Streaming services, be advised – you can’t keep a good movie theater down.

People have predicted the death knell of movie theaters for years, but they continue to be a draw for those who love a good, old-fashioned moviegoing experience. Those experiences you remember vividly from your youth remain available at small, independently-owned venues throughout Kansas, Missouri, and the rest of the country. They have a long history, whose richness matches the loyalty of the customers who visit them regularly. In this issue of Discover Vintage America, we take a peek behind the curtain of just a few.

The Glenwood Arts and The Rio Theatre – Overland Park, KS

This year, twin brothers Ben and Brian Mossman celebrate 40 years in business as the Fine Arts Group, which has owned and operated independent movie theaters in the Kansas City metro area since 1982.

The Mossman brothers’ current theaters – both located in Overland Park – are The Glenwood Arts and The Rio. Like most businesses, the theaters closed in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic; the five-screen Glenwood Arts has since reopened, and the single-screen Rio remains temporarily closed.

Over the years, the Fine Arts Group’s theaters have come and gone, though they’re still spoken of lovingly by former customers – The Fine Arts Theatre, The Englewood, and Red Bridge, just to name a few.

Glenwood Arts and The Rio

Both the Glenwood Arts and The Rio offer guests a moviegoing experience that simply can’t be found with large chains like AMC or Cinemark. Before the Glenwood Arts Theatre moved to its current location in the Ranchmart Shopping Center and merged with the shuttered Leawood Theater – which had been owned by Kansas City-based Commonwealth Theaters since the late 1960s before it closed in the 1990s – the Mossmans were able to salvage multiple items, including the original Glenwood’s colorful, atomic-age marquee (which remains in storage). Step into the lobby of the Glenwood Arts and you’ll see original film posters from classic movies like “Duel Au Soleil” (1946) and “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) among portraits of old-time movie stars like Ava Gardner and James Dean. A neon sign simply reading “Refreshments” buzzes above the concession stand, a large wooden plaque bearing the visages of the twin gryphons of comedy and drama hangs outside auditorium number one (it’s just one of the relics the Mossmans brought over from the Glenwood Arts Theatre in the now-defunct Metcalf South Shopping Center at 95th and Metcalf – that theater operated from 2002-2015, and bore the name of its predecessor, the original Glenwood, which operated from 1966 to 2000). The Glenwood Arts retains the Leawood Theatre’s original seats, and its crest appears splayed across the lobby’s teal-and-purple carpet.

Our customers are valued

“Our customers are valued. We try to give them information or strike a conversation with them,” says Ben Mossman, president and co-owner of The Fine Arts Group. “We don’t say, ‘Give us your money and go in.’ In one sense, it’s a step back in time. We have artifacts that dictate that. Our theater is neon and glass brick.”

The clientele of both theaters skews older, and though they’re returning to the Glenwood Arts, it’s been a slow climb to get back to attendance numbers that justify adding more showtimes to the theater’s roster.

“Our clientele was more reserved in going out into a group function. They were the first to stay away and the last to come back, mostly due to their age and whether they had health issues,” Mossman notes.

The Overland Theater, which originally opened on Christmas Day in 1946 and would later become The Rio, remains a favorite local landmark of moviegoers. Located near downtown Overland Park, the theater hosted Theatre for Young America in the late 1970s and was sold to the city in 1987. The Mossmans would eventually purchase the building in 1993, and after a years-long renovation process, the thater reopened on June 30, 2000.

“The theater had been brought to life again with all its old style and much of its original material intact,” according to the Johnson County Department of Parks and Recreation. “The revitalized façade features new peach-colored porcelain tiles, neon lighting, aluminum trim, rebuilt poster cases, and a recreated marquee and glass block ticket booth.”

Rumors about the fate of the still-closed Rio have swirled on social media for months, leading followers to speculate whether the theater will remain permanently closed. Mossman says the Rio will reopen once business at the Glenwood Arts is high enough to warrant opening the single-screen location and spending money on its electrical and heating/cooling bills, and upkeep. Another issue is the need for more employees – like so many other small businesses across the country, the Fine Arts Group has had difficulty finding employees in recent months.

