Remember When?

40 YEARS AGO • JANUARY 28, 1982

JIMMY CARTER OPENED FIRST COUNTY THEATER

More than half a century ago, a group of young pranksters put up a sign on a movie marquee in Thompson Falls reading: “Jim Carter died last night.”

Now past 90 years old, the man who first brought motion picture entertainment to Sanders County communities is healthy, active and looking forward to reaching his 100th birthday.

Jimmy Carter came to Plains in August 1910 at a time in his life when he admits he was “very interested in girls.” But, it wasn’t long until his interest in girls – plural – turned to one – Beulah Johnston, who lived on a ranch with her parents on the upper Lynch Creek road out of Plains. They were married November 20, 1912, the same year Jim and his brother, Pete, purchased a Edison Kinetoscope motion picture projector and started bringing motion pictures to Sanders County residents.

The kinetoscope had to be turned by hand. Carbon electrodes supplied the light. The film, which at that time was highly flammable, was subject to frequent breaks. The machine had a shutter, which could be flipped up to guard the film from the heat of the electrodes when a break occurred, Carter recalled in an interview at his home in Plains last week.

He said he and his brother paid $25 for the machine and admits, “We did pretty good with it.”

Later, the brothers purchased an improved projector and spread their operations to Thompson Falls, Hot Springs and Paradise.

At first, they rented a room in the Lake Hotel Building on Preston Avenue in Thompson Falls (it was torn down) to hold their shows. They placed a large marquee on the front of the hotel, which could be seen from Thompson Falls’ Main Street.

One night, some boys rearranged the letters on the marquee so that the next morning it read: “Jim Carter died last night,” recalls the former theater magnate with a laugh.

In 1915, the two Carter boys purchased the Rex Theater building. Jim and his bride Beulah resided in the apartment at the rear of the building.

The building was erected by a man who came to Thompson Falls from Spokane to work during construction of the Thompson Falls dam and hydroelectric plant. With the dam construction completed, business in Thompson Falls went into a decline and the building owner defaulted on his mortgage payments, and the Carter boys purchased it. The building mentioned is not the current Rex Theater. It was probably the wood frame one on Main Street half a block east of the Black Bear Hotel.

Carter recalls that the theater business was not exactly flourishing the either. All his films arrived C.O.D. and sometimes he has to ask the depot agent to hold his check until after the show had been shown, so he could deposit the ticket money to cover the check.

When Carter ran the shows at the Lake Hotel, they showed them three nights a week. At the Rex, they ran a show every night. Admission prices were 10 cents for kids and 15 cents for adults at Thompson Falls and 15 and 25 cents at Plains.

It was also about this time that the two Carters owned a theater in Hot Springs in addition to their showhouse in Plains. They also showed movies at Paradise.

For Hot Springs and Paradise, they had a Stickney engine and generator which they hauled around in an old Ford truck. Eventually they acquired a Fairbanks-Morse engine to provide the power for their portable projector.

Carter recalled that the engine vibrated so much, that they had to place props under the truck bed to keep it steady.

At times, the Carters also took their movies to Noxon, Lonepine and Camas Prairie for special showings.

At the depot, the gang would gather to talk and occasionally they would send a runner down to a bar to bring back a bucket of beer. Since the runner was always in full view of the telephone exchange office, Carter said they would attempt to camouflage their intentions by giving their runner a laundry basket or some other large box in which to carry back the bucket of beer.

“We knew Mildred Near, the telephone operator, would be watching our activities from her vantage point at the telephone switchboard,” observed Carter with a smile.

Carter said the movie business always boomed during fair time at Plains. “The fair then was staged in October, and it usually rained two out of the three days. The rainy weather really drove the fair goers to the theater,” observed Carter.

After Jim’s brother Pete died in 1924, Jim sold his theater business in 1925.

The highlight of colorful Jimmy’s career came in early 1977, when Jim was invited to attend the inauguration of Jimmy Carter as president of the United States. The Montana Jimmy enjoyed a celebrity status en route to Washington and in the nation’s capital, where he was interviewed by newspaper people, magazine writers and TV people.