The rise of motion picture entertainment came at a time when large swaths of rural America were not yet electrified. That was changing rapidly, but even areas with electrical service didn’t always find it reliable. And that was a problem, of course, for small-town exhibitors who needed a good electrical connection to power their projectors.
More than a few rural showmen came up with their own solutions. In 1914, at the Empress Theatre in Chewelah, in Stevens County, manager T.Y. Brownlow chose to completely bypass the city’s electrical grid and instead powered the venue using a three-kilowatt, gasoline-powered generator. The venue had been operating at least two years under this system, with Brownlow setting ticket prices at 10 cents for children and 15 for adults – the generator noise and possible asphyxiation from exhaust fumes were thrown in for free. (“Empress Theater, Chewelah, Wash.,” Moving Picture World, 4 April 1914, Page 66.)
But manager Brownlow was not alone in this practice. Even as late as 1930, the Gem Theatre in Omak set aside $5,000 – not a small sum in the Depression – to install an on-site diesel generating plant to replace their previous (standalone) power system. The new generator could deliver 120 volts to the theatre, plenty to operate the projector and their newly-installed sound system, and also had battery storage that would provide two hours of backup power in case the unit unexpectedly went down. (“Gem Theatre Will Generate Own Power,” The Omak Chronicle, 10 January 1930, Page 1.)
