Tightly packed patrons crowd together in the Lenox Theatre. With barely a seat in the house, some stand in the back to catch a glimpse of the show.

An undated photo, tucked away in a file at Historic Augusta, reveals this lively group.

Maybe they were watching a blues hound wailing on the stage or perhaps just catching an afternoon matinee.

Either way, when this picture was taken, segregation was in full effect.

While other Augusta theaters, such as the Imperial, offered black seating in the back, the Lenox was a place for the city's blacks to sit front and center to see the latest shows and movies.

But, with integration, came the theater's gradual end.

Eventually condemned after years of neglect, the city ordered the building torn down in 1978. Now the small plot at the corner of Ninth Street and Laney-Walker Boulevard is nothing but dirt and weeds.

"Nobody had the foresight that it would become a historical building for blacks in Augusta," said J.R. Riles, the owner of the J.R. Stop & Shop on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Mr. Riles, 58, like many others, came to the Lenox as a child to watch movies.

"My uncle picked us up every Sunday," Mr. Riles remembers.

The Lenox also featured many live acts, including singers Ethel Waters, Ma Rainey, Ray Charles and Hollywood acts such as cowboy Don "Red" Barry, billed as "The Original Red Ryder." It's also believed James Brown won his first talent contest there.

Augusta resident Betty Frails recalls competing in talent contests at the Lenox as a child. She even had a friendly rivalry with neighborhood resident Eleanor Johnson-Greene.

"We laugh about it now," said Ms. Frails, who directs the children's choir for Good Shepherd Baptist Church. "It brings back a lot of memories."

The legacy of the Lenox began with its construction in the 1920s for more than $100,000, the equivalent of more than $1 million today.

A review published in The Augusta Chronicle on Jan. 9, 1921, described the Lenox as the "finest most beautiful and best equipped theater in this country owned and controlled by the colored people."

It was built thanks to the funding of four black Augustans - physician G.N. Stoney; caterer John P. Waring; postal worker John Norflett; and postal worker-turned-banker William H. Wilborn.

J. Philip Waring, son of John Waring Sr., was interviewed in 1995 about his father's work on the Lenox.

"Why the Lenox?" asked Mr. Waring, who is now deceased. "Because this was the height of Jim Crowism - the rule of the day, manifested by black people having to go through the back alley and going through the very back, up the fire escape at the Imperial Theatre. They called it the 'buzzard's roost.' There were all sorts of jokes about it."

To design the theater, Mr. Waring and his partners hired Augusta architect G. Lloyd Preacher, whose work included both the Imperial and Modjeska theaters.

Upon opening, patrons stepped through a giant arch into a large lobby with tile floors and mural decorations on the wall. Entering the theater itself, guests saw more than 570 seats on the orchestra floor and an additional 300 seats in the balcony. It was heated during the winter by gas-steam radiators and cooled in the summers by a "mighty cyclone fan," according to The Augusta Chronicle archives.

When the Great Depression hit, the Lenox founders sold the Lenox to a company in Nashville, Tenn., that specialized in black movie theaters. Earl Stone Pinkerton managed the theater from then on, until he died in 1956.

Earl Pinkerton Jr., his son, recalled the theater's booming years in a 1989 Augusta Chronicle article.

"You've heard of turn-away business?" he said. "We had people lined up from the theater's box office to a block down to Gwinnett Street (now Laney-Walker Boulevard)."

One of the customers was a young Allyn Lee, now 68. Mr. Lee, a Martinez resident who spent years as a show promoter and radio announcer, was influenced as a child by musical acts at the Lenox.

"I was just a boy at that time and I sort of emulated from that," he said. "That's why I went to New York and went to radio school. It was just an experience to see these (performers). I was mystified by it."

The Lenox was just one part of several city blocks on Ninth Street called "the Golden Blocks," where black businesses thrived.

After integration, the Lenox and other businesses in the "Golden Blocks" eventually deteriorated as blacks began frequenting white-owned establishments.

The theater was further damaged Jan. 31, 1966, by a fire that caused extensive damage. Although historical documents on the theater are scant during this period, old city directories show that the theater appears to have been renovated and continued operating into the early 1970s.

With the changing times, however, the theater did not make it to the end of the decade.

It was around this time that former Georgia Sen. Don Cheeks purchased the Lenox. He still owns the vacant lot the building once stood on.

"It was a beautiful building, but someone had ripped the huge copper plumbing pipes out, the copper wiring and the copper shields on the roof," Mr. Cheeks said. "I had to board it up."

In 1974, a teenage girl was found stabbed to death in the abandoned theater and four years later, the city ordered the building torn down.

"I asked them to allow me to continue sealing it up, and they said it had to come down," Mr. Cheeks said.

In 2004, amid discussion for a James Brown museum, Mr. Cheeks offered the land for it, but little came of that suggestion.

Reach Tony Lombardo at (706) 823-3227.

BLACK BUSINESS ICONS

Feb 5: Pilgrim Health and Life Insurance Co., one of the largest black-owned insurers in the nation, was for decades an economic engine for Augusta's black community.Today: The old Lenox Theater, in its heyday, was known one of the finest black theaters in the South.
Feb. 19: Dent's Undertaking Establishment, whose roots date back to the 1880s, spawned many of the area's other black funeral homes and remains a fixture of black business in the city.
Feb. 26: Augusta's Penny Savings Bank, forced out of business during the Great Depression, was one of the nation's first black-owned banks.