“We can’t get help,” Mossman says. “We couldn’t even add showtimes (at the Glenwood Arts), but we don’t have enough help.”

For more, including the Boulevard’s seasonal film calendar and swap meet schedule, visit www.boulevarddrivein.com.

And be sure to catch a flick at The Screenland Armour – North Kansas City, MO
The Armour Theater, built in 1928, during the era when “talkies” were the new fad in film, was bought in 2008 by developer Butch Rigby and renovated in 2012 by Adam Roberts and his business partner and brother-in-law Brent Miller. The two renamed the venue The Screenland Armour.

Specializing in independent and classic films – with a few first-run movies thrown in for good measure --  the Screenland Armour celebrated an expansion in 2018, adding two screens, new projectors, sound systems, seats, and even a pizza shop (because what else would you pair with their extensive beer list?).

There are still vintage touches at the Screenland Armour, including its neon exterior signage and vintage arcade games. Be sure, too, to visit the Screenland Tapcade in the Crossroads Art District, featuring a full-service restaurant, arcade games, and regular trivia nights.

Visit www.screenland.com for tickets and showtimes.

Author’s disclosure: Corbin is the social media manager for The Glenwood Arts Theatre in Overland Park, KS.

As a new school year begins across the country, it can be easy to forget that one-room schoolhouses, those relics of education from centuries past, remain places of knowledge for students and history enthusiasts alike.

Single-room schools could be found in rural areas both in the United States and abroad – by 1919, according to Forbes.com, around 200,000 dotted rural landscapes in all; these institutions served an important role in molding young minds, especially in 19th- and early 20th-century America. The differences between one-room schoolhouses and the schools of today, of course, are vast. In those one-room schools, students of varying ages – usually grades 1 through 8 -- would learn from one teacher – typically, a young woman; most schools could accommodate as few as six or as many as 40 students, according to the “America’s Story” project from the U.S. Library of Congress.

“The teacher’s desk may have been on a raised platform at the front of the room, and there would have been a wood-burning stove since there was no other source of heat,” according to the America’s Story site. “The bathroom would have been outside in an outhouse.”

Tutoring the younger kids

The youngest of the students usually would sit at desks in the front of the classroom, while the oldest sat in the back of the room. Rarely did the older students need to be reminded to help the younger ones, as it was expected of them. And besides, according to the America’s Story site – the older students were all too eager to help their younger counterparts with their studies.

“‘Limited’ by one teacher, the students often helped with the teaching; older kids or those who mastered material more quickly would help others. A student who was advanced in math, for example, could simply do math with the older kids,” writes Brandon Busteed in a 2020 article on Forbes.com (Busteed’s father attended a one-room schoolhouse in Elgin, NE). “Because there was more fluidity in the learning, the one-room schoolhouse became more of a community-based education where everyone had to pitch in to some extent.”
Not only did these one-room schoolhouses make up the nucleus of a child’s education; quite often, they were the social and civic epicenter of the small towns in which they were located.

“The schoolhouse was the center and focus for thousands of rural communities, hamlets and small towns,” according to a website memorializing the Gunn School in Holt, MI. “Often, town meetings and picnics were also held there. They hosted plays, dances, box socials, spelling bees, and Christmas pageants.”

No matter what their school day was like, Forbes’ Busteed says, those studious children grew up into the parents and grandparents who lightly admonished their kids and grandkids by reminding them how privileged their educational experiences are and saying, “When I was your age, I had to walk miles to school in the snow.”

“To this day, he loves sharing stories about it with his grandchildren,” Busteed says of his grandfather, “mainly bragging about how he had to ride his pony several miles to school (including through severe snowstorms).” 

Closures of schools continue, but lessons remain

Though class hasn’t been in session at most one-room schoolhouses for many decades, some 200 remain open to mold the young minds of students in remote areas, according to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

But those schools struggle to remain open, many instead being absorbed by other school districts nearby as families move to more populated areas for better job opportunities. One such school was the Glen School in Sioux County, NE, which had only three students enrolled as of a decade ago. NPR’s Neenah Ellis first visited the school in 2005 and met the last three students attending the school.

