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- [S106] The Mountain Press, 10 Jan 2011.
Upland Chronicles: The Pines was Sevierville’s first movie theater
by JOHN B. WATERS JR.
The Pines Theater when “Made for Each Other,” starring Carole Lombard was showing. The film came out in 1939. The interior of the Pines Theatre, with a seating capacity of over 700.
The first motion picture theater in Sevierville was operated by Jack Seaton and his family. The theater was located on Park Road between what is now Guaranty Land Title Company and Craftsmen Cleaners.
Another theater, The Park, was operated by Willie Kate Murphy. The Park Theater was located in the building now occupied by the Baker Law office at 121 Court Ave. Mrs. Murphy ran The Park from the early 1930s to late 1950s.
In 1911, J.B. Waters Sr. — my faher — bought 5.5 acres of land just south of Rawlings Funeral Home, first known as the Davis Hotel. Court Avenue ended there at that time. J.B. developed Joy Street and sold lots on both side of the street, but kept the southwest corner.
He built his home at 107 Joy St. in 1915 and, in 1928, he built the brick building at the corner of Joy Street and Court Avenue. The structure first housed Watson Motor Co., but he later used it to operate the J.B. Waters Motor Co., a Chrysler-Plymouth and International truck dealership.
Due to World War II, all cars and trucks made in 1942 were confiscated for military use. J.B. closed the garage and began planning a motion picture theater. The Pines opened in 1944. With a seating capacity of just over 700, the theater had the latest projection equipment and a large stage with motor-controlled curtains and good stage lights.
On Monday and Tuesday of each week, The Pines had a top ranked movie. On Wednesday and Thursday, a double feature of what was called “action” or “B” movies was shown. An additional action film was added on Friday, and a cowboy western was always featured on Saturday.
Ken Maynard, Buck Jones, Tim McCoy, Hopalong Cassidy, Bob Steele and others were stars of the first “Saturday westerns.”
The Pines started something new by opening on Saturday at 10 a.m. This made about 13 hours of movie time on Saturday. In addition to the feature movie on Saturday, The Pines featured a short one-reel action serial. The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet were among the popular serials.
On Friday nights, The Pines had a country music show with entertainers from the “Midday Merry-Go-Round,” a popular radio program on WNOX in Knoxville. Among the stars was Archie Campbell, who had an act in which he performed as Grandpappy. The Carlisle Brothers had a country music act and a comedy routine called “Hotshot Elmer.”
Even the great Tex Ritter and Lash Larue played The Pines. Larue’s whip act was extremely popular.
The Carter Family, known as the First Family of Country Music, played The Pines Theater many times. Mother Maybelle was a pioneer in country music and leader of the group. In addition, the original Carter Family featured her daughters Anita, Helen and June. June was the comedy part of the act and later became better known as the wife of Johnny Cash.
Bill and Charlie Monroe played The Pines several times along with Lester Flatt, who became famous in his own right. Bill Monroe became tremendously famous as the father of bluegrass music.
Don Gibson, another well known “Midday Merry-Go-Round” performer, was also a favorite at The Pines. One of Knoxville’s most famous acts was Homer and Jethro. They had many hits, mostly novelty and comedy.
Pee Wee King was a popular country music entertainerin those days. He was discovered by Gene Autry. Pee Wee was really a Yankee, but he migrated into Kentucky, where he had a radio show, and later went to Hollywood. But, he was at the “Midday Merry-Go-Round” for a time and played at The Pines Theater even later, after leaving the “Midday Merry-Go-Round.”
The Louvin Brothers, Ira and Charlie, did an act that was very popular with a mandolin and a guitar and great country voices.
The legendary Roy Acuff, a Maynardville native and Grand Ole Opry star, played at The Pines. He was scheduled to perform in Sevierville under a big tent, which was erected in a low-lying bottom just outside of town. On the day the Acuff performance was scheduled, a terrible rainstorm created conditions so muddy that the public could not get to the tent.
