Colonial

Samuel Louis Matz (1874-1966) and his wife Mary Davis Matz (1879-1948) immigrated to the United States from Russia. Samuel Matz built the Matz Hotel in Bluefield in 1911. He built the Colonial theater beside the hotel in 1916.  Samuel Matz’ son Max (1897-1982) became the second owner of the Colonial after his parents moved to Miami Beach, Florida.

Max sold the Colonial to the Keesling Theater Chain who owned theaters in Welch, Bluefield, Beckley and Lewisburg. About 1970 the theater and the hotel were sold to the Milner Hotel Chain. The Colonial was remodeled in 1939, reopening on June 30, 1940.

“Advertised in a 1930 yearbook as the best in TALKING PICTURES, Colonial Theater in Bluefield provided entertainment for half a-century.” “The Colonial theater, located at 602 Princeton Avenue, was a two story brick theater constructed as a silent movie theater. Its most outstanding features were its Art Deco marquee and entrance way. The marquee had neon lights and Carrara glass veneer. The interior was also fine Art Deco with columns and casework and had a panel reproduction of an impressionistic painting of a ballerina. The Art Deco motifs were part of the c. 1945 remodeling.” --National Register of Historic Places Bluefield Downtown Historic District.

The Colonial Theater was segregated during its early years. In March 1960 a group of Bluefield State College (now Bluefield State University) students, sponsored by the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE), protested segregated seating practices at the Colonial and Granada Theaters. They quietly marched and carried signs. Some signs read “We Are Through Walking Alleys and Entering Back Doors” and “Civil Rights Mean Human Rights.”

At the time, Bluefield State College had a predominantly black student body. They were protesting blacks having to use a rear entrance off a parking lot and sit in the balcony at the Colonial Theater. They then marched to the Granada Theater where blacks could enter the front door but also had to sit in the balcony. The separate seating practices soon ended.

During “Our Years”, movies like, Psycho, Spartacus, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Lawrence of Arabia, and Goldfinger were enough to entice youth from Athens with drivers licenses and use of a car to make the trip to Bluefield to check out what might be playing at the Colonial.

In 2009 the Milner-Matz Hotel begin to fail, one brick at a time. The sidewalk had to be closed to protect the citizens from the falling bricks. Bill Archer wrote in the March 1, 2009, edition of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph that the hotel "…is falling a little at a time.” Debris from the hotel took out the marque, and part of the lobby of the Colonial. The hotel and theater had to be demolished. At the time of the collapse, owner Steve Tibbs, was trying to raise money, asking for 400,000 people to contribute $1 each to renovate and reopen the theater.

In March 2024 Randy Gilpin posted several photographs of the demolition of the Colonial Theater and the adjoining Hotel Matz on the Facebook group he moderates, You know you're from Bluefield if...."  Roger had developed a photo album from his pictures in 2009 and shared them with three different Bluefield Facebook groups over the years. He contributed copies of the photographs to Athens We Knew. Many photographs from his album are posted in the gallery.