“The boys at the school -- Travis, Luke and Nick -- were all the sons of ranchers, their futures more secure than most,” Ellis shared in her broadcast on NPR. “But still, in just a few years, when they graduate from high school, these boys will be faced with hard decisions: Do we stay and work the ranch, or do we leave? And if we leave, can we come back?”

One of the great joys of pleasant weather lies in the simple picnic, a summer activity whose history is as varied as the lunch offerings to be found there. The late cook and renowned foodie James Beard put it well when he observed that “picnicking is one of the supreme pleasures of outdoor life.”

Before the advent of the very word ‘picnic’ itself, according to May 26, 2013, NPR broadcast, picnicking as an activity could be found in the medieval lore of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, who traveled through the depths of Sherwood Forest, dining informally on bread and cheese – washed down with ale, of course.

An aristocratic activity

The origins of the word ‘picnic,’ meanwhile, are up for debate, but what we do know for certain is that it first appeared in a French satire in which the primary character, named ‘Pique-Nique,’ is presented as a gluttonous protagonist who led a revolution against the ruling class in 17th-century France. Since he was known for eating large, lavish meals, Pique-Nique’s name, which literally translates to “To peck a small amount,” was an exercise in irony.

In the 1700s, enjoying a picnic was an activity indulged in mostly by aristocrats, who requested that attendees bring an item to share, such as a beverage. If they wished, attendees could opt not to bring anything to share, but they could help pay a portion of the overall cost of the picnic instead. At these picnics, while servants would dish out the food and drink, the aristocrats especially enjoyed the wit and rich conversation of their peers, so the picnic was viewed as an activity for the refined and educated. Playing music also was a common accompaniment.

“The original definition of the word ‘picnic’ denoted something like a potluck, so you would have a bunch of people getting together, and each would be contributing to the feast,” food historian Lynne Olver told NPR in the 2013 broadcast.

The face of the picnic changed completely during the French Revolution, when members of the aristocracy immigrated to England and, their fortunes shattered by the conflict, tried to adapt and maintain their former quality of life.

“This led to two important developments,” according to a 2019 article written by Alexander Lee and published in the periodical History Today. “The first – and shortest-lived – was that, in London, the picnic became less refined and more raucous. This was thanks to a group of 200 wealthy young Francophiles, who – in late 1801 – founded the ‘Pic Nic Society’. Held in hired rooms in Tottenham Street, their gatherings were self-consciously extravagant. Every member was required to bring a dish (decided by lot) and six bottles of wine.”

Who ever heard of an indoor picnic?

Until the early 1800s, picnics were held exclusively indoors. With the dawn of the new century came the activity’s move to outdoors. It would be another 100 years – the early 20th century – before outdoor picnicking became more popular than the indoor version.

“What caused this change is somewhat unclear, but the most likely explanation is that the socially aspirational simply applied a fashionable French word to a pre-existing practice, without being aware of its connotations,” Lee writes. “One of the results of this was that picnicking ceased to be associated with music and dancing and became a simple meal to which people were invited by a host. Another was that it became both more ‘genteel’ and – thanks to the idealisation of the countryside – more innocent.”

A tisket, a tasket, a picnic basket

And as the 19th century gave way to the 1900s and the pioneering invention of the automobile made the countryside and nature more accessible to those wishing to enjoy a picnic, merchants began to produce baskets in which picnickers could carry their bounty. Around the time when British novelist Kenneth Grahame’s animals dined from a picnic basket in “Wind in the Willows” (1908), the picnic basket (also referred to as a “picnic hamper”) was invented.

“Picnic basket kits as we know today — having placeholders for dishes and silverware and glasses and napkins — actually begin to appear at the very dawn of the 20th century,” NPR’s Lydia Zurow writes.

Antique and vintage picnic baskets, usually made from woven wicker (though aluminum picnic baskets began to be manufactured in the mid-20th century in various colors), can be easily found online for less than $100. Sites such as Chairish.com have some options that cost up to $200, some with stenciled images or other embellishments.

