Connellee-Majestic Theatre
Eastland, Eastland County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built in 1920 by C.U. Connellee, the "Father of Eastland", this theatre hosted numerous road shows, musical performances, and plays, and was a noted showplace for many years. Purchased by Interstate Theatres in 1946, the building was remodeled for use as a movie theatre and renamed Majestic. Exhibiting Art Moderne elements, the theatre features a stuccoed facade, a bank of six entry doors, and a marquee, which was added in 1946. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1988
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1920 by C. U. Connellee, the 'Father of Eastland,' this theatre hosted road shows, musical performances, and plays as a regional showplace for years. Interstate Theatres bought it in 1946 and remodeled it into the Majestic movie house, adding a marquee to a stuccoed, Art Moderne facade fronted by a bank of six entry doors.
Why it matters
The theatre traces the evolution of small-town entertainment from live road shows to the movie palace, at the hands of the very man who built the town around it.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · C. U. Connellee
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Camp Salmon, C.S.A.
Eastland, TX
During the Civil War, Camp Salmon was one link in a chain of Confederate posts set a day's horseback ride apart from the Red River to the Rio Grande, manned by the Texas Frontier Regiment to guard settlers against raids. Named for post commander Capt. John Salmon and later renamed Camp McCord, its men served short of food, ammunition, and horses, far from the war's celebrated battlefields. Their duty was to hold a 2,000-mile line of frontier and coast for a Confederacy that leaned heavily on Texas for supply.
Eastland
Eastland, TX
Eastland took its name from William M. Eastland, a hero of the Texas War for Independence executed in the infamous 1842 "Black Bean" lottery after the Mier Expedition. Comanches long resisted settlement here, with the county's last recorded raid in 1874, and the town became county seat in 1875. A 1917 oil strike touched off one of Texas's fabled booms that swelled the population toward 25,000 and drew celebrities — and in 1928 the town made worldwide news when "Old Rip," a horned toad sealed in the old courthouse cornerstone in 1897, was found alive.
Early Settlers of Eastland County
Eastland, TX
Cattle grazed the Eastland County grasslands in the 1850s, and the U.S. Army's frontier forts drew a first trickle of families from the older Southern states. The Civil War emptied the region when the garrisons withdrew and settlers fled to fortified refuges like Blair's Fort, but pioneers returned afterward and organized the county in 1873. A contested county-seat fight moved the government from Merriman to the newly founded town of Eastland in 1875.
The Connellee House
Eastland, TX
Charles U. Connellee came from Kentucky as a surveyor in 1874, platted the town of Eastland, and promoted it as a county seat, opening much of West Texas to settlement. He built the lower story of this home in 1876 from lumber hauled by ox-wagon from Dallas and kept open house for travelers across the region, with a second story added in 1924.