Lights Up on Chapline Street: The Fedo Theatre and the Life of Black Wheeling

The children’s faces tell the story.

In a photograph published in the Wheeling Intelligencer on October 26, 1949, a group of youngsters watches a movie with the concentrated concern that only a good adventure can produce. According to the caption, they are worried that Gene Autry might not succeed.

For the moment, the cowboy’s predicament is their predicament.

The children are inside the Fedo Theatre on Chapline Street, where American Legion Post 89 has arranged a free show. More than three hundred have attended. There is a Three Stooges comedy, a color cartoon, and, for every child, a bag of popcorn and a candy bar.

It is a wonderful glimpse of an afternoon well spent.

It is also a glimpse of something much larger: the importance of a theatre where Black Wheeling could gather, enjoy itself, support its institutions, and see its own children take the stage.

Inside the African American Knights of Pythias building at 1025 Chapline Street, the Fedo became a place where Hollywood met the neighborhood. Westerns shared its history with Christmas pageants. Sidney Poitier appeared on its screen while Lincoln pupils and local talent appeared on its stage. A ticket could purchase an evening’s entertainment and help finance a church program or a Girl Scout troop.

Before we turn more fully to the remarkable history of Wheeling’s Black Knights of Pythias, their theatre deserves an evening of its own.

The Building That Made the Show Possible

The Fedo’s story begins before the Fedo name.

The Pythian building opened to the public in December 1928. Created under the auspices of Wheeling’s Black Pythian association, the four-story building included an auditorium, commercial space, offices, and lodge rooms. The contemporary opening announcement identified Samuel Plato of Louisville as architect and general contractor.

The theatre belonged to that larger vision.

The Pythians were creating space for business, fellowship, public gatherings, and entertainment within a city where Black residents encountered restrictions across much of daily life.

Even financing the building had required determination. In March 1928, Baltimore’s Afro-American reported that the association had secured a $55,000 loan from the National Benefit Life Insurance Company after encountering obstruction and unacceptable terms in its efforts to obtain financing locally.

The theatre was therefore part of a project whose significance reached well beyond construction.

A community had helped make room for itself.

The building would accommodate the Pythian organization alongside a restaurant, barbershop, billiard parlor, and theatre. Those uses brought people through its doors for different reasons and at different hours. A lodge meeting, a meal, a haircut, and a picture show could all belong to the same building’s working life.

The auditorium gave that life a public stage.

A “Grand Opening” With Lincoln at Its Heart

Online histories generally place the change from Pythian Theatre to Fedo Theatre in the late 1940s. A small advertisement in the new collection gives us something more precise.

On May 12, 1949, the News-Register advertised:

GRAND OPENINGFEDO THEATRE1025 Chapline Street

The evening was a Lincoln School PTA benefit show.

On screen was Station West, starring Dick Powell and Jane Greer. On stage were the Lincoln High School band and three variety acts.

What an appropriate way to announce a theatre that would become so closely intertwined with community life.

The advertisement promised a commercial movie and a showcase for local performers while making the occasion useful to the school’s parent-teacher organization. Families could come for the picture, applaud the band, and support Lincoln in the same evening.

The auditorium already had a history. This advertisement marks a documented grand opening under the Fedo name.

And Lincoln was right there in the announcement.

A Neighborhood Movie House, With All the Pleasures That Implied

The Fedo’s surviving advertisements help us recover its ordinary programming.

In July 1952, it advertised Bend of the River, starring James Stewart and Arthur Kennedy, accompanied by a cartoon and newsreel. A few days later, The Big Trees appeared with a serial.

These were the ingredients of a familiar moviegoing experience: a feature, something short, perhaps the next installment of an adventure that gave children a reason to return.

A film advertisement is a small historical document. It tells us what a theatre was selling. It also lets us glimpse what an audience could anticipate.

There might be a favorite star, a Western landscape far removed from the Ohio Valley, or a cliffhanger awaiting resolution. Friends could plan to meet. Parents could decide whether the children could go. Someone would emerge certain that the previous picture had been better.

Black Wheeling audiences had the same capacity for enthusiasm, amusement, disappointment, and spirited disagreement as audiences anywhere.

The Fedo gave those responses a place to be shared.

Ethel Waters Came to the Screen—and Hull Wanted You to Notice

Mabel M. Hull understood that a movie listing could carry cultural significance.

In February 1950, she directed readers’ attention to Ethel Waters in Pinky, then playing at the Fedo. Hull praised Waters’s performance and drew attention to other Black performers in the cast, including Frederick O’Neal and Kenny Washington.