Slow down, enjoy the finer things

Mansfield writes that when it comes to picnics, one thing that hasn’t changed throughout the centuries is an enjoyment of the finer things in life.

“The vintage-style picnic favors china plates and real glassware, classic cocktails and linen napkins, and most importantly, homemade food. It is the sort of affair that wraps you up in a long, restful lazy day adventure fueled with time-honored tradition and attention to detail. It discourages anything fast or obtuse- like technology and frenzied time schedules and plastic utensils,” Mansfield says. “It champions a slower, simpler and more relaxing rhythm. The type of experience that not only feeds your appetite but also your senses, your spirit and your sanity. Basically, a vintage-style picnic is a big, long break in your day meant for resting, relaxing and restoring through small details… the time-worn touch of an old plate, the taste of an heirloom recipe, the time-out of technology, and the tune in to your natural surroundings.

All the standard treats

Much like the location and look of picnics have evolved, so too have the foods enjoyed at such relaxing outings.
The types of foods that we commonly associate with a picnic fell into favor with picnickers in the mid-20th century, according to Mansfield.

“By the time the mid-20th century rolled around, there was a definite type of picnic fare anticipated and defined by the activity,” Mansfield writes. “Fried chicken, salads and deviled eggs topped the favorites list, along with hot dogs, sandwiches, pies, cakes, bread and fruit.”

Regardless of what you’re planning to nibble on, no matter where you’re planning to enjoy the great outdoors with a full picnic basket, Mansfield says there is joy to be found in a simple picnic, as its long history has shown.

“Eating is a ceremonial act,” she says. “The art of the vintage picnic reminds us of that. Just as it has in the past and will continue to do so in the future.” 

Whether tacked onto the wall of a bar or plastered onto a streetlamp post, vintage concert posters announced small, intimate shows and big, earth-shaking cultural events alike – and years after the music has stopped, they remain fun collectibles, reminders of the soundtrack of one’s youth.

Record stores, antique shops, bars and restaurants display them prominently – both as colorful conversation starters and as decorations designed to get you in the mood for good times.

In the Kansas City metro area, vintage concert posters feature heavily into the interior decoration of at least three merchants. At BB’s Lawn Side BBQ, a perennial favorite for barbecue and blues, concert posters cover the interior walls of the restaurant known for a savory treat called the BBQ Sundae. Hastily affixed to the walls with large staples, the concert posters advertise blues and jazz musicians of bygone performances, giving the establishment a roadhouse feel.

“The décor is eclectic,” one reviewer wrote on Trip Advisor. “So much cool blues history and artwork.”

In the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Vinyl Renaissance has been keeping music lovers’ turntables active for more than two decades. Their store features not just a listening studio and wine tasting room, but also walls decked out in album covers and some concert posters. And on the other side of the state line, in St. Joseph, MO, St. Joseph Auction and Antiques boasts another large space called The Kool Kat Music Exchange where you will find walls decked out in vintage rock ‘n’ roll posters – and crateful after crateful of vinyl records just waiting to be sold to music lovers.

Collectible memories

And not only are these con- cert posters harbingers of nostalgia, of fun times from the not-too-recent past, but they’re increasing in value, too.

“Collectors are willing to pay a considerable premium for the prestige that comes with being able to display their rare acquisitions right on their walls,” says Glen Trosch, founder of the the Baltimore-based Psychedelic Art Exchange in a 2019 blog post. Trosch says he considers any “vintage” concert poster to be at least 50 years old.

Although early collectors of concert posters and other related art might have been only die-hard fans of the band or artist displayed, Trosch says the posters’ appeal has not only expanded to mainstream collectors, but art galleries and museums as well.

“Over the past several years, vintage rock concert posters have enjoyed major, highly successful exhibitions in many of our nation’s most prestigious museums, including The New York Museum of Modern Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Laguna Art Museum, The San Diego Museum of Art, and The Smithsonian Institution,” he writes. “These exhibitions have been —and will continue to be—instrumental in broadening the awareness and appeal of vintage concert posters as millions of new people are exposed to their unique beauty, rarity, and historical importance.”

