one of those ceiling fans installed on my front porch and it still works well. It was made by Westinghouse and put in use in 1918 with a patent dated 1910 through 1916. They don’t make them that good anymore.
 

In front of the ticket office was a huge brass rail with two horizontal bars. Every child in Mineola at sometime or other played on the rail until the theatre was remodeled and the rail was done away with.
 

The new theatre had to have a name, so Mr. and Mrs. Hooks decided to name it the “Select”. At that time there was a motion picture company named Select Pictures. The Texas franchise for this company was owned by Leroy Bickel and was located in Dallas. Mr. Bickel was a close friend of the Hooks family so they chose the name from his company. The concession stand was operated as a separate business so they named it the Select Confectionery.
 

Select Pictures was bought by Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer and became a part of that company with Leroy Bickel as the branch manager, a position he held for life in accordance with the sales agreement.
 

I have one of the old posters of a Select Picture titled “Good Night Paul” dated 1917 with Constance Talmadge as the star, and Lewis J. Selznick as the producer. Constance had a sister named Norma.
 

In 1928, Mr. and Mrs. Hooks sold the Select Theatre to Gus Doering and moved to West Texas. This is where I came into the motion picture business. My brother, Sam, was hired by Buck Epps, who was manager and chief projectionist, to run the machines.
 

I was 12 years old on May 15th, 1928, and Buck hired me in June of that year. My job was to put out circulars, put up advertising and work as an usher when needed. My sister, Elizabeth, was hired to sell tickets.
 

In that same year, 1928, the Academy Awards were introduced.
 

About 1929, Alvin Flynt built a building for a theatre at the southwest corner of Broad and Pacific Streets and leased it to Gus Doering. This theatre was called the “Palace”.
 

I recall that when we put in a sound system at the Palace, the movies were called “talkies.” At that time, we were running a serial called “Tarzan of the Apes”, consisting of 15 chapters starring Frank Merril as Tarzan.
 

This was a silent films with several chapters left to run with one chapter being shown each Saturday matinee and night and each chapter had to be run several times each Saturday. It was my job to start the player piano at the end of the feature and then stop it when the comedy came on. A chapter lasted about 15 minutes.

The type of pictures shown at the Palace was action, adventure and westerns. Some of the stars were Bob Steele, Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson and Buck Jones. I recall that we ran a football serial with a lot of action and adventure. It starred Red Grange and the title was “The Galloping Ghost”.

The first cartoon comedies I remember were Flip the Frog and Betty Boop.
 

There was a barber shop and café located in the theatre building and they faced South Pacific Street. In 1932 one night a fire started in the café. It spread to the barber shop and the theatre, destroying all three businesses.