Original owner/managers were Max Weiss and Leslie Terwilliger, who opened the Pine Tree to great fanfare in October 1922. Weiss was devoted to the Pine Tree, quitting his previous job to run it. Terwilliger, who ran the Star Theater, also decided to leave his job in order to devote his time operating the Pine Tree. Harry W. Poole purchased the Pine Tree in 1925, four years before he finished construction on the Pelican Theatre.
The Pine Tree had all the latest hits and boasted about it in the papers. There was an entire article about how it was able to get Hunchback of Notre Dame (1).
The theater had all of the features and comforts of movie palaces built at this time, including a men's smoking area in the upper balcony and a women’s bathroom in which a child could be left with an attendant, creating a stronger draw for women at the time to come to the theater.
New owners took over the theater in July 1950 with yet more grand fanfare and re-christened the theater as the "new" Pine Tree, but it didn't last long. The last event notice appeared in the local newspaper in Dec. 1951 for a vaudeville act.
