Moviegoers wait in line to see the Creature From Black Lake, in 1976. The Colquitt Theatre closed its doors just two years later after the opening of the Moultrie Twin Cinemas in the Sunbelt Plaza Shopping Center.
The inside of the theater, as described by an article in The Moultrie Observer, was“ finished in turquoise and copper rose with heavy twist weave carpets lying luxuriously on the floor throughout the edifice.” It went on to say that across the front of the stage hung a“ silver jewel” curtain upon which played six multi-colored lights.
The writer extolled the seats as being the most comfortable that could be purchased with cushioned bottoms and“ bodyshaped” backs. A note of interest, I thought, was that on the ends of alternate rows were“ divan seats,” which were also called“ love seats.”
Most importantly of all, especially during a South Georgia summer, the building featured both cooling and heating systems.
The newspaper’ s article describes the lobby as being finished in various types of birch wood and there was a“ candy bar” that was operated by theater staff.
On March 3, 1956, the Colquitt Theatre was gutted by a fire that brought down the roof. The Moultrie Observer’ s headlines read, two days later,“ Colquitt Theatre Destroyed in City’ s worst fire in five years.”
“ The hull of a movie theatre towers over gnarled steel beams and blackened ruins Monday following Moultrie’ s worst fire in five years,” the article beneath the headline opens with.
The inside of the theater including furniture and fixtures were a complete loss as was Dr. W. F. Mathis’ s optometrist office, which was housed in the building. However, the biggest loss was the roof, which cave in during the fire.
Assistant Fire Chief Homer Price was quoted in The Observer as saying,“ When we first got there, it looked as though the whole screen was on fire. We brought in four inch and a half booster lines and laid them in the aisles while the people were
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