Shulls Mills: The American Theatre, 1918-1921?

Often referred to as the first theater in Watauga County, the American Theatre at Shulls Mills had a brief existence directly related to the ups and downs of the Whiting Lumber Company. It appears to have been vacant more often than not and there are only a handful of ads in local newspapers detailing its programs. No definite evidence suggests that the building in which it was housed was built for the purpose of film exhibition, making it more in line with a temporary venue similar to the courtroom of the Watauga County Courthouse--where films were exhibited even earlier than those at Shulls Mills. Nevertheless, the brief history of the American Theatre and of the rise and fall of the town surrounding it remains one of the more interesting and unusual stories in the region.

The town of Shulls Mills existed before the Whiting Company came to North Carolina, although it was little more than a general store and a stop on the turnpike between Blowing Rock and Valle Crucis. Named for a grist mill operated by Phillip Shull in the 1830s, the town is variously designated Shull's Mill, Shull's Mills, or finally Shulls Mills. Surrounded by old growth forest, the small village on the banks of the Watauga River around seven miles southwest of Boone remained isolated into the late 19th century. Then the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad (ET & WNC), aimed at the iron ore deposits at Cranberry, crept within about 20 miles of Shulls Mills in the 1880s. A later extension of that railroad, the Linville River Railway (LRR), branched off at Montezuma towards Linville in 1899. The railroad owned timber rights all over the region, so the next step was to extend the LRR into Watauga County to the Shulls Mills region.

Much is made of the history of the narrow gauge railroad in Watauga County, but it is important to remember that its primary existence was first iron ore and then timber; passenger service was at best a sideline, even a publicity gimmick. While the ore and the timber lasted, towns sprang up along the railroad. When the timber played out, some of the towns vanished as quickly as they had been built, others hung on for decades and gradually faded away. Shulls Mills was one of the latter . . .

The Mill Town

In partnership with the railroads, William S. Whiting came to Shulls Mills in 1915 to begin planning a large band mill on the banks of the Watauga River. The following photo from the B.G. Teams Collection is the most well-known image of the mill town:

In his excellent and exhaustive book on the narrow gauge, The Blue Ridge Stemwinder (Johnson City, TN, The Overmountain Press, 2003), John R. Waite identifies the buildings numbered here as: 1) the movie house, 2) Hodge's Barber Shop, 3) Robbins Hotel, and 4) company commissary and supply warehouse (p. 127). Some of these buildings survived into the 1960s and were featured in an historical article in the Watauga Democrat (6/28/1962 p. 6). There are two views of the Robbins Hotel and one of the "general store," which appears similar to the company commissary in the above photo minus a bit of its surrounding additions:

None of these buildings survive today and unfortunately there is no photo of the theater, if it still existed at that time.

The "American" Theatre, 1918

As the railroad approached Shulls Mills from the west, Whiting began constructing the town that would serve and attract lumbermen from the region. It included a motion picture theater, a nonessential but popular amenity in a lumber town. The competing Ritter Lumber Company, for example, had film exhibition in their lumber town of Mortimer in Caldwell County from 1916. We can learn a bit about the Shulls Mills theater by skipping ahead in the story a bit to the dissolution of the company in 1922:

NOTICE OF PUBLIC SALE

. . . LOT No. 1, WATAUGA COUNTY. . . . Picture Show equipment at Shulls Mills mill and plant consisting of benches, stove and equipment, screen, projecting machine and electrical compensation. (Watauga Democrat 12/14/1922, p. 4)

The same electric power used for the mill machinery could thus easily power a small film projector. For a mill camp, this may seem a small matter, but bear in mind that many of the rural workers who came to the Whiting plant at the time would have had little experience with motion pictures or electricity. Forward-thinking young men of the day like McKinley Ayers would parlay his experience with electricity at Shulls Mills into a career in the field when he moved back to Boone in the 1920s.

The first advertisement for the theater comes from the beginning of the plant's second year of operation (Watauga Democrat 3/21/1918, p. 3):

The theater's name can be related directly to the American involvement in World War I which had begun about a year earlier. There is no indication that this is any type of grand opening; in fact, a short notice from the previous week implies that the American had been in operation for some time and that it was "giving us good, up-to-date pictures now, which is a very acceptable addition to our town" (Watauga Democrat 3/14/1918, p. 2). As always, early film exhibition is plagued by the lack of advertising in local papers. Perhaps the war documentary being shown was felt sufficiently important enough to warrant a little advertising in the Boone paper, to attract interested (and patriotic) citizens to the town for a show, even though the railroad had not yet reached Boone. And while A.J. Campbell and others had shown movies in the Watauga County Courthouse in Boone since at least 1908, no films had been advertised there since September 1917, nor would any films be advertised until August of 1919.

The feature film advertised here was produced by the British government and is still available (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZzRtdawxsU). Of course, it is black-and-white and silent, with intertitles describing the action. It exists in 7 reels but only 6 appear to have been shown at the American that spring. A later ad for the same series repeats much of the information but adds some details on the shorts that filled out the program (Watauga Democrat 4/18/1918, p. 3):

It is interesting to note that the newsreel was to be read, as much as watched, referring to the intertitles introducing the images. As for the shorts, Harry Roach was to become more commonly known as Hal Roach and Charlie Chaplin ["Chaplain"] needs no introduction to modern film audiences. Unfortunately, no titles for their films are given. The line about the "five reel show lasting for more than 2 hours" is a bit puzzling; an average reel of the day would have lasted only around 10 minutes. Typically, film exhibition would include alternating live performances of some type, although none is specifically mentioned here. Also note that a significant amount of the revenue for the theater was donated to the Red Cross and War Relief funds.

