Racist theater goers rejoiced as Walter Shay and Vern Whitcomb's Hood River based Electric Theater played host to the St. Mark's guild backed Society Vaudeville through their timeless performance of racist entertainment! 

While conducting research on the Star Theatre in Burns Oregon, I have been challenged with the facts that Burns is a very small city, and along with that there were multiple operating theaters in Oregon that were names “Star” at the time, there were other in Astoria, Bend, Medford and many more across the State at the time. However using the historic Oregon Newspapers collection I was able to find an advertise

The Oregon theater during its time of operation (1913-1921) was a true hotspot for the people of Pendelton to see a show or a moving picture, of all genres. There is evidence of many different genres from romance to musical. Yet, of all of the advertisements, “Ole The Swede” starring Dave Williams was the one that caught and held my attention.

I began my research by using the Historic Oregon Newspaper database with the keywords "majestic" and "theater" in the location of Ontario, Oregon in order to find results limited to theaters with this title, but was met with only few results. I refined the search by changing the spelling of "theater" to "theatre," and found that this was a successful refinement as my search yielded over 100 results instead of only 4 results from my previous search.

When I first began my research, I realized that it was a little harder than I expected. The theater I initially chose was not very big and did not last long, only being open for a year in a small town. This made it difficult to find any information about it, so I decided to switch to a different theater. I ended up on the Orpheum Theater located in Pendleton, Oregon, and open for seven years, from 1908 to 1915. The Orpheum was run by Dr. Harry A. Medernach, who had taken it over after the death of his father sometime in 1909 or after, and who eventually sold the theater in 1916.

The Star Theater was located in Roseburg and was in operation for a little over two years from 1908-to 1910.  The first image is from The Evening News and was published in 1910, it contains an article about the buying of a vacant lot that was adjacent to the star theater among other establishments like offices and grocery stores.  The business that bought the vacant lot paid $25,000 for that portion and in today's money that is $756,000.  This image seemed to be in the interest of the person who bought the vacant bought and their theater name was mentioned as almost “free pre

In my initial research about the Lyric Theater in Prineville, Oregon, I have found that its conception was very complicated. The history behind the theater in its first few years of operation is a bit confusing to follow, and sometimes dates seem to contradict each other. This confusion is exacerbated by the fact that the theater changed names and locations several times before settling on “The Lyric”.

The Electric is a theatre in Albany, Oregon. It played various genres of films to appeal to all age groups for its intended audience from Cinderella for the ladies and children to the tramp and the bulldog. It had gone through various different managements, proprietors, and re-openings until its 'rebranding' in February 1911 where it was then called The Cassino by the new owners Messrs, Al. G. Perry, and I. G.

I began this research process and I was lucky enough to quickly find an advertisement for the Wexford Theater in Salem, Oregon. This advertisement was found in the "Theatrical and Amusements" section of the Statesman Journal paper which was at the time called Daily Oregon Statesman. More specifically I found it located in this section where editors write about "newsy gossip of the photo plays" as well as concerts and theaters. On April 18th of 1913, the Wexford was mentioned two separate times on this page demonstrating its high level of popularity with the people of Salem.