Art in the Age of Aquarius

Trosch says that currently, some of the most popular and sought-after vintage concert posters are those from the 1960s – after all, they’re eye-catching, colorful, and, well, psychedelic. Be ready to shell out some dough for mint-condition posters from the decade, however, as posters in pristine condition can be fetch thousands of dollars, and even those in fair condition can command prices in the high hundreds.

The value of such posters is so high because they were produced in such small numbers and because mint copies are rare – after all, Trosch says, posters are examples of ephemera, or items that are designed to last only a short time.

These works of art were initially produced as advertisements for live events. They were posted on telephone poles, bus stops, bulletin boards, store windows and other places all over town.

“After the event, they served no purpose, so they were quickly torn down and replaced with a new poster advertising the next big concert,” Trosch writes. “The only ones interested in this groundbreaking art were teenagers passionate about the bands and music, or hippies that were attracted to the poster’s cosmic visual appeal.”

Since these free spirits were the only ones collecting at the time, very little (if any) attention was paid to the state of preservation. Any knowledgeable collector will tell you that this is the primary factor in determining the value of any collectible. Very few of these works of art were carefully saved, and it is indeed a miracle that any have survived in mint condition today.”

One of the most well-known posters produced in the 1967 Summer of Love was by artist Bonnie MacLean, advertising a joint concert from The Doors and The Yardbirds beginning on July 25 in San Francisco. Featuring striking, vibrant oranges and greens, the centerpiece image on the poster showed a peacock, with a woman’s face on the right side of the poster.

“The Yardbirds performed three days, The Doors performed three days, and all six shows featured the James Cotton Blues Band and Richie Havens,” Bill Graham, owner of Wolfgang’s, writes of the piece. “The serene visage of this maiden was a clear reference to the detached spirituality of the era.”

Colorful lettering and images

Wolfgang’s sells original poster artwork of famed musical artists; Graham himself worked as a concert promoter for many years. Other posters by MacLean, a self-taught artist, include Jefferson Airplane (May 12); Martha and the Vandellas (May 19-20); Pink Floyd (Oct. 26), all from 1967 performances at The Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, the epicenter of the counterculture movement. Artist David Byrd, as The Fillmore’s exclusive concert poster artist, drew Jimi Hendrix at his peak in 1968 for The Jimi Hendrix Experience. On the other side of the country, color was splashed across the most popular concert posters of the 1960s and 1970s as they advertised artists playing New York City’s Radio City Music Hall. A Feb. 15, 1973, poster shows David Bowie as his androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, while that same year, Pink Floyd was advertised as the headliner in concert there on March 17, during the band’s Dark Side of the Moon Tour (an original copy of that poster, listed in ‘poor’ condition, was recently sold at auction for $375).

Concert poster artists of the 1960s made liberal use of the Art Nouveau style, popular during the turn of the century. Their psychedelic posters, then, featured large, bulbous letters and sensuously drawn women, inspired using a little LSD, of course. According to Rachael Myrow of KQED Interactive Media, the Art Nouveau style “celebrated organic life: curling tendrils of vegetation, vivid colors, and lots and lots of curvaceous women.”

Individual artists and bands aside, concert posters also announced the arrivals of the 20th century’s biggest and best music festivals, chief among them the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock, arguably one of the most widely recognized concert posters ever created.

The three-day Monterey Pop Festival, from June 16-18, 1967, is considered to be one of the beginnings of the hippie/flower child movement; the festival boasted a lineup of musical giants, including Jimi Hendrix, Ravi Shankar, Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company (still an up-and-coming talent), Otis Redding, and the Who. The poster itself features stage and silent film actress Maud Allen in costume as the biblical title character in the 1908 play “Vision of Salome.”

An iconic image

The poster advertising the August 1969 Woodstock Festival in Bethel, NY, now fetches nearly $7,000 for those original posters in mint condition, according to a 2019 podcast from New England Public Media, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the event.

Massachusetts artist Arnold Skolnick, the graphic designer who created the original poster while living in New York in 1969.

