Clewiston Theater, Historic movie theater in Clewiston, Florida.
The Clewiston Theater is a flat-roofed, one-story masonry movie theater at 100 East Sugarland Highway, built in a simplified Moderne style that is rare in the area. Its plan measures 45 by 93 feet. It was designed by architect Chester A. Cone of West Palm Beach and built by contractor Earl Anderson.
Mary Hayes Davis, a newspaper publisher who ran a chain of south Florida movie theaters, commissioned the building in 1940; it opened in 1941 as her second Clewiston theater of that name, after the 1934 original at Sugarland Highway and Central Avenue. Architect Chester A. Cone of West Palm Beach designed it and Earl Anderson built it. It joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.
The theatre's name comes from the local sugar industry, whose crystallised product gave the Dixie Crystal its title. Mary Hayes Davis, a newspaper publisher who ran a chain of south Florida cinemas, chose it for her second Clewiston house. The building later became a dentist's office, so the name survives on a Sugarland Highway address rather than a marquee.
The building stands at 100 East Sugarland Highway, at the corner with Central Avenue, not on North Royal Palm Avenue. It is a one-story masonry structure measuring 45 by 93 feet, so look for the flat roof and simplified Moderne facade at street level. It now houses a dentist's office rather than a cinema, so visits are to the exterior only.
The theater was integrated peacefully on July 20, 1964, when five African American youths attended an evening show for the first time, with a sheriff's deputy and a Clewiston policeman present throughout the film. Since 2023 the former cinema has housed a dentist's office.
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