Here was a local Black columnist helping her readers recognize Black accomplishment within a national entertainment industry.

Pinky confronted questions of racial identity, discrimination, and a young woman’s ability to pass as white. Its casting also exposed Hollywood’s own limitations: white actress Jeanne Crain played the central Black character, while Waters portrayed her grandmother.

Waters’s performance earned an Academy Award nomination for supporting actress.

The picture offered both achievement and contradiction. A major studio was addressing racism, while the industry’s choices continued to reveal the unequal opportunities available to Black performers.

Hull’s recommendation brought that larger world directly to Chapline Street.

Her readers could encounter the performance at their neighborhood theatre and continue the conversation afterward.

A Young Sidney Poitier Arrives in Wheeling

Later that year, Hull introduced another performer whose importance would become enormous.

Her November 19, 1950, column announced that No Way Out would play at the Fedo on November 24, 25, 26, and 27.

The young actor was Sidney Poitier.

Hull described the preparation behind his role as a Black physician: instruction in medical procedures, study between takes, and a seriousness that impressed the doctor advising the production.

Her attention was revealing. She wanted readers to see the work behind the performance.

No Way Out marked Poitier’s feature-film debut. As Dr. Luther Brooks, he portrayed a newly qualified Black doctor confronting vicious racism while trying to fulfill his professional responsibilities.

For an audience living with racial restrictions, that was a subject with implications well beyond the screen.

The film also carried a national controversy into the Fedo’s program. The American Film Institute documents censorship disputes surrounding its treatment of racial hatred and violence. Chicago initially barred its exhibition, then permitted it after cuts. Other jurisdictions also required changes.

Wheeling’s scheduled showing placed the Fedo within that national conversation.

A theatre serving Black audiences was presenting a film about a Black professional’s competence, humanity, and right to practice his profession—even as other authorities argued over whether audiences should be allowed to see it.

Readers following our research on Dr. J. Katherine Pronty Davis will recognize the importance of that subject. Black physicians had long navigated the distance between possessing the necessary skill and receiving the recognition and access they deserved.

At the Fedo, such questions could arrive in the form of a compelling evening at the movies.

Three Hundred Children, Popcorn Included

The October 1949 children’s show reminds us that the Fedo’s significance also rested in the pleasure it provided.

American Legion Post 89 arranged an afternoon with Gene Autry, the Three Stooges, a cartoon, popcorn, and candy.

The photograph preserves children absorbed in what they are watching. Their expressions have survived more than seven decades, carrying the suspense of a particular moment in a particular movie.

Post 89 will be familiar to readers of our work on Black veterans and Boys State. Here, its community service took the form of a free picture show.

Adults had made arrangements so that children could come, sit together, and enjoy themselves.

That generosity had its own importance.

In May 1953, the Fedo again appeared in reporting on free entertainment for children, this time in connection with a movie outing for school safety patrol members sponsored by the Wheeling Auto Club and police department. The newspaper pictured patrol members at the Capitol Theatre and noted that some had also been entertained at the Fedo.

The city’s recognition of children’s service was reaching them through separate venues.

The Fedo was woven into both the pleasures and the racial arrangements of Wheeling’s public life.

When the Stars Were Lincoln’s Own

Hollywood supplied only part of the theatre’s attraction.

In December 1949, Hull announced a Christmas dramatization by Lincoln’s elementary and high school pupils at the Fedo.

The program would introduce children to Christmas traditions around the world. Pupils in the first four grades would represent children of other lands in their respective dress.

The newly organized Boys’ Glee Club would make its first appearance. Joined by the Girls’ Glee Club, it would become a mixed chorus of more than sixty voices.

Shirley Atkins was scheduled to sing “Rise Up, Shepherd” and “Foller.” The mixed chorus would perform selections including “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” and the school band would also take part.

For those families, the attraction was personal.

Someone’s daughter had a song. Someone’s son was in the new glee club. A younger child had a costume to wear and a place to stand.

The Fedo allowed school achievement to become a public occasion. Students could move from rehearsal to performance, hearing the response of an audience that knew them and cared about their success.

A year later, Hull again announced Lincoln’s community Christmas program at the theatre, with devotions by elementary pupils, music from the high school department, and a showing of The Crusades provided by theatre manager Frank Slavik, as he was described in that account.

The stage could bring together a school, its families, and its wider circle of supporters.