The "American" Theatre, 1920-1921

The Linville River Railway reached Boone only after the war had ended, with passenger service beginning in January 1919 (Watauga Democrat 1/2/1919, p. 3), so many of the soldiers from the area would have left from the Shulls Mills depot and later returned from there. This might explain the unusually large incidence of influenza brought back to the town:

Town and County. . . . The Influenza continues to rage at Shulls Mills, as many as two hundred cases having been reported up to Tuesday evening. Post Master David P. Wyke, of that town, is extremely low with pneumonia, which followed influenza. His recovery is considered very doubtful. We are told that Dr. Hardin, of that town, is so pressed that he rarely stops either night or day. (Watauga Democrat 10/24/1918, p. 3)

The flu came and went in the winter of 1918 and 1919, bringing a halt to the mill work and no doubt limiting public events such as film exhibition. In Lenoir during this period, for instance, not only the theaters but even the churches were closed for fear of spreading the disease, sometimes for weeks at a time.

The only other mention of exhibition at the American Theatre in the papers comes from late fall 1920, as part of local notices from the Shulls Mills' correspondent, not an actual advertisement:

Live News Items from Shulls Mills. . . . The American Theatre has a good program for Saturday night. (1). One reel of Pathe News. (2.) Charlie Johnson, Black Face Comedian--jokes, singing and guitar playing, especially Hawaian [sic] music. (3). Second episode of serial "Third Eye." This promises to be the best entertainment we had here. Admission: Adults, 20c. Children 15c. (Watauga Democrat 11/11/1920, p. 2)

This is a more typical show: a newsreel, a live act, and a serial as a feature. The Third Eye featured Warner Oland and Eileen Percy in a 15-episode drama that had been released earlier that year in May. Since this was the second episode, showing on Saturday night after the notice (11/13/1920), we can assume that the first episode was shown on 11/6/1920 and that subsequent episodes would have been shown each Saturday night until 2/12/1921. Whether or not the theater stayed open for the whole series is unknown, however, as there are no further notices or ads.

As for the identification of Charlie Johnson, there is very little evidence. Hawaiian music went through several waves of popularity throughout the early 20th century and it is not surprising to find it here, although finding it in combination with blackface minstrelsy is unusual. And the notice never specifically states that this is a live performance: later ads would no doubt have added "on our stage" or "in person." But in the silent era, one cannot imagine jokes, singing and guitar playing on a silent film reel; this had to be live entertainment. With so little evidence, it is impossible to connect this entertainer with later Charlie Johnsons or ones that recorded during the period.

Shulls Mills as Ghost Town

The news in the spring of 1921 was bad for those working at Shulls Mills:

BOONE FORK LUMBER COMPANY PLANT SHUTS DOWN

On last Saturday the big operations of the Boone Fork Lumber Company shut down, and [as] a result a large number of men are out of employment. Not only was the band mill stopped but work in the woods as well, including the big job on the Rich Mountain.

The company has held up well, paid higher wages possibly than any other like plant, and we hope that their operations may be resumed soon, and they will be within the next few weeks, if business conditions improve. (Watauga Democrat 5/5/1921, p. 3)

The notice about Rich Mountain might have also worried those living in Boone: the large mountain looming over the town had been virtually clear cut, with temporary tracks running around the north side of the mountain that were soon abandoned once the timber played out. The railroad company that had intertwined itself with the timber company now had relatively little economic incentive to continue the rail link from Eastern Tennessee all the way to Boone. The mill would reopen from August 1921 to May 1922, then later change hands and reopen again in April 1925 only to close again soon after. After changing hands several times, the equipment in the mill was finally sold off and moved to Tennessee in 1928: "The Tri-County Lumber Company is having the band mill here moved to Butler, Tenn., for the purpose of manufacturing the Beech mountain timber" (Lenoir News Topic 3/8/1928, p. 8). By this time, much of the old-growth forests of Beech Mountain and Grandfather Mountain had been run through the mill at Shulls Mills. Whether or not a theater was reopened during the scattered weeks of activity in the 1920s is unknown (remember the original exhibition equipment had been sold off in December 1922). But after 1924, the town of Boone and the Pastime Theatre were a short train ride away for anyone seeking a picture show.

In arid regions of the country, when towns lose their primary source of income and are abandoned, they sit empty, their buildings decaying and ravaged by the weather and time. Some sense of the remains of Shulls Mills can be gained from the photographs and article cited above, originally entitled "Old Hotel Stands As Monument To Bygone Era" (Watauga Democrat 6/28/1962, p. 6) and focusing on the Robbins Hotel. Many of the buildings survived into the 1970s, but eventually, safety concerns led to the complete demolition of the structures around the mill town. Rather than Hollywood's dusty ghost towns with tumbleweeds, an Eastern lumber town like Shulls Mills disappears and fades in less obvious fashion. The railroad bed eventually was converted into Highway 105 in 1949 (Lenoir News Topic 2/5/1949, p. 5). Those driving by today see only a large open field where once was a town of over a thousand.

Dr. Gary R. Boye

Music Librarian and Professor

Appalachian State University

boyegr@appstate.edu