Princess Theatre

The motion picture theater business developed rapidly within the United States, after an employee of Thomas Edison invented the kinetoscope in 1891. By the second decade of the 20th century, there were already thousands of picture theaters available to movie-goers across the country—including Douglas’s own Princess Theatre, constructed in 1917. At the time, motion pictures were still in the era of the great silents, with stars such as Lillian Gish, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin, and with pioneering directors such as D. W. Griffith and Fritz Lang. In Douglas, musical accompaniment for the silents was provided on an upright piano by various local “lady pianists.” As was the case with most early theaters, the Princess was simple and straightforward, largely bereft of the amenities taken for granted by modern audiences. At the Princess, the film itself was the thing: the magical experience of seeing moving figures on a two-dimensional screen was sufficient in itself to attract patrons from all over Converse County. With an original seating capacity of 300, the Princess included a small concessionaire, a news stand, a ticket sales office, and a telegraph office. In 1936, the concessionaire was enlarged, the theater’s “stage” was remodeled and, in the following year, the name was changed to the “Mesa.” Apart from these improvements and periodic restoration of the seating, architecturally, the building has endured and remains today much as it was at the time of its construction. Only the technical apparatus has changed; and the fare