Six Feet of Rhythm—and a Whole Valley of Talent

Church organizations also made use of the Fedo’s stage.

In November 1950, Hull announced a talent show sponsored by the Men’s Club of Macedonia Baptist Church. Chairman John Gordon was enthusiastic about entries coming from across the Ohio Valley and encouraged the public to secure seats early.

By May 1954, another Macedonia program was preparing to fill the theatre.

The church’s Boys’ Club would sponsor a talent show on June 1 at eight o’clock. The notice billed “The Six Feet of Rhythm” and named Gary Hull, Norma Jean Bineyard, and Effie Burrus among the guest artists.

Other participants included Carolyn Miller, Willomena Newton, William Byrd, Sharon Harris, Marie Floyd, Bobby Walton, and Maceo Hamlin.

Tickets were available at the Northside Pharmacy, Marie Lane Hat Cleaners, and the theatre box office. Proceeds would support the church’s Woman’s Day observance later in June.

The Rev. N. G. Harris was pastor.

That ticket-selling network gives us a little map of community cooperation.

A pharmacy helped promote a church event. A hat-cleaning business served as another point of contact. The theatre supplied the place where the talent and audience would finally meet.

The names deserve to remain attached to the story.

For an evening, these performers were the reason people came.

An Evening’s Entertainment Could Send a Girl to Camp

Our recent Girl Scout research intersects with the Fedo in a particularly satisfying way.

In May 1951, the Negro Central Committee announced a benefit showing of Grounds for Marriage, starring Van Johnson, at the theatre. Performances were scheduled for May 16 and 17 at seven and nine in the evening, with Gasoline Alley as an additional feature.

Miss Addie Hill, committee chairman, urged supporters to obtain their tickets through committee members.

That detail mattered: only tickets purchased from the committee would earn the organization its percentage of the sales.

The committee supported Brownies and Intermediate Girl Scouts, including girls from Lincoln and Blessed Martin schools.

In our playground and Girl Scout histories, we have followed those children into camp, watched them receive ribbons, and seen the effort adults invested in their opportunities.

Here is another part of how that work was financed.

A film became a fundraiser. A seat in the Fedo became a small contribution toward activities beyond the theatre.

The institution’s usefulness lay partly in that flexibility. People already wanted to attend the movies. Organizers could turn that familiar pleasure toward another community purpose.

From a Baby Contest to a Scholarship

Hull’s November 1950 column supplies another example.

The local Alpha Kappa sorority had held the drawing for its annual baby contest at the Fedo. Linda Saunders won first prize, Dewitt Scott second, and Jessica Moore third.

Behind the delighted families was an educational purpose.

Hull explained that the contest helped support the sorority’s scholarship program for a deserving member of Lincoln’s graduating class, along with its civic work.

The theatre was participating in a community practice that connected celebration to opportunity.

A family could support a child in a contest while helping provide assistance to an older student preparing for life after high school.

The Fedo made room for both.

The People Behind the Projector

A theatre needed more than a screen and an audience. It required people to keep the enterprise functioning.

The clippings repeatedly identify Charles M. Johns as the Fedo’s local manager.

Hull’s July 1951 account placed his theatre work alongside a busy professional and civic life. Johns sold tires and tubes at Sears, served American Legion Post 89, and had been appointed district adjutant.

By late 1953, Hull was also identifying him as president of the local NAACP.

These responsibilities belonged to the same man moving among work, veterans’ affairs, civil rights, and the management of a neighborhood theatre.

Another recurring name is Frank Slavik, described in several accounts as owner of the theatre. Hull credited his willingness to arrange benefit screenings and support community organizations.

In November 1950, she reported John Gordon’s explanation of a particularly generous arrangement for Macedonia’s talent shows: Slavik charged the usual fee for use of the premises and then returned the money to the church.

A regional newspaper adds another piece of the business story. In April 1952, the Record-Argus of Greenville, Pennsylvania, reported that Frank J. Slavik and Louis Slavik Jr. were taking over the Shane Drive-In near Andover, Ohio. Their existing theatre experience included the Fedo in Wheeling.

The Fedo thus connected a distinctly local audience with a wider theatre business.

Its commercial operations also involved ordinary workplace questions. An October 1949 Intelligencer report described a lone picket outside the theatre protesting its failure to employ a union operator.

Behind the entertainment were bookings, equipment, employees, accounts, and negotiations. Keeping the pictures moving was work.

Hull Stops by After the Second Show

One of the most human moments in the collection comes from November 1953.

