The Ritz Theatre in downtown Baxter Springs, Kansas, during Easter weekend showed its first movie in more than 60 years with a screening of “Peter Rabbit.”
According to the Cherokee County News-Advocate:
Theater owner Ron Puckett was busily getting everything ready and taking care of last minute issues prior to the Friday afternoon matinee, but still took time to greet every movie-goer with a smile. Puckett said the plan was to have multiple showings a week by this summer.
Puckett landed a $90,000 grant from the Kansas Historical Society to help restore the theater.
According to a report by KSNF-TV, that wasn’t the original plan for the building:
He and his wife bought the building ten years ago with the idea of turning it into an antique store. But as they began working on the building, history began to come alive.
“When I bought it and started tearing off all the rooms to do what I was wanting to do, I’ve seen all of the original theater paintings, and so we decided to go back to the movie theater,” Puckett says.
The Ritz, a single-screen theater at 1145 Military Ave. (aka Route 66), seats 488 people, according to Cinema Treasures.
The theater originally was built in the 1880s as a dry-goods and clothing store by wounded Civil War veteran John M. Cooper. It was converted into a theater in 1926 — the same year U.S. 66 was federally certified.
Feeling competitive pressures from the rise of drive-in theaters, the Ritz was sold in 1957 and became the Blue Castle Cafe. It also served as a floral shop and church, as well.
The Ritz was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.
(Images of the Ritz Theatre and its neon sign in Baxter Springs, Kansas, via its Facebook page)
I stopped at the Ritz theater couple years ago. ….. but only three customers including myself …… I ran the movie is my home town in Wisconsin in 1960 ……… now that theater is closed down. ….. kind of sad. ….Mike