Comfort Community Theatre

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight from the record. Now, every good Texas town has that one building that does a little bit of everything, and Comfort, Texas, found theirs in the Comfort Community Theatre. It started, the way most good things do, with a need.

The business leaders of Comfort saw their town was missing something, a permanent civic center, a place where people could gather for just about any reason under the sun. So they did what Texans do. They formed a corporation, they set about raising funds, and they got to work.

They brought in Hans Christiansen, an architect out of Fredericksburg, to design the thing, and when the Comfort Community Theatre opened in 1930, well, it hit the ground running. Basketball. Dances.

Civic meetings. Stage plays. Private parties.

This building was not shy about what it could offer. You got the sense it would host a barn dance and a board meeting on the same weekend and not break a sweat. Then the years rolled on, and the theatre found a new calling as a movie house, and under the ownership of Hank Zimmerman, from 1947 until 1964, it enjoyed, as the marker puts it, much success.

That's the kind of understatement that makes you smile. Much success. You can almost hear the popcorn and the projector hum.

After all of that history, after every shuffle and reinvention, Richard and Dorothy Britt purchased the building and restored it. By 1983, the Comfort Community Theatre was still standing, still serving, still a performing arts center and a civic meeting hall. Some buildings outlast their moment.

This one kept making new ones.

What the marker says

The need for a permanent civic center led Comfort business leaders to form a corporation to raise funds for its construction. Designed by Fredericksburg architect Hans Christiansen, the Comfort Community Theatre opened in 1930, providing the town with facilities for basketball, dances, civic meetings, stage plays, and private parties. It was later used as a movie theatre and enjoyed much success under the ownership of Hank Zimmerman from 1947 until 1964. The Comfort Community Theatre continues today as a performing arts center as well as a civic meeting hall. Incise on base: Purchased and restored by Richard and Dorothy Britt. (1983)