The Research Process

The Cinemagic Theater is 113 years old and counting. Thus, the research process for this theater has been complicated and time consuming, although deeply interesting. The theater has had eight owners and been renamed eight times.

I am currently doing research on the Rhododendron Drive-In Theater which operated in Florence from April 30, 1953 until some time at the end of 1979.

For my blog post, I chose an advertisement article about the Savoy theater in Medford that the Medford Mail Tribune published on October 3, 1908. The Savoy was the second moving picture theater built right after the Bijou. It is an interesting article because it was two days after its first opening on October 1 of 1908. 

Frank Neugebauer the proprietor and manager of the Dime Theater in Pendleton was attacked by Councilman J.T. Hinkle on Febuary 17th 1909. The main reason for this was that Frank had decided to cancel an act due to it being a very poor act. He brings up in his response that this act had previously been “chased” out of the Star theater the year before because of how bad it was. Also, he says that the act had an initial trial run and did not go well. He paid them for their nights work but refused to let them come back again.

The St. Helens Mist was one of the primary newspaper companies in St. Helens in the early 20th century.  After scouring articles that were available through the UO library website, I was able to find many instances of documented male managers and owners of theaters in the city of St.

Nearing the border between the northern half of Oregon and the southern half of Washington state, lies Pendleton, a small city containing an equivalently small number of  inhabitants at just over 17,000 citizens.  The city center was built on the south bank of the Umatilla River, which travels east and west through the town. Pendleton takes pride in its rich agricultural and ranching history,  famously using the motto “The Real West.” 

While there are many results while researching “Liberty Theater” in Bend, OR, there have been some difficulties in determining which Liberty Theater the newspapers were referring to as there have been two in Bend. One, the one I am researching, opened on July 29, 1917 and the other on April 20, 1924. The Liberty I am researching was used for films as the other Liberty was used as a performing arts theater and still is to this day.

To the left is an article which details the sale of The Pastime Theater in La Grande, Oregon.