The Lake Theater and Cafe was opened on March 23rd 1940 in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The journey to find the opening date was long but rewarding. The first traces of the Lake Theaters early existence I found were announcements and construction updates for the Oswego Districts “theater project”. One of my favorite finds from my research is an image of the construction sketch posted in the The Oregon Daily Journal on September 24th, 1939. Most of my information has come from Oregon's collection of newspapers on Newspapers.com but I have had some success with other sites. For example, This clipping of the theaters opening announcement was found in the Oregonian on the Portland Oregonian Archives, which is accessed through the University of Oregon's library.
Norman Goodin was owner of the Lake Theater for nearly nine years until he was replaced by father and son duo John and Carl Macfadden, who had also operated Crest, Laurelhurst, and Alvan theater in Portland. The Lake Theater was then bought by Max Cohen after Carl passed in 1960. From this point on, it was rather difficult to find information about the changes in staffing/owners. Surprisingly, it was quite difficult to find any ads for the screenings in any of the sources I used to find newspaper clippings, until 1977 I started to come across whole pages of ads for “Tom Moyers Luxury Theaters.” I haven't been able to find any information about when the Lake Theatre was acquired by Tom Moyer. The theatre was temporarily closed in 1980 for structural issues under ownership of Rolly H. Bevens, whom I also couldn't find much information on.
