The Capitol Theatre met its end on August 20, 1975, because of time, progress and the hope Inverell might grow a future for the next generation.

Television caught Australia by storm in the 1960s, but the small screen also spelled the demise of grand picture theatres, like Inverell’s Capitol Theatre.

By the early 1970s, many homes had colour TV and the Capitol was down to only three staff members and two screenings a week.

The theatre had been screening films nearly every day since its first film premiered on April 26, 1927.

Percy Swan was the projectionist for nearly the entire history of the Capitol, but his role soon expanded when the staff was reduced.

“He sort of knew it was on the cards,” Percy’s son Peter Swan explained.

“But he kept the job, it just meant he had to do a bit of cleaning and other things as well as his projecting because the number of sessions, like screenings, were reduced.”

The result of a downturn in attendance, movie company Hoyt’s decided to close their operations, but continue to pay their lease until the end of the two-year agreement.

Inverell solicitor John Butler said he spied the Sydney Hoyt’s representatives outside the building, while walking to his office one day. He phoned the Capitol’s ownership group, Inverell Theatre Propriety Ltd, to inquire and learned Hoyt’s was shutting it down.

“I said, ‘That’s bad for Inverell, I’d like to see it keep going,” John said.

He confirmed the news with Hoyt’s, and in what seemed an eye blink, offered to buy the theatre from the local group.

They settled on a price and, when he walked to work, he walked past the family’s picture house.

John learned an Armidale group was interested in leasing the Capitol, to show films as they were doing in Armidale, and they settled on a small weekly lease to bring pictures back to Inverell.

“I remember the first show was The Poseidon Adventure and the theatre was packed,” John recalled. But in time, even the revival of movies could not re-energise the Capitol. 

The arrival of a drive-in in Brissett Street, and the potential of a step-up with a national supermarket chain sniffing around, Inverell played a very different hand for the old building. The supermarket magnate had shown interest in Inverell since 1972, and the Capitol site in particular, for a Coles New World store.

John said he was approached by a local estate agent who wanted to purchase the building for a sale to the Coles group.

“He said ‘Will you sell it?’ and I said ‘No, it’s not for sale’,” John said.

In the end, things began to fall apart for the Capitol.

The Armidale franchise decided to pull out of Inverell, attendance was low, and maintenance and improvements were incredibly costly.

John said he saw one major benefit to making way for the new supermarket.

A former member of the Inverell Development Committee, John had compiled statistics on the numbers of youth leaving town.

“Employment for young people on leaving school, that was one of my main interests,” he said.

John said there was also immense community pressure, because if Coles was not given the space in Inverell, they threatened to move their interests to Moree, and the town wanted the store.

He said it was a difficult decision, but he sold the building to Coles.

A Brisbane man had come to town to work as an engineer on Copeton Dam, and a visit to the Capitol caused him to take action.

David Jones said he liked Inverell so much, he decided to stay and open his business here.

David said he thought John had purchased the Capitol originally, thinking he “could make a go of it and it didn’t work out”.

“When I heard they were going to knock it over for a Coles supermarket, I said, ‘the people of Inverell just don’t appreciate just what this building is’,” he said. 

He soon formed the Capitol Theatre Re-development Committee. 

The team of Phillipa Whish, Barbara McCosker and Don McCallum prepared a proposal to the Whitlam government’s Department of Urban and Regional Development for a multipurpose centre that might accommodate conferences as well as performance.

David said the plain façade of the building, left unfinished after the depression struck, had not caught the attention of the National Trust.

That changed when the Capitol was condemned.

“Once they realised it was going to be demolished for a Coles supermarket, the National Trust was encouraged to come up,” he said.

“He had a look at it, and he said that this was an absolutely amazing building and they should put a classification on it.”

The committee also proposed the Coles might be located in the block of buildings beside the Capitol.

“There was a fair bit of publicity, and the thinkers realised this was a terrible thing to do to this building, but we respected John Butler’s decision.”

The committee hoped to acquire the building to put it back into public ownership.

Their submission was successful and the committee was granted $356,000, which David said was the highest amount awarded in the state.

More fuel to the fire of saving the Capitol was the regional ABC coverage that hit the state airwaves.

The news of the Capitol falling for a Coles supermarket was heard by Jack Mundey of the NSW Builders’ Labourers Federation (BLF).

No friend of GJ Coles, the BLF immediately slapped a green ban on the Capitol.

John said when the union eventually inspected the building, they did not believe it fit the profile of Australian historic architecture.

“They lifted the green ban, and that meant Coles could proceed,” John said.

Despite the ban, it was the mid-1970s global oil crisis that triggered the final decision. David said the federal government was scrambling to recoup funds.

The government revoked the funding, and the committee was left with nothing.

They approached council with resignation, but the municipal council was unable to aid in any way.

Then Inverell councillor, Bob Bensley, said they were hamstrung. 

State and federal funds for town improvement did not exist then as they do today, and the council was forced to borrow to pay for for new drainage, curbing and guttering. They could not financially back the project. 

“So council’s path really was, ‘Look, we can’t help at all financially, because we’re more than flat-to-the-boards keeping going with the amount of money that we’ve got now’,” Bob said. 

He said council accepted the Capitol Theatre was no longer commercially viable

“And I think the council, for that reason, welcomed the thought of Coles coming in, amongst other things, making quite a reasonable contribution to quite a big parking lot behind them and setting up the town’s first supermarket.”

Before the Capitol came down, the Inverell Apex Club organised a final gala event at the theatre for June 26, 1974.

The black-tie concert filled every seat in the theatre with headline national star Kamahl.

Nearly a year later, at 2.10pm, August 20, 1975, work began to level the Inverell Capitol Theatre. 

David Jones was on site with a movie camera to capture the final hours of the old building.

He said the demolition met its match with the Capitol’s stout construction, crowned with imported clear Oregon trusses.

“They ended up hooking a dozer on to the side wall, and they pulled and pulled and pulled for half the day to try to get the wall to collapse, to make it tip over and eventually it went,” he said.

Scattered remnants of the Capitol may be found in the seats at the Roxy Theatre in Bingara and Inverell Masonic Hall, the chandeliers at the Inverell Town Hall, and the ticket booth at Inverell’s Rugby Park.

John Butler said the loss of the Capitol Theatre was a difficult time, but in the end, it was an investment in Inverell.

“There were a lot of young people who had to leave Inverell in search of employment. They had no choice,” he said.

“It was unintended by me, but I believe that was the beginning of Inverell’s development.”

For a mega-gallery of the heydays and demolishing of Capitol Theatre click here.

Commentary on the fall of the Capitol Theatre here