Gonzales, TX — With its first-run Hollywood movies, modern air conditioning and a majestic neon sign that dominated the town square, the Lynn Theatre brought entertainment and glamour to this small town when it opened in 1948.

Nearly six decades later, Gonzales is again caught up in the giddy anticipation of having a downtown theater, as an ambitious refurbishing of the long-closed Lynn is aiming for a midsummer reopening.

"Everyone in town is thrilled. Everyone is so excited. We've been without a theater in town since ... gosh, I can't even remember when it closed," said Zilpha Dolezal, board president of the Gonzales Economic Development Corp.

As a young mother in the 1960s, Dolezal took her kids to Lynn matinees. Others, whose coming of age coincided with the arrival of the finest theater this side of San Antonio, had other fond memories.

"It was the central point of social activity in Gonzales for all the young people and the families. I knew it as a young man taking a date to the theater on Saturday nights. Tickets were 50 cents apiece," recalled lawyer Bob Burchard, 68, who graduated from Gonzales High School in 1955.

"And when I was younger, they used to have midnight horror movies, and they'd just scare the living daylights out of you, make you walk down the street all the way home," he said.

The collaboration between various public bodies in Gonzales and Galen and Jennifer Jansky likely saved the Lynn from the wrecking ball. Critical to the partnership was the Janskys' track record of refurbishing vintage theaters in Floresville and Three Rivers.

"We consider it an economic development thing here. It was headed toward demolition. It was just falling apart," said City Manager Buddy Drake.

The $440,000-plus project includes $340,000 in loans from local entities, including two economic development corporations. One loan to the Janskys for $150,000 will be forgiven if they keep the theater open 10 years.

So far, said Galen Jansky, 44, from Floresville, the project is coming in under budget, despite nearly $90,000 spent on asbestos removal.

The theater resurrection has the blessings of Lynn Smith Jr., 77, son of the impresario who named the theater after himself when he built it shortly after World War II. The theater will continue to use the Lynn name and original sign.

Smith, who is in the cattle business, had last ventured inside the Lynn in 1972 when his father sold it to a chain operator. Last week, he took a stroll through the gutted theater, busy with workmen and cluttered with plasterboard and other supplies.

"Golly, I didn't know it was that tall," exclaimed the old cowboy as he gazed up into the cavernous ceiling of the 1,200-seat theater, adding, "God bless you boy."

"I had to do a lot of hard work here and didn't always enjoy it. I was manager, sweeper and popcorn maker. I did this on the side while I built up my cow business," he remarked.

Smith said his father, who owned other local theaters, invested his heart, soul and savings into building the Lynn, which cost $250,000, equivalent to millions in today's dollars.

"He loved it. It was his pride and joy. He put every dime he made into this place, and then he went broke. Well, not broke. When he sold it, he paid everyone off and had about $3,000 left," he said.

And like others, Smith recalled the vitality of the downtown decades ago, when the Lynn drew sold-out crowds on weekend evenings.

"Out here on a Saturday night, you couldn't get a parking place. Now there's two cars parked out there and it's just kids drinking beer," he remarked.

According to local cinematic lore, the last movie shown here was "E.T." in about 1982. After that, the Lynn operated intermittently as a nightclub, a restaurant and a dance hall.

A faded hand-lettered flyer inside the front window announces a 1993 concert by the local group "Los Aventureros," perhaps the last act to use the Lynn. After that, it slipped into shuttered decline.

Given his record of success elsewhere with three other theaters, few believe Jansky will fail at the Lynn, despite the inherent difficulties of making money in a vintage small-town theater.

Rein Rabakukk, head of the Texas chapter of the National Association of Theatre Owners, of which Jansky is a member, said projects such as the Lynn are rare but not unheard of.

"You don't find situations like this too often. Most of those theaters get torn down. And if someone comes in and builds a modern theater nearby, this would not have much hope of surviving," he said.

"But he's no spring chicken," he said of Jansky. "He knows the business. If he's got community backing, he'll probably be successful. He's a very smart operator."

Jansky, who was once a deputy sheriff in Wilson County, said the new Lynn with have two screens, with the balcony being reconfigured so viewers can watch a separate movie there.

Total seating will be reduced to around 400 to 450, and the main screen will be portable to allow for other stage events.

Although he is adding modern features, such as a video arcade, Jansky also is keeping some of the Lynn's quaint features.

"We're keeping the cry room for upset babies. Parents can bring their babies in here and still see and hear the movie," he said.

And although he expects to repay his loans and make a small profit on the Lynn, Jansky says a big part of his motivation was saving a vintage theater from demolition.

"You wouldn't find an investor coming in here and putting down $400,000, but there's nothing better than to bring an old theater back to life in a small town," he said. "Everyone loves you for it. There's a lot of excitement."

The Lynn faces a town square dominated by a large stone statue commemorating the Confederate dead. And like other theaters of that era, blacks were kept in the balcony while whites used the main floor.

Traces of this segregated past — such as electrical conduit labeled 'Colored Restroom' — have surfaced during the refurbishing. Although some in Gonzales profess not to remember, others feel the past acutely.

"I hate to tell you this part, but they had a separate entrance for blacks. That was wrong, but it really happened. We were a racist Southern town. But now it's gone, and we're all citizens of the same town," said Mayron Cole, 65, who grew up in Gonzales.

For Cole, who owns a piano music store near the theater, the Lynn mostly brings pleasant memories. No one who lived here when the splendid theater came to Gonzales can forget it.

"I was around 11 when it opened, and I remember the excitement. It was huge and had hand-painted murals on each side of the screen that looked like an undersea scene. I was just mesmerized by it," recalled Cole, 65, who moved back to Gonzales a few years ago.

Closing her eyes, she can again see the big, dark red curtains. And the projector started up in the balcony, projecting the opening scenes of the movie onto the curtain, which would slowly rise to reveal the magnificent white screen.

"It was quite magical for all of us. On a hot summer day, the Lynn, which had air conditioning, was the place to be. For a quarter, you could get into the theater, and go into the lobby for popcorn, and a killer, which was a squirt of everything in the soda machine, and we just loved that," she recalled.

Cole already had left Gonzales to seek her fortune when the Lynn closed in the early 1980s, and when she returned three years ago, she noted with sadness that its roof was caving in and only pigeons had use of it

"But now it's reopening. It's a piece of artwork from the '50s, and it needed to be saved. Besides a church, a theater is the hub of a city, and when it has its lights on, it's a very beautiful thing," she said.

Orginally published online here: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA053005.1B.theater.2c25c2165.html