Zebulon Theater

About

'Oldest Theater in Georgia'

The Zebulon Theater was opened on April 15, 1936, as a 650-seat theater by Ms. Ethel Blanton who named it after her husband Zebulon Blanton.

In 1950, the Blanton Family sold the theater to the Dunn Family Theaters Inc., and it was operated under that family business until 1973 when Mr. Larry Bearden purchased it and ran it successfully until he retired in 2000.

The Community Foundation of Southwest Georgia purchased the theater on December 15, 2000, and it is now operated by the Regional Community Center, a non-profit organization. The Zebulon Theater is still a single screen Adams-style building with a seating capacity of 200. The building has seen very little change since it was built in 1936 with the only changes occurring in the snack bar, the addition of a new marquee, a new popcorn machine (that is still in use today), new Simplex CL projectors (still in use), and a new ticket office that was added in 1950. New seats and wall coverings were also added in 1990. In May 2014, the Zebulon Theater completed its digital conversion with a new screen, sound system, and projection system.

The Zebulon Theater now plays first-run movies and is a family-friendly theater.

According to the theater, “just about every person that was born in Grady County can tell you some kind of story of when they were kids and coming to the Zebulon to see a movie, or how they courted their now-husband/wife at a Saturday afternoon movie. People even have fond memories of working at the snack bar, taking up tickets, or running the Simplex XL projectors in the projection booth.”

The Zebulon Theater is a jewel in Grady County since many old movie theaters have been torn down.