This Week at the Evelyn

Reel 1 · 1946

A boom town gets its picture show

Dumas spent its early years barely hanging on as a High Plains townsite. That changed in the mid-1920s, when oil and natural gas were found in Moore County. The railroad arrived in 1931, and through the 1940s carbon black plants brought jobs and families. By 1950 the town had passed 6,000 people.

A growing town needed a place to go on Saturday night. In 1946 the Evelyn opened on Bliss Avenue: one big screen, a Streamline Moderne front of smooth curves and long horizontal lines, and a neon marquee spelling out its name. That same year American theatres sold more than 90 million tickets a week, an all-time high. The Evelyn opened at the very peak of the picture show.

Reel 2 · The booth years

Twenty minutes at a time

In those years the Evelyn belonged to the Powell family and was run day to day by Marge and Mutt McMurray. Up in the booth, carbon-arc projectors burned a white-hot spark to throw the picture on the screen, and every 15 to 20 minutes someone had to change the reel without the audience noticing.

One of the people learning that job was a 12-year-old named Randy Nies. He was there in the early 1980s when xenon lamps finally replaced the carbon arcs. Over the years the single auditorium was divided into two screens, and Randy went on to become the theatre's owner.

Across the country, television and suburban multiplexes closed many small-town theatres in these years. The Evelyn kept running.

Reel 3 · 2014 – 2017

Keeping the lights on

In the early 2010s, Hollywood stopped shipping movies on film. Theatres had to buy digital projectors or go dark, and for many small-town houses the cost was too much. The Evelyn made the switch. On August 1, 2014 it reopened with digital projection and new Dolby sound.

Three years later local economic development stepped in and assisted with a $90,000 major remodel: a new façade, new seats and updated sound throughout. The goal was to bring the theatre up to date without losing the old-time feel that longtime moviegoers love. The Evelyn reopened in December 2017, and the neon marquee came through it all, still lit.

Reel 4 · Now showing

The next act

Today a new movie can be streaming at home within weeks, and the big multiplexes are just down the highway in Amarillo. So the Evelyn has learned to be more than a movie house. Since 2020 it has hosted concerts, gaming nights and private parties. In 2026 it tried something new and booked live theatre, staging Texas Comedies' musical Prohibition on the same stage where Dumas has watched movies for 80 years.

Some weeks there's a movie, some weeks a band, some weeks the screens are dark. Every ticket helps keep a downtown theatre running in Dumas.