Augusta Amusements

A Brief History of
AUGUSTA AMUSEMENTS INCORPORATED

The year in which Augusta Amusements filed a certificate of Incorporation under the laws of the State of Delaware, 1931, was not a notably auspicious one for an upstart business that intended to do nothing more than to provide high-quality, low-cost entertainment in a medium-size Southern city that, like most other communities in the region, was already feeling the full brunt of economic collapse.

That year, 1931, nearly 2 out of every 10 Americans were unemployed. The country was in the grip of the Great Depression, and it showed no signs of easing. Public confidence in the ability of government and big business to deal with such titanic economic stress had plummeted to levels so low as to be immeasurable for all practical purposes. (This may explain the unpredicted success of Alka Seltzer, which was invented that very same year.)

Americans that year noted the Grand Opening of the Empire State Building (which, not surprisingly, did not reach 100% occupancy for another several years) and the formal sentencing of Al Capone, the country’s most notorious crime figure, to 11 years in federal prison for income tax evasion. The RCA Victor Talking Machine Company picked 1931 to introduce the first “long-playing” 33 1/3 rpm plastic records. The product’s poor quality and the fact that few people could afford the equipment that played them doomed it from the outset. (Only after World War II and the introduction of lower cost record players did LPs finally achieve success.)

Radio Digest named four young African American harmony singers, the Mills Brothers, the “Vocal Find of 1931”. They were, perhaps, the first black group to win what was then the equivalent of today’s “best new group” Grammy. They went on to become stars on CBS radio, and they remained fixtures in American popular music for more than fifty years.

If you could scrape together the money, a new car cost about $700 and a gallon of gasoline about 10 cents. However, beginning in 1931, Augusta Amusements boldly built a business that seemed to fly in the face of good sense, purchasing and managing theaters in downtown Augusta. For thirty-seven years, Augusta Amusements provided Augustans with the best in film and live entertainment in such pleasure palaces as the Dreamland, Imperial, Modjeska, and Rialto. Augusta Amusementseventually built Georgia’s second largest theatre, the Miller, followed by several drive-in theatres.

1931 2009

Entrepreneur Frank J. Miller was the backbone of Augusta Amusements, but the organization would not have succeeded without his partners Arthur Lucas, William K. Jenkins, James Hull, and Leonard Goldenson, all of whom chose to remain in the background while allowing Miller the public role he so loved to fill. Augusta Amusements is justly credited with bringing first-class entertainment to Augusta. Such universally acclaimed performers as Jack Teagarden and his Orchestra, which appeared at the Imperial Theatre in 1941, and Johnny Hamp and his Orchestra (at the Miller Theatre in 1940), to cite just two of many, brought the glamour of big city entertainment to Augusta.

Careful planning combined with lavish financing enabled Augusta Amusements to construct the beautiful Miller Theater, acclaimed for its dramatic entrance and Art Moderne interior, in downtown Augusta. By the early 1940s, motion pictures had long since become the preferred form of popular entertainment throughout America, and Augusta Amusements altered its business plan, moving away from the live entertainment provided by vaudeville to an emphasis on presenting films, capturing far more profit from movie goers.

As an exhibitor, Augusta Amusements was responsible for bringing the World Premiere of the Academy Award winning movie, “The Three Faces of Eve” to Augusta’s Miller Theatre in 1957. But just eleven years later, faced with drastic change in popular taste, another seismic shift in the economy and the growth of the suburbs (combined with the move away from traditional public interest in downtown retail shopping), in 1968, Augusta Amusements filed for dissolution, and its original partners disbanded.