Hull stopped at the Fedo after the second show to collect a Red Feather Campaign pledge. Charles Johns was sitting at his desk. The door was open, and he greeted her cheerfully.

Their conversation began with the pledge.

It soon turned to something Johns wanted her to see in the newspaper.

He had been selected as the Jaycees’ Citizen of the Month.

Hull described his pleasure and surprise. The presentation had taken place while he was changing a car battery at Sears. He initially thought the visitors had come to buy tires.

It is a wonderful scene: public recognition arriving in the middle of a working day.

Hull’s column congratulated him and expressed the Black community’s pride in his accomplishments.

The setting matters, too. The theatre office was a place where a columnist could stop after the evening’s entertainment, attend to a charitable campaign, and leave with a story about civic achievement.

The Fedo’s community life continued after the screen went dark.

Christmas Belonged to More Than One School

The theatre’s holiday programs reached beyond a single neighborhood classroom.

A December 1950 announcement described a Christmas party for children from Lincoln and Dunbar schools, supported by American Legion Post 89, Panhandle Lodge No. 74 of the Elks, and the Knights of Pythias.

Special buses would bring the Dunbar children.

By December 1953, the announced annual party included pupils from Lincoln, Blessed Martin, and Dunbar.

The organizing committee brought together Morning Star Lodge No. 2 of the Knights of Pythias, Panhandle Lodge No. 74, George E. Turner Lodge No. 1080 of Triadelphia, and Ohio Valley Post 89.

Frank Slavik would provide the theatre, films, and ushers.

That last detail makes the cooperation tangible.

The organizations supplied the collective effort. The theatre supplied the space, entertainment, and staff. Transportation helped bring children within reach of the occasion.

For a child arriving with classmates, the result could be a Christmas outing worth remembering.

For the community, it was another demonstration of what its institutions could accomplish together.

An Opening Across Another Boundary

The Fedo could also accommodate cooperation across segregated institutions.

Seán Duffy’s history of Blessed Martin School records an April 1952 partnership with St. Joseph’s Academy to present and sponsor Our Lady of Fatima at the theatre.

Blessed Martin served Black pupils. St. Joseph’s Academy served white girls.

Their joint undertaking brought those school communities into a shared cultural project at the Fedo. The brief account does not establish every detail of participation, but it provides an important example of collaboration before the formal dismantling of school segregation.

The theatre was a place where such encounters could be arranged.

A Night Out on Chapline Street

To understand the Fedo fully, we should also place it back within its neighborhood.

In an oral history shared through the Ohio County Public Library, Ann Thomas remembered the Black movie theatre in the Pythian building alongside nearby businesses and social spaces.

Doc White’s pharmacy was close by, with its soda fountain and a basement gathering place furnished with a jukebox, tables, and chairs. The surrounding streets contained businesses and institutions serving people whose choices elsewhere were restricted.

An evening at the Fedo belonged to that larger setting.

The movie might be the main event, but familiar faces, nearby gathering places, and the walk through the neighborhood formed part of the experience.

Chapline Street was a place where Black Wheeling’s social life could gather momentum.

The theatre helped keep it moving.

When the Lights Went Down

The Ohio County Public Library’s historical accounts place the theatre’s operation into the mid-1950s. Our clippings document its continuing community programming through 1954.

The exact circumstances of its final years still deserve further research.

What the surviving record already establishes is substantial.

The Fedo entertained children and adults. It introduced audiences to important Black screen performances. It hosted school music, local talent, church fundraisers, scholarship activities, and holiday gatherings. It employed people whose lives extended into some of the community’s most consequential organizations.

It gave people a place to applaud one another.

For the Eugene and Beverly Stradwick Heritage Foundation, that is part of what makes the Pythian building so important to preserve and interpret. Its significance lives in the things people did inside it.

A building’s history can be carried in financial records and architectural descriptions. It can also be carried in a girl’s first performance, a manager’s unexpected honor, or a child’s worried face as Gene Autry encounters trouble on the screen.

The Fedo held all of those stories.

When we remember it, we recover a community enjoying itself, investing in its children, and making a public place for its talents.

And we can almost hear the applause.

-T

Historical Terminology Note

This article includes historical terms such as “colored” and “Negro” when quoting original sources or identifying organizations as they were known at the time. These terms reflect the language and racial conditions of their era; their inclusion is not an endorsement of their use today.

In our own narrative, we use Black and African American, as appropriate. We preserve historical wording to document the past faithfully while honoring the dignity, humanity, and experiences of the people whose stories we share.

