Designed by James C. Lombard and Co. of Washington D.C., and opened in 1921, the Dalton Theatre Building followed the prototype theater design of Louis Sullivan’s Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, in which the theater section is fronted by an office building. Its original owner was the firm of Dalton Brothers and Richardson. The plain, business-like exterior contrasted with rich plasterwork decorations of the theater interior, which collapsed in a flood late in the 20th century. The original tenants of the shopfronts were a bank and a drugstore; offices and apartments occupied the upper two floors. The theater, located in the Pulaski County town of Pulaski, had one of the largest stage areas on the rail line between Richmond and Tennessee and accommodated vaudeville performances in its heyday. Vaudeville shows ended by the 1930s, but the Dalton Theatre continued to show films until the mid-1960s.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia