The First Mount Dorans – Season 2
Part One: The Princess Theatres
Forty-four years after the New Princess Theatre opened its doors on Fabulous Fifth Avenue in downtown Mount Dora, the theatre took one final bow before the doors closed forever in 1973.
Sold at auction as one complete package, the theatre seats, curtains, equipment, and you name it were packed up and shipped off to the Honduras. Having spent an entire day of January 10, 1929 preparing to show the first movie, workers stayed busy January 25, 1973 packaging the last of the movie theatre’s inventory. Born during the industry's earliest days, the Princess died a result of the fast paced, ever-changing movie industry. The New Princess had first opened on 5th Avenue in the early 20s, but was then destroyed by fire in 1928, and replaced by a Newer, New Princess.
The very first Princess Theatre was located on the east side
of Donnelly Street north of Fourth Street, and began showing silent movies in what
was then the Town Hall. Original managers Heller & Harding worked to keep the Princess as modern as possible. On December 20, 1920, “Blackbirds,
starring Justine Johnstone, one of the five most beautiful women in the world”, became one of the theatre’s earliest hits. Just prior to showing the Blackbirds, the managers had "installed another new machine, making two first-class projectors in our booth. No more stops between reels."
Heller & Harding also "added a larger screen making our pictures much larger and better".
MOUNT
DORA: The Lure. The Founding. The Founders.
By
the author of Tavares: Darling of Orange County, Birthplace of Lake County
Official
Book Launch - Monday, November 1, 2021
Request
details as MountDora@CroninBooks.com
Mount Doran David S. Simpson developed the
south side of Fifth Avenue from Dora Ann Drawdy Alley west to Alexander Street
in 1920, and in 1925, he sold that entire half-block to an investor from
Yonkers, New York. In exchange for $90,000, that investor acquired the buildings
containing “the Princess Theatre; City Market; City Bakery; Western Union
Telegraph; the Town Clerk’s office and the Chamber of Commerce, with living
apartments on the second floor.”
The post-fire Princess had seating for 600 persons
with fire exits designed to empty the movie theater in less than a minute. Theatre
manager William J. Gorman said the “latest approved type of Phototone is being
installed, declared “to give a perfect reproduction of disc records, so well,
in fact, that it is as good as if an orchestra or artist were in the auditorium”. (In October of 1931, Mount Dorans were shocked by news of the beloved theatre managers death. William and wife Margaret both died in an auto accident near Schenectady, New York).
Motion Picture history was made at the Princess
Theatre in Mount Dora on February 14, 1929 when, for the first time ever in Lake
County, “Talking Movies” appeared on the big screen. “This will be accomplished
by means of the Synchrotone", Gorman had said, "one of the latest talking devices, somewhat
similar to the Vitaphone”.
And for the record, both movie houses consistently spelled
their movie house as “Theatre”.
Season One of this First Mount Doran Series
began the historic Mount Dora Fifth Avenue walk first taken in 1848 by Surveyor
James Gould. We began this walk at Tremain Street and 5th Avenue,
and then trekked westward toward Lake Dora. Our walk reached Dora Ann Drawdy Alley by
Part Four. A special Mother’s Day edition then took us on a side trip
to the crest of a hill overlooking Lake Dora, where a historic citrus grove – one first planted in the
1870s by the mother of Mount Dora, had just then been cleared to make way
for a new 2021 housing community.
Season Two continues our journey to the lake’s
edge. The history presented above of two Princess Theatres of Mount Dora is borrowed from my Chapter 26 of soon to be released, Mount Dora: The Lure. The Founding. The
Founders.
Next up: August 15th we cross over to the north
side of Fabulous Fifth Avenue to hear the sound of yesteryear, a couple “dings” followed by a check under the hood!
TAVARES: Darling of Orange County, Birthplace of Lake County, is available now at Amazon or buy a signed copy at my CroninBooks booth at Wooten Park in Tavares, August 28th - 11:00 AM to 3 PM.