Sources and Notes

• May 12, 1949, Wheeling News-Register, p. 19. “Grand Opening—Fedo Theatre,” advertisement documenting the Lincoln School PTA benefit, Station West, the Lincoln High School band, and variety acts.

• October 20, 1949, Wheeling Intelligencer, p. 21. “Lone Man Pickets Fedo Theatre,” reporting the dispute over employment of a union operator.

• October 26, 1949, Wheeling Intelligencer, p. 5. “Youngsters Thrilled at Legion-Sponsored Free Movies,” photograph and caption documenting the Post 89 outing, attendance exceeding three hundred, and refreshments.

• Mabel M. Hull, December 18, 1949, Wheeling News-Register. “Glee Clubs in Lincoln Program,” announcing the school’s Christmas dramatization at the Fedo and identifying musical participants.

• Mabel M. Hull, February 19, 1950, Wheeling News-Register, printed p. 12, Part III. Column containing the “Ethel Waters” item recommending Pinky at the Fedo.

• Mabel M. Hull, November 5, 1950, Wheeling News-Register. Column announcing Macedonia’s talent show and Deborah Temple’s benefit movies; describes Frank Slavik’s support for organizations using the theatre.

• Mabel M. Hull, November 19, 1950, Wheeling News-Register. “Poitier Stars as Doctor in ‘No Way Out,’” announcing the Fedo engagement and discussing Poitier’s preparation; accompanying “Baby Contest” item documents the sorority fundraiser and scholarship purpose.

• Mabel M. Hull, December 17, 1950, Wheeling News-Register, printed p. 10, Part III. Community-program and Christmas-party announcements, including Lincoln and Dunbar participation and transportation arrangements.

• May 15, 1951, Wheeling News-Register, p. 23. “Van Johnson Film Is Benefit Event for Local Scouts,” documenting the Negro Central Committee’s fundraiser, Addie Hill’s role, and the ticket-sale arrangement.

• Mabel M. Hull, July 22, 1951, Wheeling News-Register. Article on American Legion Post 89 identifying Charles M. Johns’s theatre management, employment at Sears, and Legion responsibilities.

• April 8, 1952, The Record-Argus (Greenville, Pennsylvania), p. 4. “Route 7 Theatre Gets New Owners,” identifying Frank J. Slavik and Louis Slavik Jr. and including the Fedo among their theatre operations. Newspaper scan.

• July 6 and July 11, 1952, Wheeling News-Register. Fedo advertisements for Bend of the River and The Big Trees, with accompanying short features.

• May 25, 1953, Wheeling News-Register, p. 13. Photograph and caption documenting the school safety patrol movie outing, including entertainment at the Capitol and Fedo theatres.

• Mabel Hull, November 22, 1953, Wheeling News-Register. “Community Applauds Charles Johns’ Honor,” documenting his selection as Jaycees Citizen of the Month and Hull’s visit to the theatre office.

• Mabel Hull, December 13, 1953, Wheeling News-Register, p. 11. Column containing the Christmas-party announcement, participating fraternal organizations, Slavik’s contribution, and an NAACP meeting notice identifying Charles M. Johns as president.

• Mabel Hull, May 30, 1954, Wheeling News-Register. “Talent Show” item announcing Macedonia Baptist Church’s Boys’ Club program, named performers, ticket outlets, and fundraising purpose.

Additional historical sources

• Ohio County Public Library, “African-American Knights of Pythias Group Erects New Building, 1928”. Reproduces the March 17, 1928, Afro-American report on the $55,000 loan and obstacles to local financing.

• Ohio County Public Library, “African America Pythian Building Opens, December 20, 1928”. Reproduces the December 17, 1928, opening announcement, identifies Samuel Plato, and supplies historical information about the building’s tenants and theatre.

• Ohio County Public Library, “Making a Way Out of No Way”, February 1, 2024. Includes Ann Thomas’s recollections of the Fedo and surrounding Chapline Street businesses.

• Seán Duffy, Archiving Wheeling, “Blessed Martin ~ Patron Saint of Racial Harmony”. Source for the April 1952 collaboration involving Blessed Martin, St. Joseph’s Academy, and Our Lady of Fatima at the Fedo.

• American Film Institute Catalog, Pinky (1949). Film history, casting, racial themes, and award nominations.

• American Film Institute Catalog, No Way Out (1950). Film history, Poitier’s feature-film debut, character information, and contemporary censorship disputes.