Border Theater

Mission, United States

Open to visitors

The interior is normally open, possibly ticketed.

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Built in 1942 in Mission, Texas, the Border Theater is a Pueblo Revival movie house that continues to operate as an entertainment venue. Designed by Dallas architect William J. Moore for brothers Robert N. and Dell Smith, the theater opened on April 3 with a Roy Rogers film, capitalizing on the market created by the nearby Moore Army Air Corps Field. The facade showcases characteristic Pueblo Revival elements: stucco cladding, faux vigas evenly spaced three feet below the roofline, and heavy wooden lintels framing a five-sided ticket booth bordered with terracotta and southwestern-patterned tiles. A prominent marquee bearing the theater's name in red letters extends above the roofline. Inside, the two-story building seats 500 across a main floor and balcony, with the latter retaining original "Floating Comfort" seating. Two large murals depicting idealized scenes of pre-Anglo Hispanic life, painted in 1942 by E. Risser of the Dallas firm King Scene Company, were originally executed in fluorescent paint to glow under blacklight. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, it remains the dominant architectural resource on its block along Conway Boulevard.

Movement

Pueblo Revival Style architecture

Built: 1942
Type: theatre building, movie theater
Heritage: National Register of Historic Places listed place, Recorded Texas Historic Landmark
Place: Mission, United States

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Location

26.21521, -98.32603