Unlike some other businesses, the theater owners rebuilt the theater and renamed it the Tuggle Theater. It featured 675 seats and, like many theaters in the American South, included a segregated balcony reached by an exterior stairway. The owners installed a slanted floor to prevent people from standing in the aisles. Upon entering from the lobby, patrons found an unusual configuration with the screen to their backs. The new theater opened Wednesday, November 16, 1927.
Following the 1929 stock market crash, the theater changed ownership, was renamed the West Blocton Theater, and began showing “talkies.” In 1930 ownership changed again, and the theater was renamed the Strand. The worsening years of the Great Depression resulted in the theater’s temporary closing. Following the Great Depression, the Strand reopened, but it showed its last movie on October 21, 1962. In 1983 the Cahaba River Authority acquired the theater, but funds to rehabilitate it could not be secured, as the town continued to wither following the demise of the coal industry.
Its listing in Places in Peril has the potential of helping the Friends of the Cahaba River National Refuge find additional ways to assist with the rehabilitation efforts. The Friends group hopes that listing will help achieve the plan to secure funding for the restoration of this historic resource.