Dad found Roy and suggested he move the act to The Pines Theater, which he did. The show was very successful and he came back one other time. Roy’s act was well known locally because Cousin Oswald Kirby was a Sevier County native from Walden’s Creek.
Other performers from Maynardville included famed guitarist Chet Atkins and Carl Smith, a regular on WROL, a radio station in Knoxville that competed with WNOX. Some great music and a morning program called “The Cas Walker Show” was broadcast on WROL. Cas Walker’s performers also played The Pines many times, and it was not unusual for Cas to take the stage as emcee.
A “Cas Walker Amateur Hour” was the first time Dolly Parton ever played The Pines Theater. She was just a young girl and the guitar was bigger than Dolly. But even then, she was a fantastic entertainer.
I’ve always bragged a little bit about Dolly and The Pines Theater because that was the first time Dolly ever played to a paid audience, although she had obviously sung in a lot of churches and community groups.
Smilin’ Eddy Hill was another Knoxville performer at The Pines and later went on to Nashville and became a noted radio personality. Bonnie Lou and Buster were among the more regional stars that played the Pines Theatre.
Television in the mid-’50s closed down the small town and neighborhood theaters, and The Pines fell along with the rest of them in 1957, but it was a great place for entertainment during those years.
— John B. Waters Jr. is a retired Sevierville attorney and a former TVA chairman of the board. The Upland Chronicles series celebrates the heritage and past of Sevier County. If you have suggestions for future topics, would like to submit a column or have comments, please contact Carroll McMahan at 453-6411 or e-mail to cmcmahan@scoc.org.
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 11 Jul 2015.
Upland Chronicles: Sevierville: Summer of 1915
CARROLL MCMAHAN
The K. Rawlings Furniture Company and Undertaking business was located on Main Street in 1915.
In 1915, Central Hotel was thriving on the public square in Sevierville.
J.B. Waters was elected mayor of Sevierville in 1915, when he was 31.
SEVIERVILLE —
Much has been said and written lately about James Agee and the 100th anniversary of the year that inspired his famous prose piece "Knoxville: Summer of 1915." The essay, set months before the death of Agee's father, was attached as a prologue to his book, "A Death in the Family," for which Agee was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1958.
In 1947, the text was arranged for voice and orchestra by Samuel Barber. The piece is said to be a simple, dreamlike depiction of a summer evening a century ago in the American South. Agee was born in Knoxville in 1909. The family lived at 1505 Highland Ave. Due to his father's death in an automobile accident a year later, the summer of 1915 was Agee's last summer living in Knoxville.
Agee wrote: "A street car raising its moan: stopping, belling, stertorous, rousing and raising again its ironclad moan and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past, the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks: the iron whine rises on riding speed; Still risen, faints, halts; the faint stinging bell; Rises again, still fainter, fainter, lifting lifts, faints forgone, forgotten."
The little isolated town of Sevierville was nothing like industrialized Knoxville, only 30 miles away. The Knoxville, Sevierville and Eastern Railroad had tracks from Knoxville to Sevierville, but they ended at the Sevierville Depot on the west side of the Little Pigeon River. The courthouse was less than 20 years old, and there was not yet a public high school in the county.
However, another part of the narrative could just as easily have been describing life in Sevierville:
"But it is of these evenings I speak. Supper was at six and over by half past. There was still daylight, shining softly and with a tarnish, like the lining of a shell; ... and the locusts were startled, and the fire flies were out, and a few frogs were flopping in the dewy grass….."
Back then, Sevierville came to life on Saturday when farmers came to town. It was when Sevier County residents from both town and country converged on the small business district. Farmers purchased supplies, got a haircut, conducted business and socialized. Shoppers might observe everything from street peddlers to sidewalk preachers to minstrels.
That summer, Stanley McMahan obtained the entire interest in Walker Milling Company, located two miles south of Sevierville on the Little Pigeon River, and changed the name to Stanley Milling Company. The following year, McMahan purchasedd property on Bruce Street for a new mill with 200 feet of floor space and modern machinery. The mill was purchased by the John and Effie Temple in 1934 and became Temple Milling Company.
