PARKERSBURG, WEST VIRGINIA: MARKET BETWEEN SEVENTH AND EIGHTH (intro page)

UPDATED: 1-22-2024

PARKERSBURG, WEST VIRGINIA: A VINTAGE PORTRAIT

MARKET BETWEEN SEVENTH AND EIGHTH (intro page)



Looking south on Market before 1907 (left) and in the 1920s (right). The west (right) side of the street on this block was built in the late 1890s by the Opera Block Investment Company. It included the Camden Theater, one of the finest theaters in the Southwest, which seated 1400 people and could accommodate the largest road shows of the day. Despite the builders' precautions to fireproof the theater, the Camden burned down in November 1929.



Looking down Market in the early 1900s.

Mountain State Business College dominated the west side of
Market's 700 block in 1899 (looking northwest).

Among the businesses along Market Street in 1907 were Alice Beisser's Fashionable Millinery
at 712 (right) and C.C. Camden & Company, Electric and Gas Supplies (left).

Mountain State Business College around 1900.
(Courtesy of Jeremy Bungard)

"Wheeling Lodge #28" marches in a parade down Market Street in 1914.



The foyer and auditorium of the Camden Theater before it was destroyed in 1929. Parkersburg High School graduations were held there. The Camden was also one of Parkersburg's first movie theaters.

Looking up Market in 1929, only days before the Camden Theater Building burned down.
(Courtesy of St. Joseph's Hospital / Betty Leavengood.)

The Camden Theatre and most of the block on the west side of Market was destroyed on November 30, 1929. Along with the theatre in the center, Julian Goldman's Peoples Store was at the left and Hughes and Mullen Building was at the right. This fire started in a small room under the theater's stage, only a month after the stock market crash that soon ushered in the Great Depression.

The Big Red Band leads a parade down Market during Army Day
in the early 1940s. Looking north toward Eighth, you can
see the Parker Theater and Cox's Department Store.



The Big Red Band leads a parade down Market during Army Day in the early 1940s. Looking north toward Eighth, you can see the Parker Theater and Cox's Department Store.

Looking south in the early 1940s. The Hiehle was a popular B-movie theater for many years. Looking north toward Eighth Street in 1907.

Cox's Department Store at 720 Market Street, shot by Harry Barnett in the 1960s.
(Courtesy of Dan Kemper.)

G. C. Murphy & Co. Department Store, 712 Market Street.
(Probably by Harry Barnett, 1960s. Courtesy of Dan Kemper.)

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Looking south in the early 1940s. The Hiehle was a popular B-movie theater for many years.		Looking north toward Eighth Street in 1907.