The Gresham Theater opened its doors in 1919, managed and owned by Walter Adrian. At the start of its life span it was the only motion picture theater in Gresham, ending the two-year gap since Gresham's last theater closed down. Gresham Theater was a storefront theater that sat 300 patrons. It was located on Gresham's old Main Street which is now North Main Avenue. In May 1920, a sale of the Gresham Theater commenced transferring ownership from Walter Adrian to J.C. Allmon. The Gresham Theater advertised via newspaper panels in the Gresham Outlook and hosting admission ticket give aways with surrounding Gresham businesses. The average pricing was 15¢ for general admission and 35¢ for balcony seating. The theater specialized in motion pictures but also showed educational films as extra features.
The exact date of closure and reason for closure is currently unknown due to lack of evidence; however, we can infer that the Gresham Theater closed sometime between 1928 to 1929. This is due to the Gresham Theater appearing in "The Year Book of Motion Pictures" 1928 but not appearing in the 1929 edition. As for the reason of closure, we know that soon after the Gresham Theater closed down a new theater by the same name opened its doors in a newly constructed movie theater. It is currently unknown if this new theater is related to the old Gresham Theater or simply shares the same name, but this tells us that the new theater construction could have caused the closure of the Gresham Theater.