The ice plant at Sevierville Mills on Main Street provided ice to customers throughout the hot days of summer. Marshall Franklin drove the ice wagon, with sawdust scattered over the ice to slow down melting. One hundred pounds of ice could be purchased for 25 cents.
Owned by James Coy Trotter, the first car dealership in Sevierville had opened a year earlier. According to an October 1929 newspaper article in the Montgomery Vindicator, Mr. Trotter had sold about 1,500 new Fords since 1914.
C.L. Thurman became an automobile agent in 1915, as a sideline to his stable business. His first garage was located in the 30-by-40-foot building on the southeast side of the public square, opposite his stable. During 1915 he sold three automobiles. His first car sold was an Overland, which cost $495.
K. Rawlings Furniture Company was on Main Street and operated an undertaking business on the second floor. P.T. Haggard operated a manufacturing company on New Road, now Park Road, where he built caskets. Haggard was known to fill orders for caskets day or night.
Lodging, particularly for traveling salesmen known as drummers, could be found at the Central Hotel, a white two-story clapboard building with a double-stacked porch on the front, facing public square. There was no running water, and rooms were heated by a coal burning grate. Other lodging establishments included Mitchell Inn, operated by Mary Ann Mitchell, and Snapp House, managed by Stewart Yett.
John B. Waters, Sr., only 31 and still single, was elected mayor in 1915, replacing outgoing Mayor Hugh C. Blair Sr. Waters later married Myrtle Paine, daughter of Judge Ambrose Paine, first mayor of Sevierville. A prominent real estate broker and auctioneer, Waters had recently developed Joy Street, where he built his home and raised his family.
James Murphy Newcomb was serving as sheriff of Sevier County. Newcomb was elected to one term (1914-1916). He later moved to Oklahoma, where he died in 1962 at age 90.
Established in 1890, Murphy College was a subscription school located on College Street, now Cedar Street. Students who lived within walking distance commuted daily to class, while those living in the rural sections of the county lived in a dormitory or boarded with a family that lived near the school. Dr. E.A. Bishop was serving as president of the school.
Sevier County Bank and Bank of Sevierville were operating across from the courthouse on what is now Court Avenue in 1915. A drug store, Caton, Lawson and Company, was located between them. The new Sevierville Hardware building was completed in 1915, across from the courthouse.
In 1915, the newest subdivision was named Grove Addition but was commonly called Thomas Addition. It consisted of 56 lots divided out of nine acres of the M.P. Thomas Farm. New streets were made, including Cherry Street, Elm Street, Belle Avenue, Grace and Porter Avenue – later extended and named High Street, after Sevier County High School was opened in 1922. Some of the most fashionable homes in town were built there.
In the summer of 1915, life was tranquil in Sevierville. It could be described much as Agee depicted Knoxville in this excerpt from his famous essay:
"Parents on porches: rock and rock. From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces. The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums. On the rough wet grass my father and mother have spread quilts."
Carroll McMahan is special projects facilitator for the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce and serves as Sevier County historian.
The Upland Chronicles series celebrates the heritage and past of Sevier County. If you have suggestions for future topics, would like to submit a column or have comments, contact Carroll McMahan at 453-6411 or cmcmahan@scoc.org; or Ron Rader at 604-9161 or ron@ronraderproperties.com.
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 10 Sep 2017.
Upland Chronicles: Glen Alpine was a popular resort on English Mountain
- [S73] Rawlings Funeral Home, Book 2, 2 Jun 1976.
Waters, John Bunyan Feb 14, 1884 Tn June 2, 1976
Father: Waters, John Mullendore
Mother: Myers, Sidney Louise
Sons: David Paine, John B.
Daughters: Mrs. R.B. Hailey [Mary Louise]
Cemetery: Shiloh
Sisters: Florance, Mrs. Mary Izora Frizzell, Mrs. Callie Elizabeth Goddard
- [S82] Supplement: In the Shadow of the Smokies, Smoky Mountain Historical Society, (2000), 29.
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