Located at 3031 Alameda, a beautiful Spanish-Pueblo theater sits at the corner, for sale, vacant and deteriorating badly. Built in 1917 as the Alameda Theater, the building was completely remodeled by El Paso architect Otto Thorman in 1941 into its current architectural style as the Mission Theater.
The Alameda Theater opened with a showing of "Coffee Joe" in August of 1917. Designed in a beautiful Moorish style, it was a very unique building in its day, architecturally competing with the Henry Trost designed Alhambra, built only 5 years earlier. We are unable to document who the architect for this locally owned building was, and the building itself gives no clues -- Trost & Trost, Thorman, S.E. Patton, Gibson & Robertson, Wallwork and Kneezell were all capable of creating this design. It was a good decade for El Paso architects. The theater, owned by Jose Soltera and managed by Jesus Ontiveros, advertised profusely in period newspapers after it opened. The theater sat 750 people, and cost a cool $17,000 to build - a fortune today.
In 1941, new owners C.C. Dues and W.H.M. Watson commissioned El Paso's foremost commercial architect of the time, Otto Thorman, to remodel the aging building into the Southwestern style that was being advocated for the area by the Woman's Department of the Chamber of Commerce. Today, if you drive through the area, you will notice that many of the older buildings on Alameda are designed in the "required" southwestern motif. Thorman, a master of the style, did not disappoint: the building stands as a classic and beautiful example of a Prairie and Spanish eclectic blend, with a Mission Bell parapet to boot. When built, the structure actually had a bell!
Now the building, badly deteriorating, is for sale and we are hoping for its best. Today we were able to capture some live shots of the edifice, and although saddened by its condition we are still amazed at the architectural genius - and then its newer architectural genius.
***************
Text and research provided to Sketchclub.net by Mark Stone, citing period newspaper articles accessed at newspapers.com and City Directory entries accessed at the UNT Digital Archives at https://texashistory.unt.edu/
 |
| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 2020 |
 |
| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 2020 |
 |
| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 2020 |
 |
| Newspaper photograph of the new Alameda Theater from the 08/25/1917 El Paso Herald, accessed at Newspapers dot com at https://www.newspapers.com/image/81021933/ |
 |
| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 2020 |
 |
| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 2020 |
 |
| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 2020 |
 |
| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 2020 |
 |
| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 2020 |
 |
| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 2020 |
 |
| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 2020 |
 |
| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 2020 |
