How appropriate that Richland Academy of the Arts would find a home within a grand old landmark theater of downtown Mansfield.
It has not looked like a theater in quite a while.
Built in 1916, the Majestic Theater was showing movies long before the art form had developed the capability for sound, so it had to provide background accompaniment. There was a piano player as the soundtrack for silent films, like other nickelodeons, but the Majestic had an entire orchestra as well.
There was an orchestra tuning up, practicing, and performing in the Academy space 100 years ago!
There were other nickelodeons in Mansfield showing movies before the Majestic, but it was the first theater in town built specifically for watching “photoplays.”
Built at the corner of Walnut and Dickson, the raked auditorium held 800, and it had a theater organ with surround-sound pipes.
The Majestic had considerable competition from other movies houses in downtown Mansfield during the 1920s and 30s, but in the 1940s they all faltered. The theater was vacant in December 1944 when the roof collapsed under a load of snow and ice.
Most of the building was demolished in the collapse, but one wall remained facing Walnut Street, and it can be seen today at the Richland Academy.
