By Harrison Power
As is the case today with the State Theatre, Gallo Center, Prospect Theater, and Brenden Theatres, Downtown Modesto has long been anchored with a number of venues accommodating the performing arts and film. The grandest of Modesto’s historic theatres had been the Strand Theatre located at 1021 10th Street, which had screened movies and presented stage performances to its audiences for half a century before being shuttered and then lost to fire. While gone, the iconic theatre is still cherished by Modestans and lives on in the memories of generations of movie goers.
Built at a cost of $300,000, the Strand Theatre was reported to have been designed in the California Churrigueresque style by Reid and Reid Architects of San Francisco, who also designed the Spreckels Temple of Music in Golden Gate Park, Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, and the Golden State Theatre in Monterey among other notable San Francisco buildings. The Strand Theatre was owned by M. L. Markowitz and Moe Lesser, who also owned the Strand in San Francisco at the time. The theatre was outfitted for film projection, as well as vaudeville and other live stage productions, accompanied by a $30,000 Wurlitzer pipe organ. The large theatre auditorium provided seating capacity for 1,800 people and when first opened, ticket prices ranged from $0.30 to $0.50 including war tax depending whether your seats were in the Balcony, Balcony Loge, Orchestra, or Orchestra Loge sections.
Advertised to be “Modesto’s Most Beautiful Playhouse,” the Strand Theatre had its two-day grand opening begin on December 10, 1920 to considerable fanfare and public celebration with 3,500 people in attendance to commemorate the city’s newest theatre, lauded to be the grandest in the San Joaquin Valley. The occasion was marked with screenings of “The Mark of Zorro” starring Douglas Fairbanks, in addition to massive vaudeville acts and a pipe organ recital. Afterwards, a turkey banquet for 200 prominent guests was hosted at the Hotel Modesto, followed by dancing at the Winter Garden Ballroom.
Civic leaders and members of the business community were in attendance to ring in the addition to Modesto, including Mayor George Ulrich, who had helped deliver the playhouse stage curtains which had arrived from San Francisco by chartered plane at the Modesto airport just ahead of the opening ceremony. Local motion picture enthusiast Frank Andrews captured the festivities surrounding the Strand’s opening on film, taken from the streets and from the air in a plane piloted by Harold “Bud” Coffee.
The Modesto Boys’ Band, led by Frank “Proof” Mancini, made its first vaudeville concert performance at the Strand on February 3, 1923. Later that year in October 1923, ownership of the theatre changed when acquired by the National Theaters Syndicate after a mortgage was foreclosed. The famed march composer and conductor, John Philip Sousa, and his band performed at the Strand Theatre a few times, playing a set of concerts in January 1924, then in January 1926, and later in November 1928.
The Strand Theatre remained open under various subsequent owners until it was declared a fire hazard by the Modesto Fire Department in 1971, after which point it remained vacant and continued to fall into disrepair. Despite hopes and dreams by many that one day the Strand Theatre would be restored, including its owner Elmo Wilson Sr., the Strand caught fire and much of the interior was gutted on July 28, 1984. Some believed the theatre was still salvageable even with the gutted conditions, but no effort came to fruition and the Strand was demolished. By 1988, the empty Strand Theatre lot was purchased by the City of Modesto.
Ultimately, the redevelopment of 10th Street in the 1990’s brought with it the loss of other Modesto icons like the Hotel Hughson and the Hotel Covell, but the reenvisioned civic hub did keep the Strand block as a destination for Modesto’s movie goers with the addition of the Brenden Theatres Modesto 18. While the Brenden represents a different era of downtown growth and cinema style than the Strand, the Brenden too was the largest movie theater in town when it opened and continues to be one of the major draws to Downtown Modesto.
