Grand Theater

The Grand Theater, built in 1937 in the streamlined Art Deco style, stood in downtown Ronceverte, West Virginia.

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Replacing an earlier theater built around 1900, the new three-story Grand Theater was designed by John Norman, Sr., the second registered Black architect and seventh registered architect in the state. ⁶ It contained 158 seats ⁴ and housed WRON, the town’s first radio station. ^{1 2}

The exterior featured a façade of white-glazed brick ¹ with 210 square feet of black vitrolite, an opaque pigmented glass, ⁴ and a neon marquee considered the largest in West Virginia at the time. The building measured 50 by 45 feet and stood 35 feet tall. ⁵ Inside, the walls were finished with composition blocks in a four-tone effect to resemble weathered stone, while the ceiling was covered in gold-stippled plastic. Construction required 1,000 pounds of decorative plaster and 10,000 pounds of traditional plaster.

Projection equipment included Super-Simplex machines with Super-Cinephor lenses, projecting onto a 10.7-by-14.7-foot screen, paired with a Western Electric Mirrorphonic Sound System. ⁵ Each seat, manufactured by the Peabody Seating Company of North Manchester, Indiana, was fitted with the Western Electric “Theaterophone” system, the first installation of its kind in the state.

The Grand was operated by J.C. (Jim) Shanklin, ³ who had managed the Ronceverte Theatre since 1900 and also operated theaters in Charleston and Gauley Bridge. After Shanklin’s death, the property passed to Watts and then to Darrell Williams. ⁴ Williams had intended to donate the theater to the city but died before the transfer could occur, and the building was subsequently abandoned.

The Ronceverte Development Corporation later announced plans to purchase the theater’s shell for restoration, with proposals to use it as both a public venue and a cinema arts classroom for the local community college. ² Plans also included converting the upper floor into a recording studio.

After years of abandonment, the City of Ronceverte worked extensively to address hazardous conditions at the site. When negotiations with the private owner failed, the city applied for and received grant funding from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, ⁷ a program designed to help communities deal with abandoned and unsafe structures. The property remained privately owned, but the city planned to honor John Norman, Sr., for his contributions to West Virginia architecture. The Grand Theater was demolished on August 6, 2026.

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Sources

1. United States. Dept. of the Interior. Ronceverte Historic District. Comp. David L. Taylor. Washington: National Park Service, Aug. 2004. West Virginia Division of Culture and History. Web. 8 Apr. 2015. Article.
2. “Shanklin’s Grand Theatre.” Endangered List 2011. Preservation Alliance of West Virginia. Web. 8 Apr. 2015. Article.
3. “J.C. (Jim) Shanklin.” Charleston Daily Mail 8 May 1936: 15. Print.
4. Bair, Wyatt. “Shanklin’s Grand Theatre.” Traveling 219 The Seneca Trail. 21 June 2013. Web. 8 Apr. 2015. Article.
5. “Shanklin’s New Grand Theatre.” West Virginia News n.d.: n.p. Print.
6. United States. Dept. of the Interior. Elk City Historic District. Comp. Billy Joe Peyton. Washington: National Park Service, Dec. 2007. West Virginia Division of Culture and History. Web. 19 Mar. 2015. Article.
7. “Memories Torn Down: Ronceverte’s Historic Theater Building Razed.” West Virginia Daily News, 6 August. 2026.