Castle Theater

The Castle Theater, one of three theaters owned and operated by A.H and Donald McDonald, a father/son business practice. First opening in 1920, the Castle Theater was a mid-range set price theater that often played traveling films. Other forms of entertainment often included in the theater's atmosphere included bands that would perform in the main atrium to entertain people in between showings. While in operation, the main promotional strategy that Castle Theater used was to advertise in ways like promoting the feature film and giving a synopsis of the show in order to entice people to visit the theater. As seen in the photos below, the advertisement for the Castle theater can be seen promoting a film featuring Norma Talmadge and Eugene O'Brian's "The Voice from the Minaret" along with critics' opinions and a hook for the film₁. Other advertisements depict the Castle Theater advertising themselves based on their sales tactics, such as setting a fixed price so that there was never a question of whether you could afford it, with evening shows being set at thirty cents per person, and matinees being twenty cents per person₂. Although the Castle theater was technically in operation from 1920 to 1925, the property of Castle theater was sold while the theater remained on a lease with the property. After closing, the theater became home to the Bank of Commerce and eventually a Miller's Department Store, but in the 1970's the city of Eugene sold the property to be paved into a parking lot.