Carol C Taylor Blog

United States Senator from Alabama John Hollis Bankhead (1842-1920) served from 1907 to 1920. During his career in the Senate he was instrumental in the Good Roads effort to bring highways and all-weather roads to farmers throughout the country. The Bankhead Highway running from Texarkana to El Paso is an example of his greatest accomplishment.

Have you ever driven on the Bankhead Highway? Probably you have but just weren’t aware of it. The Bankhead Highway was the second transcontinental road in the United States; the first completely paved from East Coast to West Coast and came right through downtown Commerce and downtown Greenville. An earlier Lincoln Highway went from Washington, D. C. to San Francisco. It was an improved roadway financed with local funds, was impassable in winter, and crossed some of the highest peaks in the Rocky Mountains. In other words, it had a few too many drawbacks.

In 1916 Senator John Hollis Bankhead of Alabama spearheaded a movement to create a federally funded paved highway crossing the south from the South Lawn of the White House to San Diego. It provided year-round roads with lower grades; no mountains were crossed. The highway went south from the nation’s capital through Virginia to Georgia, turned west through Alabama and Mississippi, before following the Mississippi River to Memphis where it headed southwesterly through Arkansas into Texas. The All Texas Route, as it became known, traveled through Texarkana, Sulphur Springs, Commerce, Greenville, Dallas, Abilene, and Pecos into El Paso. From there it was almost a straight shot westward to San Diego. Along the way were a few Scenic Routes, such as the one that traveled across portions of Oklahoma and New Mexico.

The road was promoted as a means to boost rural economies at a time when it was desperately needed. Cities, towns, hotels, and diners all jumped on board when they realized the economic advantages of the new class of motoring tourists in the United States.

The Bankhead Highway was officially State Highway 1 in Texas and also known as Broadway of America all across its route. At Sulphur Springs the road turned northeast and followed what is today Highway 11. In Commerce, State Highway 1 later became Highway 24 or 224 today. It entered Greenville on North Stonewall Street, passing the “filling station” still standing just before the square. There it turned west along Lee Street, often referred to in advertisements of the Beckham Hotel as Broadway of America. After it crossed the Katy tracks it turned south on what is now Wellington Street. At the old gas station it turned west onto O’Neal Street. That street makes a southwesterly curve. From that point the route is rather blurred to me.

However, there were alternate routes through the Black Lands of Texas and Mississippi to avoid the swampy conditions in wet seasons. In 1920 the War Department moved a convoy of fifty trucks and jeeps across the country to publicize its part in the victory in Europe. Deciding that trucks loaded with tanks were too heavy for the established Bankhead Highway, they went from Mount Vernon to Paris and Sherman before turning south through McKinney and into Dallas. That route covers higher ground and less likelihood of getting stuck in the mud.

In 1921 W. Walworth Harrison took his mother and two female cousins on a road trip to California. It took almost all summer. Harrison kept a detailed journal that is in the Greenville library named for him. The most interesting thing I found was that when he left Greenville, he drove to Farmersville and McKinney before turning south the pick up the official Bankhead Highway in Dallas. I know the road went through downtown Garland and probably passed through Rockwall, but why go out of the way to McKinney. I suspect the road was like pioneer roads, it pointed you in the right direction with no off-ramps and tollbooths to guide your drive.

The opulent King Opera House was one of several opera houses and motion picture theaters in Greenville from 1911-1919. The King was destroyed by fire at least two times. This photograph shows the building in 1901. (From Images of America: Greenville by Carol Taylor)

Shortly after the arrival of the railroads in 1880, two Greenville merchants turned the upper floors of their stores into Opera Houses.  On the west side of the square was the Rainey.  Alexander “Sandy” Cameron ran the Cameron Opera House above his store where Landon’s Winery is now located.  Local gossip has it that Cameron spread rumors about the physical stability of the Rainey building.  Something about weak joists and rickety floors.  Soon, the Rainey closed leaving the Cameron as the place to be seen.

By the early 1890s, Tom King and a group of investors built a new theater on Wesley Street between Lee and Jordan Streets.  The building faced west.  Shortly after the opening of the venture, Tom King bought out his partners and set out to make the King Opera House one of the best in the state of Texas, if not the country.

We are all familiar with the King family scandals, but I was surprised to learn that the King was not the only opera house in Greenville through 1919.  In 1911 there were four theaters here, the King managed by Walter Bean at 2409 Wesley, and three managed by E. J. Lamkin.  Lamkin’s theaters included the Colonial at 2707 Lee Street showing motion pictures, the seasonal open-air Airdome on a vacant lot at 2909 Lee Street, and the Lyric at 2609 Stonewall that played vaudeville.  That was the only year listed for the Airdome, but by 1913 the Colonial had moved to 2608 Lee Street and the Lyric was still playing vaudeville but moved to 2707 Lee Street.  The King Opera House had no change.  However, the Empress was the newest theater at 2814 Lee Street to show moving pictures.

By 1916 the Colonial doubled its seating capacity at the same location, the King was located at 2404 Wesley Street with seating for 895 persons, and the Lyric changed its name to the Savoy but stayed at the same place. The Empress became the Queen located at 2814 Lee Street and the new Pastime Theater was located at 3022 Johnson.  At the end of World War I, Greenville was home to the same theaters but subtle changes had occurred.  The King Opera House was now a motion picture theater as well as an opera house.  The Pastime and the Queen remained motion pictures theaters while the Savoy; like the King showed moving pictures as well as live vaudeville acts.

What caused the transformation from vaudeville to motion or moving pictures?  During World War I rail transportation was needed to move troops and war materiel.  Construction, entertainment, and other non-essential goods found it impossible to simply get a seat or spot on the train.  A reel of film was much easier to move than a troupe of actors, their sets, and costumes.  Besides, motion pictures were the latest rage after almost two years of wartime restrictions.

For most of their history motion pictures were forms of inexpensive entertainment.  With so many theaters up and down Lee Street, managers often turned to creative methods to attract audiences.  One such ruse was to hire young men who played loud musical instruments, horns, drum, and the like, to stand in front of the theater when it opened to literally drum up business.  The young men clerked in nearby stores, took a short lunch break, and returned to the store when an audience was in the theater.

A drawback to the popularity of early motion picture theaters was the composition of the film.  It was primarily made of celluloid, a cotton by-product with a low flashpoint.  Projectors often caught fire, and the audience was evacuated.  That explains the number of locations for the various movie theaters.  Fortunately no one was killed or seriously injured in Greenville.