“(They) said, ‘We’re going to have a festival with arts and crafts and music,’” Skolnick recalled in his initial conversation with festival organizers. “And I turned it around to say, ‘three days of peace and music.’ So, it started with the words.’”

Unlike the elaborately designed psychedelic concert posters of the latter part of the decade, Skolnick decided that a simple design was better.

“Everybody was doing psychedelic posters, which I think are awful,” he said. “A poster is supposed to be so simple that if you’re driving by slowly in a car, you can see it.”

Skolnick’s finished product featured simple images – a guitar and a bird.

“I used a catbird instead of a dove, because a catbird is fat, and a dove is like a pigeon. It has no shape whatsoever,” Skolnick said. “When you say the word ‘peace,’ you think of a dove. It’s just a symbol.”

Skolnick’s iconic design was later incorporated into a monument at the site of the festival.

As temperatures grow warmer and nature calls out to you for yet another summer adventure, many longtime camping enthusiasts are gassing up their vintage campers and hitting the road.

The camper had been around since was invented in the 1930s as modes of transportation began an era of steady improvement. Although production of the camper slowed during World War II (the materials needed to be conserved for the war effort), campers exploded in popularity in the years immediately following the war’s end in 1945, as suburbs sprang up around the country and soldiers returned home to start their family.

Families who yearned for road trips enjoyed how cost-effective these campers were, and how they allowed travelers to bring their modern conveniences from home and drive right past roadside motels and travel lodges that dotted the landscape.

“Although camper travel meant pitching on road sides and traveling for long hours, it proved to be very cost-effective and a much more personal journey than on a train or plane,” according to the website classic-car-history.com.

The plywood, aluminum, and fiberglass trailers bore names like DeVille, Shasta and Airstream, standing as a status symbol for middle-class Americans in the post-war years.

The camper has been called by many names over the years, but no matter what you call it, it serves the same purpose.

“Well, historically, they were all the same thing. Simply put, trailers. Even the industry was unsure if there were any differences,” Tom Heintz writes for Tin Can Tourists, a website for vintage trailer enthusiasts. “I have seen trailers as short as 16 feet called mobile homes and trailers as long as 35 feet called travel trailers by their own manufacturers in the 1950s and ‘60s.”

Teardrop trailers and onward

One of the more distinctive styles of vintage camper is the teardrop trailer, usually stretching out a mere 4 to 6 feet in width and 8-10 feet in length. Designed for only one or two campers, these trailers were sleek in design, their roofs made of curved metal and featuring pop-out back windows, according to the website. They remained popular for being compact, but declined in popularity throughout the 1950s as campers expressed a desire for more space for their growing family.

The modern-day “travel trailer,” or RV, and its many iterations proved to be more attractive to campers in groups. Older models didn’t have plumbing, but they did have features like wood-burning stoves designed to both cook food and heat the camper. The later vintage models, with a kitchen, a bathroom, and a sleeping facility, offered a way for families to camp out in style and with all of the modern conveniences of home in tow (some luxurious models included air conditioning, TVs, a water heater and quartz countertops as well). Though travel trailers had been around since the late 19th century, they, too, rose sharply in popularity in the mid-20th century as families grew and people had more disposable income.

RV parks began to spring up as campers enjoyed long-term time in nature. The decade of the 1950s saw added improvements in RV and camper technology, including lightweight construction techniques; more powerful gas and diesel engines were added which made RVs bigger and faster, according to The Caravan and Motohome Club.

Tin Can Tourists

Though modern campers and RVs continue their rise in popularity, the Tin Can Tourists group was founded in 1998 and still has various regional rallies throughout the U.S. In cyberspace, Heintz and the group’s other members post photos of elongated travel trailers, some as long as 50 feet. They also share the original owners’ manuals for their camper or trailer, as well as advertisements and other related ephemera.

“My family also has a very long history of pulling such large trailers as full-timers from the 1940s to the 1970s,” Heintz writes. “I still own the pink and white 1958 Skyline (8’x45’) that my parents purchased brand-new in late 1957.”