The American Theatre started off as a "high-class polite vaudeville1", possibly before 1903. It's a theater that's been around for quite some time and was the subject of flattering review in the June 24th, 1903 issue of The Oregon Daily Journal. The American would show films such as Neal of the Navy. Neal of the Navy was a film about a Navy cadet who gets thrown out for cheating while his ex searches for buried treasure. The film was produced by Balboa Amusement Producing Company. It was a black and white silent film, as was appropriate for the era, and was filmed in Arch Beach in Laguna Beach, California. As you can see in the below ad, this movie came to the majority of theaters in the Portland area. Eventually, the American came under management other than Paul F. Noble, who would go on to manage the Liberty theater. The American theater seems to had a rather tumultuous run and was probably hindered further by the fact that there were two theaters in Portland named the American.
Unfortunately, the construction of the American Theater did not match the rave review it received in 1903. On December 18, 1921, the theater collapsed, resulting in the arrest of the contractors responsible. The incident results were: "...Seven persons were killed and 26 were badly injured2".
