As other small, privately operated businesses had done before them, small-town movies theatres survived -- and, in some cases, even thrived -- for a number of decades. One may still occasionally find independent theatres grinding away in small towns located far enough away from metropolitan areas, only one is prone to find abandoned buildings with empty marquess that frequently resemble the rusted prows of old ships. Some old theatre buildings serve as shells for churches and small businesses, but even many of these buildings wear such skimpy camouflage that somebody passing through town can simply guess the role they once played to be a local center for a shared community experience. After the nature of the community changed, right after the local people began identifying with all the national television community, the regional exhibitors stepped within the public spectacle through promotional showmanship in an effort to revitalize not merely its role in the neighborhood but frequently the local community spirit itself. These converted marquees remind us not alone of abandoned ships but of shabby circus tents that remain a long time after the circus has left town; they might bear few traces in their former role in the neighborhood rituals, however the memories in the personal efforts of local showmen to help keep the circus alive from the face of cultural change could keep that circus plus the expertise in the cultural significance alive within us.
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Before people relied so heavily on automobiles, and before these people were afraid just to walk over a few city blocks, many towns of less than a thousand people had their particular theatre which residents often labeled "the show house" or "the photo show." Residents in the western Illinois town of Carthage, one example is, saw two show houses within the business district not long after the beginning of the twentieth century, only one survived for too long. The Woodbine Theatre, named right after the crawling vine that grew around the east side in the brick building, had not been the first theatre within the town of over three thousand people, however the showmanship of their owner caused the opposition to go out of business.
The first Woodbine was transformed into a theatre in 1917 by Charles Arthur Garard. C.A., because he was called, had already operated a local dairy as well as a downtown soft serve ice cream parlor which offered five-cent frozen goodies sodas, confections, five-cent crushed fruit souffles, plus a tobacco called Garard's Royal Blue. He was obviously a shrewd businessman, but he was also a fanciful dreamer who needed to be located in check by his pragmatic and in many cases shrewder wife. Bertha, who often accompanied the silent movies shown as part of his theatre along with her piano, kept him from selling the theatre and drifting off into other projects, for example the growing of grapefruits in Florida. When C.A. died, she took over as proprietor until her youngest son, Justus, became old enough to aid her.
